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Dec 04, 2010

Petra X rated it:

To enjoy this book you have to enter the mind and world of this old, old man, living the last years of his life in poverty in the once-grand, decaying house of his youth. His career never rose above second-rate reporter, he never married and never even fell in love. His personal relationships with women were limited to the whores he paid for. A most unfulfilled life.

But then, for a present for his 90th birthday, he gives himself a 14 year-old virgin, a would-be whore. Exhausted fr More...

20 comments like (42 people liked it)

Jul 16, 2011

Kwesi 章英狮 rated it:

Life is so complicated to understand at the same time the working mind of every people, how they think, they act or develop in their entire life. When I was walking nearby a bar, I saw an old man wearing his new clothes bought from the department store while guided by his nurse and stick, and entered a bar. I cannot imagine such scene in my mind esepcially the sexual interaction between an old man and a very young lady.

In this novella, Gabriel García Márquez, put you into deepest ima More...

37 comments like (21 people liked it)

Mar 20, 2008

Amanda rated it:

On a certain level, I truly enjoyed "Memories of My Melancholy Whores". I am always ready to be swept up in the simple whimsy of G.G.M's language, and the sweeping romance and dramatic emotion of his work always appeals to me. But on another very real level I found this book disturbing and sexist.
The book's theme is strikingly reminiscent of "Talk to Her", a recent Almodovar film. Both deal with men who build flowery romantic/erotic relationships in their minds with More...

5 comments like (22 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Kelly added it

This is it everyone- The most depressing book I have read. Ever. Yes. This book. Not the ones about the holocaust, brutal wars, awful diseases... this book. About an old man who has only ever slept with whores. I don't know why it got to me like it did, but I would read a few pages and feel physically sick to my stomach. It's not the subject matter (it's interesting), it's not the writing (he's Marquez)... it's just this sense of awfulness. This awful awful life he's lead, and what he has never More...

58 comments like (18 people liked it)

Feb 05, 2012

Jasmine rated it:

This book is banned in Iran. This is one of those silly banning since there isn't even really any sex. Okay he rapes someone but later she claims to be a virgin so we can't really trust that memory can we. I think he might be a bit schizo and making up some of those memories although it's hard to say. I mean ban something reasonable. I digress... These customers come into work and ask for sex books, and no one wants anything remotely good like Sade or Nin, they all want Romance or erotica anthol More...

4 comments like (6 people liked it)

Nov 18, 2007

Amir rated it:

این کتاب آخرین داستان بلند گابریل گارسیا مارکز هست... کتاب در سال 2004 نوشته شده و ترجمه فارسی اسم کتاب میشه خاطرات روسپی های سودا زده من... کتاب در ایران با اسم خاطره دلبران سودازده من چاپ شد و بعد از اینکه چاپ شد وزارت ارشاد ممنوع اعلامش کرد و شروع کرد به جمع کردنش و با مسئولانی هم که مجوز چاپ داده بودن به شدت برخورد کرد و به نقل از خود وزارت ارشاد اخراجشون کرد... .
توضیح مختصری در مورد کتاب بگم براتون... سبک نوشتاری کتاب کاملا همون سبک آشنای مارکز هست... (گابریل گارسیا مارکز جزو نویسندگا More...

10 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 27, 2008

Hilda rated it:

I really didn't like this story. The writing as always was wonderful - the descriptions, the language, the character development - all excellent. The story however was extremely disturbing and sad.

Chapter 1 in particular, when the narrator describes how upon turning 90 he decided he wanted to have sex with a young virgin was appalling. Then the local madam finds a 14 year old, poor, illiterate girl for him. He goes to see her and finds her asleep because she had been so afraid More...

4 comments like (10 people liked it)

Apr 07, 2010

سپینود rated it:

من یک سئوال دارم؟ چطور می شود به کسی که این پروفایل را درست کرده دست یافت؟
به این دلیل که خواهش کنیم از این به بعد طرح روی جلد کتاب‌ها را، نه فقط این کتاب را، بگذارند.
این جا اگر هدف تشویق است برای کتاب‌خوانی باید چشم‌ها را هم به جلد کتاب‌ها اشنا کرد. زحمت چندانی هم ندارد.
من خودم شخصن دیگر کتاب‌های بدون عکس جلد اضافه نمی‌کنم. دیگر ان هم اگر این کار را کنند، آن وقت کسانی که پروفایل‌ها را می سازند دقت بیش‌تری می‌کنند. More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 15, 2011

Charu rated it:

Powerful book of a decrepit man taking refuge in lechery ??!!!! I don't think in enjoyed it much !

This was given to me by a friend and i loathed it in the purest sense ! The plot was repulsive based on pedophilia and prostitution...a nonagenarian who decides to bed a virgin on the eve of his ninetieth birthday (assuming it would be his last fling before death)

Author neither could make it erotic nor could he do any justice to the debate "love over sex" (the polemic More...

