Caldas (Paperback) by Gabriel García Márquez - Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

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Aug 22, 2008

Nicholas rated it:

(review of isbn 0380017741)

Read in September, 2008

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 peri...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, but for those readers willing to tunnel into the narrative, a luscious comfort settles in and Marquez's familiar descriptive and story-telling abilities begin to sparkle.

In the words of the author: "my most important problem was destroying the lines of demarcation that separates what's real from what's fantastic," of which he succeeded marvelously. Time periods shift in mid sentence, making it difficult to establish an objective point of reference between past and present, transitioning from narrative voice into undifferentiated dialogue in an endless stream of dreamlike storytelling. An eccentric and daunting cast of scheming subordinates, presidential impostors, deceptive right-hand men, fine-tailored assassins, foreign dignitaries, and erstwhile nun love interests litter the storyline in the endless shifting between invisible arrangements of power.

But what's so redeeming about all of this, the disorienting prose and the frequent descriptive escapades, is the substantive exploration of power and illusion lying underneath it all. What is power if not a perception? An artifice exercised through others' mutual perception? Marquez underscores this artfully and brilliantly in his use of magical realism, heaving his readers into the same boat of illusions as his characters. One wavers like the throngs of peasants outside the general's palace, questioning his power -even his existence- one moment, exalting in it and praying for him days later. It's a calm delirium everyone gets used to. After all, don't we all, in various self-serving ways and forms, blamelessly submit to and exert control over one another? Marquez does not limit his comment to just those in positions of ultimate authority. There is a kind of symbiosis existing in the compatible illusions maintained across and between the layers of Caribbean society; between the general and his officers' fealty, the public and their expectations of royal power, between the general and his own position of authority, all transpiring unspoken and intimately connected. It all starts to feel so patently absurd as the novel spirals tighter and tighter into itself. You are left feeling the distant despair of life as some ridiculously orchestrated illusion, like an elephant floating by a balloon string, maintained by the inexplicable conviction that if we all pretend it floats, it really must.

It's easy to condemn the despicable and senseless acts governing the conscience of such a corrupt, festering patriarch, hell bent on perpetuating his appearance at all costs. Yet Marquez's careful attention to nuance while exploring the psyche of supreme power inspires a kind of sympathetic melancholy meditation of sorts, while simultaneously constituting a scathing, mocking indictment. Ultimately the illusion of power, or lack thereof, becomes all-reaching and unintelligible, even swallowing up the emperor himself. In his abject loneliness, pity replaces envy, power feels like a pestilent disease, and one is left with the conclusion that wherever happiness or a meaningful life may lie, the hierarchies of power afford little direction.
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Jul 18, 2008

jess rated it:

(review of isbn 0060882867)

bookshelves: currently-reading

Read in July, 2008

recommended to jess by: me!
recommends it for: ryan golden

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 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 real death. it certainly makes your head spin, and it's difficult to read less than 40 pages at a time without completely losing track of what the hell is going on.

his technique of using one event as the touchstone from which he begins each section of the book, in this one the death of the patriarch, is common for marquez, but this stream-of-consciousness style of writing is not. what makes it more intriguing is how any given sentence switches from the 1st- to the 3rd-person point-of-view, and is usually delivered by at least 3 different characters. factor in that the characters telling the story are sometimes extremely minor and therefore hard to keep track of and you become quite dizzy.

all of this said, however, the style works with the subject matter. the main character doubles as both protagonist and antagonist, and marquez does such a good job of winning the reader's sympathy for him that by the time he is filling a crate full of children with concrete in order to more easily dispose of them in the ocean, we have forgotten that he is a monster, that we hate him. the narrative style makes it clear that marquez does this on purpose. knowing what is known about him politically (he has infamously opposed numerous latin american leaders throughout history) combined with what is known about him as a deeply romantic humanitarian, all of this makes sense. his dictator is painted on one hand as horrific, maniacal, and frighteningly self-absorbed and on the other hand as troubled, insecure, and confused by his own power.

i struggled with this one, in part because it didn't do what his other books do for me. approaching it with that expectation was a bad idea, though. i usually read "100 years of solitude" every summer, and i have found marquez to be a perfect travel companion, particularly if i'm going into mexico; his stories are always dreamlike with such a strong dose of reality added to the characters and relationships that i enjoy his books the same way i enjoy a good drug experience. this story was not a comment on human relationships, however, as much as it was on the nature of leadership and the vulnerability of those being lead. all in all, i'd say it's definitely worth picking up, but be sure you've got some time to commit to digesting it properly. (less)

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Nov 18, 2008

Jessica is currently reading it (review of isbn 0060882867)

bookshelves: currently-reading

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.

