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The Autumn of the Patriarch
One of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's most intricate and ambitious works, The Autumn of the Patriarch is a brilliant tale of a Caribbean tyrant and the corruption of power.
From charity to deceit, benevolence to violence, fear of God to extreme cruelty, the dictator of The Autumn of the Patriarch embodies the best and the worst of human nature. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the renowne...more
From charity to deceit, benevolence to violence, fear of God to extreme cruelty, the dictator of The Autumn of the Patriarch embodies the best and the worst of human nature. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the renowne...more
Paperback, 280 pages
Published
March 14th 2006
by Harper Perennial Modern Classics
(first published 1975)
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Jul 13, 2012
K.D. Oliveros
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to K.D. by:
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006-2010)
Hypnotic and brilliant.
This is my fourth Garcia Marquez book and this is said to be his most difficult book to read. It took him four (1968-1971) years to write this book. Four years. He wrote this as a follow up novel to his masterpiece, One Hundred Years of Solitude that catapulted him to stardom in the world literary arena. This was his most recent novel when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.
I picked this 1001 book because there was a new member in our book club who is also a GGM...more
This is my fourth Garcia Marquez book and this is said to be his most difficult book to read. It took him four (1968-1971) years to write this book. Four years. He wrote this as a follow up novel to his masterpiece, One Hundred Years of Solitude that catapulted him to stardom in the world literary arena. This was his most recent novel when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.
I picked this 1001 book because there was a new member in our book club who is also a GGM...more
Maintaining lucidity is a central challenge for both audience and protagonist in the dizzying and illusory narrative of Marquez's Autumn of the Patriarch. While its easy to dwell on the uncompromising style of a novel devoid of paragraphs, punctuation, and quotations delineating dialogue, such blurry tactics seal the bizarre entrancement of a novel concerned with the solitude of a bastard patriarch. Certainly it's no easy pie being tossed randomly into an unspecified Caribbean climate and period...more
on the whole, the novel is impressive. i can't imagine what it took for him to write this whole thing the way that he did. most of the sentences run for ten pages, moving from one point-of-view to another without warning, from dreams to real-life (maybe?)action. at the beginning of each chapter, we are reminded that the patriarch of the novel's title is dead, but we are quickly taken back to years before his death and pushed through memories of the years leading up to his first fake and then rea...more
Nov 18, 2008
Jessica
is currently reading it
If ever a book a stumped my rhythm, this one takes the prize. It is written as one fluid thought, one ranting narrative, sans paragraphs, with sentences that rival even St. Paul's run-ons.
It's racy, delusional, oh so very violent (in language, sex, war, illness, execution, thought, etc.), and even comical at times. Each time I laugh, I feel a tinge of guilt - like the uncontrollable snicker at a disabled person tripping over their untied shoelaces into a puddle of water.
I've decided that it's b...more
It's racy, delusional, oh so very violent (in language, sex, war, illness, execution, thought, etc.), and even comical at times. Each time I laugh, I feel a tinge of guilt - like the uncontrollable snicker at a disabled person tripping over their untied shoelaces into a puddle of water.
I've decided that it's b...more
It took Garcia seven years to write this book. Seven years. I guess that's how long it takes to make sure fifty-page chapters are turned into one paragraph and as few sentences as possible. But the effect is to make the entire book run together and make each story within the story melt into the ones around it. The consequence is ending the reader's sense of chronology, timeline, and even details. We are only left with the horrible man - and leader - that was the patriarch.
And when the story abo...more
And when the story abo...more
I finally finished it! Wow. This book is complete madness. It starts off with 40-page chapters and zero paragraph breaks, except between chapters, and half-a-page sentences, and by the end, the chapters are longer and the sentences are even longer with many many commas, so that by the end when one gets close to the end there are just no periods anymore. Whew! And you thought the preceding sentence was long. Oh, and the narrator changes a bunch ... and it's cyclical, going back and forth between...more
Very dreamlike and compelling. Don't be intimidated by the paragraphless format, the sparse punctuation or the constantly shifting prspective. That would certainly be a problem if applied by less capable hands then Marquez's, but in this case we're dealing with a narrative that is less discursive and then impressionistic. It's like hearing the collective thought of a whole town about one subject.
