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Dec 16, 2009

Kelly rated it:

This was not the first book of Marquez's that I have read. I read Love in the Time of Cholera when I was in my late teens. I found it so utterly surreal and unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I wasn't sure if I liked it, precisely, but I knew that I wanted more. I was gripped by it, possessed by it, which was not quite the same experience as 'liking' a novel, exactly.

The next one I picked up after that was this one. Of Love and Other Demons. I can safely say that I felt t More...

3 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2012

Lavinia rated it:

Yummy, captivating reading, from the very first sentence. There's a lot of blah about the book, just look around, plenty of reviews and opinions; everything is magic of course, and the story telling*, oh! the story telling is absolutely fantastic, so I'll just make a confession: I have a terrible, secret passion for priests who fall madly in love and run away with the object of their desire, go nuts or do something crazy. Here, not so secret any more.

*mental debate on who's a better More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 12, 2007

Laura rated it:

This book starts off very slowly and almost slyly, as if someone has started telling a long-winded story and you're really not paying attention, and then, halfway through the story you realize that you're hanging onto every word. If Garcia Marquez explored the metaphor or love as a disease in "Love in the Time of Cholera", then here he centers his story around the metaphor of love as madness and demonic possession. I think the metaphor actually works better than the cholera one. Thi More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 01, 2008

Denis rated it:

My introduction to Garcia Marquez. Loved it from the first sentence to the last, and fell immediately under the spell of his famous "magical realism" (which infuses the story itself as well as the way it's written). It is magical indeed, and wonderfully sad as the love stories we want to read about should be - it's also, despite being relatively short, epic in a way that, I sense, is typical of Garcia Marquez' world. Some could reduce it to a fairy tale for adult - it is really much mo More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 03, 2011

Chris rated it:

I don't regret having delayed completing Of Love and Other Demons for several years as I don't think I would have appreciated this novella half of much when I first started. My impression then was that this was a slow-moving story with much description but little happening. How wrong I was!

The title is so apt as this is an exploration of how obsessions can take precedence over basic humanity. The enigma that is Sierva Maria is the catalyst for upheaval in a coastal Colombian town (a fi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 27, 2008

Zoe rated it:

I saw this described in another review as “mesmerizing.” Yes, it was mesmerizing. It’s made my Favorites list, but I can’t really describe it. It starts off with an author’s note. The author prefaces the story with a description of a visit he had made to a crypt. When a tomb is opened & 2,000 years worth of live, copper colored hair spills out Gabriel is suddenly reminded of a story he heard long ago.

In this book he embellishes on the story of a saint, a young girl who died at a More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 18, 2008

Andrea rated it:

Maybe this book had only a 3-strar appeal for me since I read it over a month during my lunch breaks - at a new job. Needless to say other things were probably on my mind. I enjoyed the ending, though I can imagine most people wont, because I think life tends to be more disappointing in the ways illustrated in the story. (Okay, probably not so extreme, like dying on a path to nowhere and being eaten by buzzards!). As always, I love the possible myriad interpretations that mystical realism offers More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 18, 2007

Maya rated it:

this is my favorite book of all time. i really like marquez and how he mixes the fantastic with everyday life. it's like he and his characters are from another planet... one that's very similar to earth, but just a bit off. like a planet you'd find on an episode of sliders. (i feel that recently i've been using sliders to describe a lot of things...)

anyway, i can read this book over and over. it's been a while since i read it so i would feel silly giving it a comprehensive review her More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Alexia rated it:

Almost a fairytale, this book is an incredible bed time story. Makes you wonder if Garcia Marquez was told this story by his Grandmother or another elder woman in his village. It is dark and sad and ultimately love becomes a demon. A demon that you can't live with or without. Despite it's depressing denouement Garcia Marquez is one of my favorite writers for his lyrical and romantic sense of plot. The barriers between the living and the dead are sheer at best and the extreme power and contr More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 04, 2011

Author Groupie rated it:

Searching through my tubs of books, I came across Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Of Love and Other Demons. Remembering that I had purchased this short novel years and years ago after a class introduced me to this remarkable Nobel Prize-winning author via One Hundred Years of Solitude, I knew I had unearthed my next read while feeling a pang of regret at not yet having turned its pages. Translated by Edith Grossman, Of Love and Other Demons in much the same manner as One Hundred Years of Solitude More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 31, 2011