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Jul 08, 2007

Ian rated it:

(review of isbn 0060932678)

recommends it for: anyone

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 t...more

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Nov 26, 2007

Hena rated it:

(review of isbn 0060882867)

bookshelves: latin-america

Read in December, 2007

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

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Jan 19, 2008

Ariel Cruz rated it:

(review of isbn 0060882867)

bookshelves: fiction

Read in January, 2008

recommends it for: Joe Momma.

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 prin...more

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Dec 01, 2008

Bob rated it:

(review of isbn 0060882867)

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

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Nov 10, 2008

Lamski Kikita rated it:

(review of isbn 0060882867)

Read in December, 2008

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,...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, lover, legend, and well, human being. The general in Gabo's story rules for over 100 years during which he bombed children in the sea, received a daily sack of heads of his opponents, played dominoes with foreign dignitaries, faked his death, exiled the Church, molested school girls, lost his mother, his only wife, and his only son, and lost the sea.

Gabo certainly knows how to make you hate someone in one second and feel sorry for him the very next. The general had weird quirks like hiding honey in special places, looking at the sea a specific number of times a day, locking and bolting his bedroom door three times, writing small notes to remind himself of things and plugging them into the cracks in the wall, counting the cows and chickens, healing the lepers and invalid who live in his rosebushes, and well, of course sleeping around with any woman available regardless of his herniated testicle.

His long reign brought him from his utmost strength and cruelty to the humiliation of age and forgetfulness, a somewhat karma-driven chain of events since the deal of his mother with mites coming out of her back, his only wife and son eaten by trained dogs, and the Caribbean being taken by the "gringos" right under his nose.

Favorite Quotes:

"..he had them take the children out of their hiding place in the jungle and carry them off in the opposite direction to the provinces of
perpetual rain where there were no treasonous winds to spread their voices, where the animals of the earth rotted away as they walked and lilies grew on words and octopuses swam among the trees"

"So they took away the Caribbean in April, Ambassador Ewing's nautical engineers carried it off in numbered pieces to plant it far from the hurricanes in the blood-red dawns of Arizona, they took it away with everything it had inside, general sir, with the reflection of our cities, our timid drowned people, our demented dragons"(less)

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Jun 20, 2009

Choupette marked it as to-read (review of isbn 0060882867)

bookshelves: south-american, to-read

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 la...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 over man. The sentences begin in one person’s voice and conclude in someone else’s, or change their subject halfway through, or wander across the centuries, and, even so, conform sufficiently to the rules of rhetoric to carry you along. To read is to gasp. You want to break into applause at the shape and grandeur of those sentences, not to mention their length. And yet to do so you would need to set down the book, which cannot be done, owing to the fact that, just when the impulse to clap your hands has become irresistible, the sentence you are reading has begun to round a corner, and you have no alternative but to clutch onto the book as if steering a car that has veered out of control.

Those are gorgeous sentences, but they are also tyrannical — and tyranny, in the conventional political sense, is entirely the novel’s theme. “The Autumn of the Patriarch” tells the story of a despot ruling over an unnamed and benighted Caribbean land. It is a dictator novel. The marriage of plot and prosody makes it a masterpiece — a greater triumph even than Mario Vargas Llosa’s marvelously brilliant “Feast of the Goat,” which is likewise a Caribbean dictator novel, and likewise invokes Rubén Darío. “The Autumn of the Patriarch” does have a puzzling quality, though. The dictator whose portrait emerges from those tropical-flower sentences is monstrous and despicable — yet even his creepiest tyrannical traits are presented as signs of the human condition, deserving of pity and compassion, maybe even a kind of sorrowful love. I have always wondered what sort of political attitude García Márquez meant to convey with those peculiar ambiguities.