Remarkable. Probably the closest we'll see to oral story-telling in print form.
While on a word by word level the language is often lyrical and inventive, this book suffers from overinflective prose and a sort of misleading vividness. What results is plot totally dominated by the character alluded to in title... an intentional fallacy often compounded with monotonous hyper-emphasis... I say intentional because the narration is simultaneously doing all sorts of stunts - changing person(s), refusing paragraph breaks, making asides - to draw attention to itself. In the end, I...more
This story of the death of a dictator and his oppressive and secretive regime - the vultures are a clue that he's finally dead - is in many ways Marquez's most ambitious piece and a lot of people who like Marquez don't like this one at all. It is more dreamscape than narrative. Frustrating and disjointed, the story goes in and out of any rational context sometimes. Scenes repeat with minor twists from the first time you visited it. One sentence can go on for pages. Most of it rambles and collide...more
When you start this book you will be taken aback by the intensely strong language (both difficult AND vulgar) and the very very very long sentences which sometimes are as long as the whole chapter. But at the first page you are sure to be mesmerized by the beautiful prose and intense imagery, and the small details that just keep u pinned to your chair tasting fully every word.
The story of your typical Latin tyrant, but with a little twist in detail which makes him more of a criminal, pervert, lo...more
The story of your typical Latin tyrant, but with a little twist in detail which makes him more of a criminal, pervert, lo...more
I decided to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's stunning book The Autumn of the Patriarch after reading Didion's Salvador because of her claim that it was based on former Salvadoran president General Maximiliano Hernedez Martinez. In actuality it is a composite of several dictators including Spain's Franco.
While the patriarch is a composite of all he is really none. He is a mythological creature who lives to near eternity and rules the country for over one hundred years. This however is not a plot ba...more
While the patriarch is a composite of all he is really none. He is a mythological creature who lives to near eternity and rules the country for over one hundred years. This however is not a plot ba...more
For those who enjoy Magical Realism, Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of the biggest names out there. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, Marques is one of the best stylists of this century. His prose is intoxicatingly beautiful, his stories weave a mesmerizing and intricate web of situations and characters, and his settings are spectacular.
The Autumn of the Patriarch, the author’s favorite novel, is the story of lonely dictator, a grotesque character surrounded by enemies. He’s forc...more
The Autumn of the Patriarch, the author’s favorite novel, is the story of lonely dictator, a grotesque character surrounded by enemies. He’s forc...more
"خريفُ البطريرك،،رواية
خطب الديكتاتور الموزونة،،قصيدة لمحمود درويش
وكلاهما يخطان السيرة ذاتها!"
للوهلة الأولى،وربما تنتهي من الفصل الأول دون أن تفهم شيئاً،أو بمعنى أدق-مش عارف وين راس الرواية و وين رجليها!-وهذا بسبب كيفية صياغة العبارت،في طريقة فريدة من نوعها.
حقاً،لحتى هذه اللحظة،أقفُ عاجزة أمام عبقرية هذا الرجل -على الأقل- في كيفية صياغة الجمل،صياغة جمل طويلة جداً،بحيث أنه نادراً ما استخدم الفواصل والنقاط! ربما استخدم نقطة واحدة فقط في فصل كامل.
قرأتها بالعربية،،ويقول المُترجم أنه حاول قدر المُستطا...more
خطب الديكتاتور الموزونة،،قصيدة لمحمود درويش
وكلاهما يخطان السيرة ذاتها!"
للوهلة الأولى،وربما تنتهي من الفصل الأول دون أن تفهم شيئاً،أو بمعنى أدق-مش عارف وين راس الرواية و وين رجليها!-وهذا بسبب كيفية صياغة العبارت،في طريقة فريدة من نوعها.