8 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 25, 2010

Ahmed rated it:

كتب الأستاذ العقاد مقالا في مناسبة عبوره سن الخمسين بأمان، ووتبعه بآخر عندما تجاوز الستين، وتبعه آخر عند السبعين بعد أن قطع سلالم الستين العشرة ومر على الرقم السبعيني بعنفوان الشيخوخة، وأوقفه الموت قبل أن يتيح له كتابه مقاله لتهنئة نفسه بعبوره عامه الثمانين، فكان العقاد إذن رجلًا سبعينًا، رحمه الله تعالى.

وحافظ إبراهيم قال في رأس الستين:

إني وقفتُ على الستيّن أسألها .. أسوّفتْ؟!، أم أعدّت حر أكفاني؟!

يقول هلى مُدّ في عمره ليشهد العقد السابع أم لا، ولم تسّوف وما More...

9 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 27, 2007

Robert rated it:

The review I wrote for amazon.

A curious and lovely book

In the US, we understand sexy but we struggle with the erotic. We read the body like we read the newspaper, by habit; with a glance. Our real failure in love is our failure to take our time. It's not in our nature to wait, to sample, to savor. We rush into love as if we were late to an appointment. Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his MEMORIES OF MY MELANCHOLY WHORES doesn't rush. The book is a seduction and moves at that qu More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Aug 17, 2008

Jonyleo rated it:

"The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin." So begins Memories of My Melancholy Whores, and it becomes even more unlikely as the novel unfolds. This slim volume contains the story of the sad life of an unnamed, only slightly talented Colombian journalist and teacher, never married, never in love, living in the crumbling family manse. He calls Rosa Cabarcas, madame of the city's most successful brothel, to seek her assi More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 13, 2007

Mohammadreza rated it:

داستاني كوتاه و لطيف كه پرده‌اي از روابط زشت و زيباي انساني را به نمايش مي‌گذارد. عشق و تمناي جسماني پيرمردي در سالروز نود سالگي‌اش و تغيير شكل آن به عشقي روحاني و نفس گير.
كتابي كه از خواندنش پشيمان نخواهيد شد. مطمئن باشيد!

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 20, 2008

Mark rated it:

Despite my well documented affection for the author, I actually had mentally prepared myself to dislike or at least be disappointed by this book. I had read lukewarm reviews and was somewhat under-whelmed by the brief on the book jacket. A 90 year old man who falls in love with a sleeping 14 year old virgin. Marquez has written about these sinful or impossible loves before, one novella of his is about a priest who falls in love with a 14 year old girl. Ultimately though, I found this book to be More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Sarit rated it:

Garcia Marquez is getting tired. He dashed off this half-hearted little story and no publisher or faithful reader could resist the draw of his name. But if it had been someone's first work, it never would have been published.

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 01, 2009

Elizabeth rated it:

This is a hard book to rate. It is beautifully written (translated by Edith Grossman), and the characters are wonderfully drawn. However, it is about a 90-year-old (one assumes Marquez) who wakes up on his 90th birthday and wants to have a sex with a 14-year-old virgin. His old friend, the madam, arranges same. In this short novel (115 pages), memories and events wash over the characters. I simply couldn't get past that premise--I know it is a fact of life, but not one I can accept. Read i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 10, 2008

Lisa rated it:

I feel unqualified to dislike anything by Gabriel García Márquez, but with this slim novella I come very close. His other novels I’ve read (100 Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera) left me absolutely floored. His talent is prodigious and undeniable, and I fully expected this to be yet another amazing story masterfully told. But to be honest Memories falls a little flat. It was García Márquez’ first work of fiction in ten years, and at a mere 115 pages long, I wonder if maybe its brevi More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 18, 2007

Elena rated it:

An old man at the end of his life wakes one morning with the desire to sleep with a young virgin. This desire seems natural for a man who has been with many women, all of which he had to pay for. On the surface our protagonist seems like a dirty old man with no regard for anyone but himself, but as we take a look into his quaint life we realize that he, like any other person faced with the finality of time, is reflecting on his own life with nostalgia and perhaps a bit of regret.

Th More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 12, 2007

Scott rated it:

Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes beautifully. Many paragraphs throughout his works can be easily mistaken for poetry, as they contain language so vivid and colorful that it inspires even the most disinterested reader. MEMORIES OF MY MELANCHOLY WHORES is Marquez's first piece of fiction in ten years, yet it maintains the writing acumen that he's famous for and that permeates his other works. It is also markedly shorter than many of his other novels; the 113 poignant pages of this novella take the fo More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jul 21, 2007

1da rated it:

Memoria de mis putas tristes...I LOVE Gabriel García Marquez. He weaves his magical realism right into your brain and it's like I was peeking in through a window rather than reading.