Paul Berman, New York Times, June 7 2009.(less)

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May 09, 2009

Amit rated it:

(review of isbn 0060882867)

Read in August, 2003

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

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Aug 11, 2009

L.S. rated it:

(review of isbn 0060882867)

bookshelves: 2009

Read in August, 2009

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

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Mar 04, 2009

Reza akbari rated it:

(review of isbn 9647196326)

Read in January, 1996

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 تن...more

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Jan 05, 2010

Jess Gulbranson rated it:

(review of isbn 0380017741)

"goddamit, fuck death..."

The eponymous protagonist's soliloquy as he walks the streets following his feigned death culminates in this rousing declaration. As I have mentioned in my review of "100 Years Of Solitude," this book defies its underpinnings as a tale of despotism and villainry by rejoicing in life. It is a bit more experimental, textually, than other works by Marquez. If you have a dislike of run-on sentences, then stay far away. The 'magic' half of ...more

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Dec 09, 2008

Kaitlin rated it:

(review of isbn 0060882867)

In a way, the brutal history of dictatorships across Central and South America is explored through fiction in this novel. The protagonist has grandiose dictator elements of Somoza, Pinochet, Trujillo, and paranoid Castro, to an extent, with the description of how power begins and becomes irrelevant. This book is fascinating and bizarre, still maintaining that inimitable humor Marquez is known for. I'm not sure if it succeeds as a novel, but it is interesting to read how a writer struggles with t...more

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Dec 30, 2008

Louise rated it:

(review of isbn 0060882867)

Have had this book on my shelf for over 6 years and have only ever been able to get through a couple of pages. However, as it is one of the 1001 Books (WHY?) I decided to try and plow through it. What a plow it was. Stylistically, it was difficult. Sentences were very long, verbose and the allusions were often elusive. Translation? I don't think so. Just not my cup of tea. Maybe I've outgrown the wonders of magic realism -- although I did love "Love in the Time of Cholera" and ...more

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Sep 20, 2009

Rashaan rated it:

(review of isbn 0060882867)

bookshelves: fiction

Read in February, 2010

Nothing causes a Patriarch to be so much esteemed as his prowess fueled by his great appetite for ambition and power. We have seen these tyrants, these commanding rulers, rise and fall. We've even been romanced by them.
As much as The General is great and extraordinary in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Autumn of a Patriarch, he is also pathetic, repulsive, and loathsome. This lends to his power and magnetism, yet his rule is the decay of our morals, the degradation of the sense of self and esteem...more Nothing causes a Patriarch to be so much esteemed as his prowess fueled by his great appetite for ambition and power. We have seen these tyrants, these commanding rulers, rise and fall. We've even been romanced by them.
As much as The General is great and extraordinary in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Autumn of a Patriarch, he is also pathetic, repulsive, and loathsome. This lends to his power and magnetism, yet his rule is the decay of our morals, the degradation of the sense of self and esteem for the people of the country he claims to govern.

There are, loosely, three kinds of tales by Marquez, those that are scintillating and sharp as a diamond, cutting through the morass of the mundane to reveal what is piercingly human, whether we are man or woman, rich or poor. Then there are Marquezian tales that ramble aimlessly with rare flashes of brilliance, which surface in isolated occasion but are washed away with ambulatory drudge. Finally, there are tales that combine the two and one must wade through the slough while always on the lookout for that spark of intensity which pierces its way through swampy narratives.

The Autumn of the Patriarch belongs to the second category more than the first or third. If readers like holding their breath for long spaces of time, not knowing when the narrative will allow us to come up for air, then this is the perfect novel. Its not so much a matter of diving deep into an immersive story but rather more like suffering suffocation under a tyrannical presence that will not let up, even after death. Our General's story becomes tiresome, an endless marathon, running alongside a monster. His machismo drips off the page:

...he fell asleep at ocean lulled by the scratching of the drizzle on the frosted glass of the sleeping potion, but suddenly he awoke with a start, who's there, he shouted, it was his own heart oppressed by the strange silence of the cocks at dawn, he felt that the ship of the universe had reached some port while he was asleep, he was floating in a soup of steam, the animals of the earth and sky who had the faculty to glimpse death beyond clumsy omens and best founded sciences of men were white with terror, there was no more air, time was charging direction, and as he got up he felt his heart swelling with every step and his ear drums bursting and some boiling matter was running out of his nose. It's death, he thought (93)....