حقاً،لحتى هذه اللحظة،أقفُ عاجزة أمام عبقرية هذا الرجل -على الأقل- في كيفية صياغة الجمل،صياغة جمل طويلة جداً،بحيث أنه نادراً ما استخدم الفواصل والنقاط! ربما استخدم نقطة واحدة فقط في فصل كامل.
قرأتها بالعربية،،ويقول المُترجم أنه حاول قدر المُستطا...more
Es laberíntico. Inexorable. Exquisitamente poético y temerariamente violento. Histórico y ficticio. Verborreico hasta la coronilla y sin embargo contiene todas las palabras necesarias. Es un libro de amor y de tiranía. Es un recital de cariño y un epílogo del abuso. Así es El otoño del patriarca, uno de los mejores libros del Gabo. Confieso que el señor es uno de los santos más distinguidos en mi altar (con todo y su homofobia encarnizada) y que este libro me dejó trastornado. Descuajaringado. N...more
Martin tells us that in García Márquez’s own estimation, his greatest book is “The Autumn of the Patriarch,” from 1975 — a book that is an extended homage to Darío, who is invoked at the beginning and again at the very end, and who, somewhere in the middle, shows up as a character, sailing into port on a banana boat to deliver a poetry recitation. Every last sentence in “The Autumn of the Patriarch” offers a heroic demonstration of man’s triumph over language — unless it is language’s triumph ov...more
This is the tragic story of a dictator and the country he rules for 100 years. He is unwittingly installed in the seat of power by the imperialists, the fifteenth dictator in eleven years, and then he stays there for the next hundred. He realizes that he has no choice but to stay in power because if he relaxes his hold, he will either be killed or be banished forever to live a penniless, sad life, far away from his land. With every brutality he commits, he closes a door on reconcilliation. Till...more
Romanul este probabil cel mai meticulos lucrat dintre toate cartile lui Marquez. Fiecare cuvant este la locul lui, fiecare descriere este puternica. Un paradox: datorita modalitatii in care este scrisa, cu descrieri deosebit de amanuntite si stufoase, uneori o fraza intinzandu-se chiar pe 10 pagini(!), lectura este antrenanta si rapida insa in acelasi timp este si foarte solicitanta si epuizanta, probabil din cauza textului extrem de dens. Unele descrieri au chiar o tenta suprarealista, multe su...more
The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975) is an ambitious novel, especially for any skilled and intelligent reader. In the 229-page novel, consisting of six chapters, there are exactly six paragraphs (no joke!). Each chapter is one paragraph running on for approximately thirty to forty pages, with absolutely no line breaks at any time. At times, on average, a sentence runs for over a page in length. The novel has about one period per page, no quotation marks, commas galore, making this novel by Márquez...more
This was... a strange book. It was the first book I read by this author, and my enjoyment of the first part suffered while I didn't get used to the style - sentences that extend across several pages, the heavy comma use, and frequent change of the narrating voice midsentence were some of the aspects I found most noticeable. This style reminds me much of the one used by Saramago.
We start by being presented with the people who found the General's lifeless body, and we are then offered insight abou...more
It is hard not to distinguish the writer's infamous tone and subject matter in this sumptuous tale which might be the first time that a character study is so well meshed with the locale of his biography: "The Autumn of the Patriarch" in less than 50 sentences spanning pages and pages and a thick layering of symbols and leit motifs tells the sad story of a mad tyrant ruler who, despite being bathed in power and glory, is nonetheless a HUMAN: he kills but suffers immensely and if the book were a p...more
Beware, those of you who have not read a Gabriel Garcia Marquez book yet! The style and literary techniques employed by the venerable author here are not, at first, user-friendly. In place of a sequence of actions, a run-on assault of descriptions tell the tale of a seemingly immortal yet completely despicable Caribbean tyrant. Sentences last for pages, each chapter is but one paragraph, the narrative perspective changes in mid-sentence, etc: This anti-traditional approach proves to be extremely...more
This is less a novel and more an experience. Sometimes it's beautiful, sometimes rewarding, sometimes frustrating, sometimes fascinating and sometimes boring. I cannot say that I enjoyed every word from beginning to end but nevertheless I was astonished at the craftsmanship in the way the text was shaped.