I've read a few not so good reviews of this novella and they cannot be more wrong. Yes, Gabo's intricate magical realism is not as pronounced as it is say in Cien años de soledad (100 Years of Solitude), but it's definitely there. If you missed it, I suggest you go back and reread because it is there. More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

May 07, 2007

stephanie rated it:

I enjoyed this book, but not as much as One Hundred Years of Solitude, the first Marquez book I ever read and by far and away my favorite. I really enjoyed the magical realism of that book, but this was just a really good story with really compelling characters.
I think the reason I couldn't get that into it was because--maybe it's naive or short-sighted-- I just get weirded out by stories that portray romantic relationships between girls and old men to be innocuous and even endearing. It More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 04, 2010

Sara rated it:

روسپيان سودا زده من" اثر ماركز بسيار خواندني است ، از اين جهت كه به نظرم نبوغ فطري ماركز در آن متبلور شده است . شايد در ابتداي خواندن كتاب به نظر هرزه گويي كرده ،اما در ادامه شكل كلي نمادين داستان تصوير جالبي در ذهن شكل ميدهد . نظر شخصي من : داستان در كل به ابعاد نفساني و روحاني وجود انسانها مي پردازد . تمام شخصيتها از نظر من نمادين اند حتي شخصيت گربه . در كل اگر با ديد فلسفي خوانده شود كتاب جالبي خواهد بود . More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 17, 2010

Grecia rated it:

This book fascinated me. The story itself is a bit off putting but it certainly inspires thought and the short novel is worth a second and third read. One of my top 10 favorite books.

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it

Garc"a M�_rquez (Living to Tell the Tale, ***1/2 Jan/Feb 2004; he was profiled in our Jan/Feb 2003 issue), who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 for his classic One Hundred Years of Solitude, can, at this point, "publish anything he wants" (Houston Chronicle). That about sums up the critical reception of Memories, a tale of love, aging, and revelation. Most reviewers described the short novel as sparkling and exquisitely bare, "requiring near biblical contemplation"

More...

0 comments like

Jan 28, 2012

Carinya rated it:

Here is the most unlikely hero. He is old (90 years), a journalist, unfulfilled in personal relationships, self absorbed, set in the ways of a by-gone culture, laughed at but also revered by his contempories and his readers. This character possesses an insight into the more basic primitive urges of humanity. Indeed he boasts that his frequent use of the services at every city brothel have left no time or inclination for love or marriage. He is so much of a creature of habit that at the age of 90 More...

0 comments like

Jan 09, 2012

Mary added it

Dave: "Whatcha reading?"

Me: "Memories of My Melancholy Whores."

Dave: "Well, I had to ask, didn't I."

This was my first read of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez book.

And beneath the subject of prostitution, it is essentially a story about aging, and about memory.
The main character, 90 years old, tells of the ways that we become more, not less, as we age. More intense, more provoked, more alive, more intentional.

Some w More...

0 comments like

Nov 24, 2011

Moßtafa rated it:

عندما يحب المرء لأجل ألا يموت وحيدا ليقضي ما تبقى من عمره فى صحبة أحد يشعر تجاهه أنه لابد من فعل كل شيء معه و لا يوفر أي شيء فالعمر على المحك و الثواني تمر على أجله

كيف له أن يصنع من رواية تقوم أساسها على الجنس و مصاحبة النساء أن يحولها إلي شيء يمس ذات أي إنسان و يتحدث بلسان حاله و يدخل كثيرا إلي عوالم النفس و يترجمها إلي أحاسيس تظهر بالكلمات في رواياته

يعجبني اسلوب ماركيز في السرد جدا و يشعرني اني احيا معه في اللحظات التي عاشها كأنه ياخذني من يدي و يخبرني عن ما صنعه في ال More...

0 comments like

Oct 28, 2011

Marleen rated it:

This novel tells the story of an unnamed, old and not very successful reporter who, on the eve of his 90th birthday decides that he wants to spend the night making love to an adolescent and virgin whore.
When he enters the room where the 14 year old girl is waiting for him she is fast asleep and he doesn’t disturb her. He spends the night looking at her and sleeping beside her, and when he leaves the next morning he is deeply in love, for the first time in his life.
All his experiences w More...

0 comments like

Sep 19, 2011

Javer rated it:

Here again we have a Gabriel Garcia Marquez trying to portrait the longevity of human kind through an old man's desire to spend his ninety birthday with a virgin. This book move on the edge between morbid ideas and a representation of the human spirits and our long fascination with finding "real love". the author creates a mix of events that represent the life of a man who never knew what love is until the end of his days. Garcia Marquez does a great job at keeping the attention of the More...

0 comments like

Aug 20, 2011

Cameling rated it:

Despite the title, this isn't a book about a man's reflections over the women he's paid for through the course of his life. What it is, a story of hope. A 90 year old not too talented writer, having lived a solitary and loveless life, contacts an old madam to procure a young virgin for his 90th birthday, believing it's his last fling before death. But upon arrival at the brothel, the girl who's been procured for him is asleep and he finds himself oddly touched by her innocence.

He de More...

0 comments like