More of an in-depth character study than a fully realized story, Marquez writes of The General that "There are orders that can be given but not carried out." This General commands our attention but his pull doesn't hold strong enough for us to care about his inevitable fall. He may ask us to witness his descent, but we can and will avert our gaze to more pressing and more deserving tales as we should.
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Jun 30, 2009

Vicki rated it:

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bookshelves: novels, poetry

Owns a copy — Read in September, 2009

This book is uniquely ill-suited to train reading.

Quote that caught me in a rereading loop on the train this morning: "...God damn it, because when I finally die the politicians will come back and divide up the mess the way it was during the times of the Goths, you'll see, he said, they'll go back to dividing everything up among the priests, the gringos and the rich, and nothing for the poor, naturally, because they've always been so fucked up that the day shit is worth money, p...more

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Mar 09, 2007

Amir rated it:

(review of isbn 0060882867)

bookshelves: gabriel-garcia-marquez

با گابریل گارسیا مارکز که حتما به اندازه کافی آشنا هستین...کتاب 100 سال تنهایی کتاب فوق العاده ای هست که نوشته...کتاب صد سال تنهایی در سال 1967 نوشته شده و به فاصله 8 سال بعد از نوشتن صد سال تنهایی مارکز سومین داستان بلند خودش به اسم پاییز پدر سالار رو در سال 1975 نوشته...

سبک داستا...more با گابریل گارسیا مارکز که حتما به اندازه کافی آشنا هستین...کتاب 100 سال تنهایی کتاب فوق العاده ای هست که نوشته...کتاب صد سال تنهایی در سال 1967 نوشته شده و به فاصله 8 سال بعد از نوشتن صد سال تنهایی مارکز سومین داستان بلند خودش به اسم پاییز پدر سالار رو در سال 1975 نوشته...

سبک داستان این کتاب هم خیلی شبیه به سبک صد سال تنهایی هست با این تفاوت که میزان تمرکزی که روی یک موضوع داره خیلی بیشتر از کتاب صد سال تنهایی هست...از لحاظ ادبیات این سبک رئالیسم جادویی هست اسمش که اتفاقها و شخصیتها رئال هستن ولی داستان آمیخته بااتفاقات خارق العاده و جادو شده....

محتوای داستان قدرت دیکتاتوری هست که گه گاهی با عشق مخلوط میشه...اتفاقهای داستان از بین تمام کتابهای مارکز بیشترین نماد رو در واقعیت داره و بر اساس کارهایی که دیکتاتورهای آمریکای جنوبی مثل پینیلا و گومز و ژنرال معروف اسپانیایی ژنرال فرانکو انجام دادن نوشته شده...(این کتاب رو مارکز در بارسلونا نوشته).

از لحاظ سبک روایی داستان نو آوری داره و اگر در صد سال تنهایی هم دقت کرده باشین راوی داستان خیلی متفاوت از تمام کتابها انتخاب شده بود...

در نهایت اگر کتاب صد سال تنهایی رو نخوندین یا خوندین و دوست نداشتین خوندن این کتاب رو اصلا توصیه نمیکنم.

در مورد نوشته های مارکز نکته ای که خیلی مهمه اینه که باید سبک ادبیاتی رو که در کارهاش استفاده میکنه دوست داشته باشین مگر نه نوشته هاش به نظرتون خیلی بی مفهوم میرسه...

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Nov 23, 2007

Mitra rated it:

(review of isbn 9647196326)

bookshelves: fiction

گابریل گارسیا مارکز:"این داستان درباره ی انزوای قدرت است و اما "صد سال تنهایی" در مورد انزوای زندگی روزمره. در واقع داستان زندگی هر کسی است.به علاوه به شکلی ساده سیال خطی و حتی همانطور که قبلا گفته ام_سطحی نوشته شده است."

..."خزان پیشوا"محاورهای ترین داستان م�...more

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Aug 22, 2009

sisterimapoet rated it:

(review of isbn 0330255606)

bookshelves: fiction-2009

Read in September, 2009

Given to me by a friend as part of our seasonal reading challenge.

When I saw solid pages of prose, with no paragraphs, and sentences that run on for pages I thought I was going to struggle with this book.

But I really enjoyed it. I quickly found myself falling in with its tone and being utterly engrossed in the strange world that Marquez creates. And while nothing much happened, there wasn't a dull moment. It's all there - funny, sad, shocking, revolting. Page after p...more

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