In most ways, this craftsmanship was The Autumn of the Patriarch's greatest strength. There can be absolutely no doubt, both from the history of the author to what's present in the reading, tha...more
In most ways, this craftsmanship was The Autumn of the Patriarch's greatest strength. There can be absolutely no doubt, both from the history of the author to what's present in the reading, tha...more
وب گردي منو به اينجا كشوند. گيج بودم كه يه كتاب اشنا ديدم. بيش از ده سال پيش اين كتابو خوندم. تو زمان دانشجويي. چيز زيادي ازش يادم نمي آيد اما خوب به خاطر دارم كه كتاب رو يه نفس خوندم. مثل كسي به سرهنگ نامه نمي نويسد و صد سال تنهايي. اثر درخشاني است. خوب بخونيدش. اثركتاب در روزهاي تنهايي آدم بيشتر ميشود.زمانيكه كه يه چيزي مد ميشه و ديگران ادم رو فراموش مي كنند.آهان يادم اومد. يه بخش محاسبه هزينه تخم مرغ براي كارگر داشتكه كلي بهاش خنديدم.
Трудно ми е да си представя, че човек може да напише това... Мога да го повярвам, само като си спомня, че същият човек е написал „Сто години самота”. Но тук задачата му е била сякаш още по-трудна – в сравнение с роящите се поколения в „Сто години самота”, в „Есента на патриарха” има единствен център – диктаторът (обобщаващ образ на латиноамериканския диктатор – защо не на който и да е диктатор).
Дали съм свикнала със стила на Маркес, дали тази творба наистина е изумителна – четох я много лесно,...more
Дали съм свикнала със стила на Маркес, дали тази творба наистина е изумителна – четох я много лесно,...more
Oct 15, 2010
Ahmed
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
bright-stars-in-my-hand
هذه الرواية من الفئة التي تود ألا تنتهي أبدًا وتحاول قراءة الكلمات حرفًا حرفًا خوفًا من الوصول إلى صفحة النهاية،
شعرت بالفراغ الرهيب عقب انتهائي منها
رواية أحضرها ماركيز لنا من الجحيم مباشرة ..
---
ولنا أذواق ..
أعطيت هذه الرواية مع مجموعة روايات أخرى لأحد أصدقائي، فكانت هذه أول الكتب رجوعًا لي (وآخرها عاد بعد سنة ونصف تقريبًا ^_^ )، وقال أنه لم يستطع تجاوز الفصل الأول!!
لا أعلم، ولكنها مازلت تبهرني حتى الثمالة!!
شعرت بالفراغ الرهيب عقب انتهائي منها
رواية أحضرها ماركيز لنا من الجحيم مباشرة ..
---
ولنا أذواق ..
أعطيت هذه الرواية مع مجموعة روايات أخرى لأحد أصدقائي، فكانت هذه أول الكتب رجوعًا لي (وآخرها عاد بعد سنة ونصف تقريبًا ^_^ )، وقال أنه لم يستطع تجاوز الفصل الأول!!
لا أعلم، ولكنها مازلت تبهرني حتى الثمالة!!
I was assigned this book in college. It permanently turned me against the author, which, given that he wrote this book, isn't entirely undeserved. I suffered through another, but no, the breakage was done.
I found I couldn't stay in the book due to the experimental form (each chapter is a single sentence with frequently-shifting points of view), and the patriarch in question (who doesn't deserve a capital letter) reprehensible enough that I really didn't want to read his thoughts ever. Anything,...more
I found I couldn't stay in the book due to the experimental form (each chapter is a single sentence with frequently-shifting points of view), and the patriarch in question (who doesn't deserve a capital letter) reprehensible enough that I really didn't want to read his thoughts ever. Anything,...more
¡Excelente! ¡García Márquez en todo su esplendor!
Este libro es un estudio profundo de la personalidad y vida de un tirano que nos revela sus motivos, su manera de pensar, y hasta sus miedos más íntimos, desembocando finalmente en un estado de decrepitud que da lástima.