San added it

Del Amor y Otros Demonios
Gabriel García Márquez

Breve Biografía del Autor:
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez, también conocido por su seudónimo, “Gabo”, nació en Aracataca, Colombia, el 6 de marzo de 1927.Es un periodista, crítico cinematográfico, guionista, cuentista, novelista y escritor, considerado la máxima figura del “realismo mágico”(mezcla de realidad y fantasía). Su obra más famosa, “100 años de soledad”, es también perteneciente a este género. Otras de sus More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 18, 2011

Jackson rated it:

I found this book in an old villa in the magical city of Positano, Italy. The story of a girl with long golden hair who contracts rabies and who falls in love with a priest caught my attention, particularly after having recently finished another book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, which had some similar themes. This book read like wild fire. I finished it in two days. This story recaptured the magical allure of Marquez for me after the disappointing "One Hundred Years of Solitude". More...

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Jul 28, 2011

Fabio rated it:

Me encanto leer este libro!

En el amor no importa la postura política, tampoco importan las diferencias sociales o la edad o la tradición, pareciera decir García Márquez. Pero no explicita. Simplemente pone en juego elementos contradictorios que se resuelven con la muerte. Describe minuciosamente las diferencias, los choques, las distancias que conviven en una cultura que se muestra homogénea ante los ojos del mundo, pero que está carcomida en sus entrañas más profundas.

L More...

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Jul 17, 2011

Kristal rated it:

The book begins with an introduction by Márques, explaining that while on assignment for a local newspaper, he was sent to a cemetery that was being moved due to the property being sold. While there, he witnessed one of the crypts opened and out flowed 22 meters of living hair belonging to the remains of a 200 year-old girl. The discovery reminded him of a story he had heard about a young girl who had been bitten by a rabid dog but was believed to have been able to preform miracles, giving her a More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 05, 2011

Jason rated it:

I must admit that while I enjoyed this immensely, I did not enjoy it as much as most other Marquez. It isn't just that I have grown tired of his pedophilia storylines, though that doesn't help, but rather that this story doesn't do as interesting job of blending the real and the fantastic and the moment that opens the story, so beautiful in its absurdity, seems to bear little resemblance to the story that follows, which is a shame because a concentration on the fantastic, rather than the mundane More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 15, 2010

Mary rated it:

A stray dog bites the left ankle of 12-year-old Sierva Maria de Todos los Angeles. She and her peculiar parents live in a country near the Caribbean Sea during colonial times. Her father belongs to the class of decaying nobility. He is a weak man with poor judgment. Her scheming mother is a nymphomaniac who abuses cacao tablets and fermented honey. Sierva Maria is more or less raised by the family's slaves whose culture she assimilates. The youngster has luxuriant copper-colored hair and a pench More...

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Dec 15, 2009

Victoria rated it:

“Del amor y otros demonios” por Gabriel García Márquez es una lectura divertida. Este cuento de hada oscuro demuestra la genialidad de García Márquez y su domino sobre la lengua. Emplea lenguaje descriptiva para crear un mundo que combina lo fantástico y lo verdadero como en los mejores de los cuentos que su abuelita le contaba antes de dormirse durante su juventud. Me perdí en el mundo de Sierva María, la marquesita con una coleta de cobre. El libro tiene aspectos horrendos, como el exorcismo d More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 10, 2011

Ithlilian rated it:

I found myself hanging on every word of the introduction to Of Love and Other Demons, however I mistakenly thought that was part of the book. That lead to my first small disappointment, having to restart my interest in a completely different story, in the midst of a large amount of detail with no real focus. Before I became completely lost I decided to reread the jacket and I understood a little more of who the main characters were to be, which allowed me to jump back in with renewed interest. I More...

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Oct 20, 2010

Jake rated it:

Freshman year in high school we were assigned Marquez's "No One Writes to the Colonel", which was not exactly an easy read (a description from Wikipedia: "the story of an impoverished, retired colonel, a veteran of the Thousand Days War, who still hopes to receive the pension he was promised some fifteen years earlier.") The experience turned me off to reading Marquez until I was forced to read "100 Years of Solitude" a few years later. It's too bad "Of Love More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 01, 2009

Lynne rated it:

I honestly cannot put into words what it is I love about Marquez - perhaps that's why I read books, rather than write them! But, for the sake of the review, I will have to try... His beautifully written prose, colourful descriptions and very distinct form of magic realism honestly do transport the reader to another world. When working through a GGM novel, I have to confess that I get so caught up in the pure joy of reading that I forget to think about the metaphors and the messages behind the wo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 02, 2011

Ron rated it:

After reading Love in the Time of Cholera recently, I decided to go back and re-read this shorter novel of Marquez, because I'd completely forgotten what it was about. I had also read 100 Years of Solitude some time ago, and my appreciation of Marquez continues to grow. I found the characters in Of Love and Other Demons compelling and the juxtaposition of love and madness quite interesting. I was delighted by the madwomen on the terrace next to the estate of the Marquis, who always seemed to More...

