Strange Pilgrims: Twelve Stories in Around the World in 80 Books

Dec 12, 2014 Bogdan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mundus-novus

Some of these stories are just brilliant while the others are at least interesting. This is the best short stories collection I've read in years, probably one of best out of all I have ever read. GGM is definitively a great writer, that will perhaps remain as a classic of world literature even several hundred years from now, as his subjects are very close to life's fundamental questions, like love, society or death.

And indeed a red thread throughout these stories, linking them all together is de Some of these stories are just brilliant while the others are at least interesting. This is the best short stories collection I've read in years, probably one of best out of all I have ever read. GGM is definitively a great writer, that will perhaps remain as a classic of world literature even several hundred years from now, as his subjects are very close to life's fundamental questions, like love, society or death.

And indeed a red thread throughout these stories, linking them all together is death, as a mysterious end to the miracle we call life. If you ask me, this was very interesting and I tend to see life slightly (but very little) different. I'll give then a 5 for premise.

Regarding the form, this is the third time this year I am amazed by the Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He was a writer so complete that few are born in one period. In my opinion he stands at the same level with classics like Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Hugo or Shakespeare. Perfect phrases, always saying just enough about each thing, characters like real people and more. Overall, I'll give it a 5 for form.

In terms of originality, the themes from his previous works are present here as well, but sometimes analyzed from another angle. This time, all the stories are about South Americans or Caribbeans in Europe. Interesting and quite original. So I will give it a 4 for the level of originality.

On the characters, they are so realistic that I can imagine meeting them in real life. What more can you say about characters, so cannot receive from me anything else than the maximum, meaning 5.

Regarding the complexity and difficulty, the author's preface tells it all about the difficulty in writing in general and in writing these particular stories. This was not an easy task and the result is also fairly complex as many stories have more than one simple message to reveal. Sometimes, even that principal message is not so obvious, so the reader needs to use his mind more than in the case of, let's say, detective stories. Thus, I will rate it with a 5 for complexity and difficulty.

In terms of credibility, I originally thought that magical realism means that sometime in the story some magical creatures appear or some kind of such phenomenon is happening. There is none of this here, the magical piece from the genre is merely given by the human mind, perception and time that distorts the memory. So my rating for credibility is then 5.

The last criteria is edition. It is an elegant paperback edition with nice covers. The translation is also good, as far as I can tell. So I'll give it a 4, as I wished also a book sign.

To summarize, according to my humble opinion, an almost perfect book. All in all, my final rating for it is 4.72, which I will round it to 5 on Goodreads system.


+--------------------------+-----------------+
| Criteria | Rating |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Premise | 5 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Form | 5 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Originality | 4 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Characters | 5 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Difficulty/Complexity | 5 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Credibility | 5 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Edition | 4 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Total | 4.72 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+

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May 24, 2014 Wes F rated it liked it

Some of these stories were better than others; some made more sense than others...but it all makes "sense," I guess, in the world of magic realism. ...more

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