Creo que el mensaje general del libro se puede resumir en un par de líneas que se encuentran al final del mismo: "...al cabo de tantos y tantos años de ilusiones estériles había empezado a vislumbrar que no se vive, qué carajo, se...more
Este libro es un estudio profundo de la personalidad y vida de un tirano que nos revela sus motivos, su manera de pensar, y hasta sus miedos más íntimos, desembocando finalmente en un estado de decrepitud que da lástima.
Creo que el mensaje general del libro se puede resumir en un par de líneas que se encuentran al final del mismo: "...al cabo de tantos y tantos años de ilusiones estériles había empezado a vislumbrar que no se vive, qué carajo, se...more
Feb 28, 2013
Saverio Mariani
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
narrativa-sud-americana
Sì, lo so. Sto parlando di uno dei miei scrittori preferiti. Devo utilizzare bene le parole, come lui fa in modo assolutamente geniale, e devo cercare di far capire al meglio tutto quello che García Márquez esprime attraverso il suo mondo fantastico.
Ho letto molti libri di Márquez, negli anni. Già da quando frequentavo il liceo.
Mi ricordo che Macondo (la città magica, inventata, tropicale, in cui è ambientato Cent’anni di solitudine) mi aveva così catturato che avrei voluto farci un viaggio. R...more
Ho letto molti libri di Márquez, negli anni. Già da quando frequentavo il liceo.
Mi ricordo che Macondo (la città magica, inventata, tropicale, in cui è ambientato Cent’anni di solitudine) mi aveva così catturato che avrei voluto farci un viaggio. R...more
A dictator that many times for his people was only a legend, who chose the top ranks of the army on impulse, and repressed with weapons attempts to overthrow him. a submissive and poor people did not own their own lives, and that was over a hundred years under a military government. a general who in his old age did not even know who he was, who had lost everything except the memory of his mother who was made Holy by decree. Who died lying face down with his arm under his head that serves as a...more
Quando se fala de Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a maior parte das pessoas, cita o seu livro mais conhecido, "100 anos de solidão", mas este é de longe a sua obra prima. Este livro é GGM e toda a América do Sul em estado concentrado. Estado puro.
Apesar de ser um livro pequeno, não o consegui ler à primeira, porque a densidade narrativa aliado a um estilo que Saramago também pratica, de não haver pontos finais, mas apenas longas e imensas frases, tornam este livro difícil para o Leitor. É preciso uma gr...more
Apesar de ser um livro pequeno, não o consegui ler à primeira, porque a densidade narrativa aliado a um estilo que Saramago também pratica, de não haver pontos finais, mas apenas longas e imensas frases, tornam este livro difícil para o Leitor. É preciso uma gr...more
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Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist. García Márquez, familiarly known as "Gabo" in his native country, is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. In 1982, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
He started as a journalist, and has written many acclaimed non-fiction works and short st...more
More about Gabriel García Márquez...
He started as a journalist, and has written many acclaimed non-fiction works and short st...more
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“...the day shit is worth money, poor people will be born without an asshole”
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10 people liked it
“an old man with no destiny with our never knowing who he was, or what he was like, or even if he was only a figment of the imagination, a comic tyrant who never knew where the reverse side was and where the right of this life which we loved with an insatiable passion that you never dared even to imagine out of the fear of knowing what we knew only too well that it was arduous and ephemeral but there wasn't any other, general, because we knew who we were while he was left never knowing it forever with the soft whistle of his rupture of a dead old man cut off at the roots by the slash of death, flying through the dark sound of the last frozen leaves of his autumn toward the homeland of shadows of the truth of oblivion, clinging to his fear of the rotting cloth of death's hooded cassock and alien to the clamor of the frantic crowds who took to the streets singing hymns of joy at the jubilant news of his death and alien forevermore to the music of liberation and the rockets of jubilation and the bells of glory that announced to the world the good news that the uncountable time of eternity had come to an end.”
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6 people liked it
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updated Jul 14, 2012 10:33am
K. Joselito: Thank you for informing me. *wipin...more
Jul 15, 2012 12:33am