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Sep 10, 2010

Ryan rated it:

I had a tough time starting with Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, but grew to love it; then I completely adored Love in a Time of Cholera. However, I feel that continuing to journey through his works simply leaves me let down each and every time. His shorter books seem to be simple little stories of crazy happenings, without all the development of plot and character and leaving me feeling no empathy nor compassion for any character. I thought In Evil Hour was just silly, Chronicle of a Death For More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 11, 2011

Victoria rated it:

Gabriel Garcia Marquez has a gift with a pen. With a simple turn of phrase, Marquez is able to whisk readers away to the hot, sticky Latin summers where rabies remains uncured, and exorcisms are not limited to horror-movie fodder. Short and sweet, the book explores a torrid romance between a young eccentric girl accused of demonic possession and the priest sent to oversee her exorcism. While “Of Love and Other Demons” is sometimes criticized for its brevity, it seems as if it belongs in a collec More...

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Apr 06, 2011

thegirlinpink rated it:

At 147 pages this was a simple, quick yet extremely wonderful, deep and remarkable read. I walked away from the book feeling deeply hurt and somewhat angry. Having reflected over it for the past 24 hours my feelings have changed, thought I still feel sad I can now better appreciate some of the not so fairy tale like components of the book.

I have read one other book by the columbian novelist and this one drew simply for its title. Just a complex tale truly encapsulated in 5 words. Lov More...

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Mar 08, 2011

Emir rated it:

Some ventures we have to be prepared for like putting up your own business, proposing a marriage, or Gabriel García Márquez.

One can hardly come up with a list of benefits for sporadic, lazy reading habits, but I'll count reading the acknowledged wizard of magical realism this late in my life a consequential blessing all the same. I don't think I'd appreciate this book if I were a decade younger, my concentration then would be highly suspect. Ironically, reading Of Love and Other Demo More...

4 comments like (5 people liked it)

Apr 14, 2010

Shane rated it:

Garcia Marquez has the remarkable ability to take the reader into a surreal world where the decaying remnants of empire, the suffocation of religion, superstition, prejudice and the underbelly of human existence replete with bodily emissions and odours are laid bare. He also reveals the consequences of living in a world without love.

In this book, based on a discovery he reported on as a young journalist, of a 200 year-old skeleton with a growing head of copper coloured hair discovere More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 20, 2011

Víctor rated it:

(Lectura oblicua de Del amor y otros demonios, de Gabriel García Márquez)

No es fácil vivir en tierras ajenas, pero ése ha sido el destino de mi raza desde hace miles de años. Errabundos, cargando a cuestas con el silencio de un sólo Dios, siempre el mismo. Y las inevitables circunstancias que genera semejante modo de vida, pues como en mi caso, el ser obligados a huir para conservar el alma en el cuerpo, es cosa común en nuestra historia. La persecución de judíos estaba al rojo vivo en la peníns More...

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Jun 09, 2010

Em rated it:

This is the second Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel that I have finished next to Memories of My Melancholy Whores. I like this better since there are more characters and events. In addition to that, the lines were delivered sharply.

The center of the novel is the twelve-year-old girl Sierva Maria. Her out-of-this-world manner was mistaken to be caused by demon possession. After being suspected as rabies victim, she was sent to the convent for her treatment and exorcism.

Cayeta More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 23, 2008

Lorena rated it:

Of Love and Other Demons is Marquez's magic realism at its best, it gives you a historical context of the turbulent time in a small town of Colombia, and when the raw reality of its work get just a little overwhelming he turns and adds a touch of the "mystical and supernatural" so ingrained in these people to explain the calamities in their lifes.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 13, 2012

Jessica Dylan rated it:

I'm surprised that this book is so short, only because when I look at it, I am reminded of all the rich terrain it ran over and how lush and hypnotic is the prose. The pacing is quite fast, in that Gabo never gives you anything you don't need, and yet there is room and time to learn of everyone's lover. Not only did this story hold my heart, it holds my owl side too as I admit I'd like to one day write about the parallels between loving someone without abandon versus being buttoned up and More...

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