"From then on I had her in my memory with so much clarity that I could do whatever I wanted with her. I changed the colour of her eyes according to my state of mind : the clor of water when she woke, the color of syrup when she laughed, the color of light when she was annoyed. I dressed her according to the age and condition that suited my changes of mood : a novice in love at 20, a parlor w**re at 40 (exact word not allowed in MS, get it from the name of book :) ), the queen of Babylon at 70, a saint at 100. We sang love love duets, Baleros, tangos and we confirmed once again that those who do not sing can’t even imagine the joy of singing. Today I know it was not a hallucination but one more miracle of the first love of my life at the age of 90."
If you like these few lines mentioned above you will like the whole book, because the writing style of the author, and the character and thinking of the lead man of the story is exactly the same as protrayed by these few lines.
What make me Read this Book :
A novel prize winner author with so many well known and acclaimed works, what else one need??
Well there are some more reasons I picked it like :
1> Name of the book is attractive enough and arouses a curosity to atleast have a look at it.
2> After taking a look, I liked to read few pages to see the writing style of the author, and finding that its different and interesting I liked to read few more pages. Since the book is very short, I deceided to finish whatever was left, and bought it. :)
3> I wanted to read atleast one book by this author and I wanted to start with one less known and acclaimed. Reason you can find in my first comment to this reveiw.
4> Last and the most reasonable reason was that I knew berforehand that book is good. :)
About the Author :
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (GGM) won the novel prize for literature in 1982. He began his writing career as a journalist and has written some of very well known books like ’One Hundred Years of Solitude’ (1970) and ’Love in the Time of Cholera’ (1988), Of love and other demons (1993) and so on. He writes in spanish and most of his work has got translated in various languages.
About the Book :
MMMW is GGM’s latest book and was published first in 2005. Its very short, only 115 pages long. Language is not very clear at times and you need to read a line 2 to 3 times to clearly understand the meaning, and at times you also need to consult dictionary, it takes time but you get settle with his way of writing and thinking. The writing style, in this book, goes like as if he decides his characters first and then through them puts his heart out to the reader.This book is like a fairy tale for the aged, a story that celebrates the belated discovery of love and passion in old age. Its about the shortcomings of old age and celebrates the joys and madness of being in love.
About the Story :
The story is of an oldman aged 90, name is not mentioned anywhere, but people mostly call him Scholar. So Scholar on the eve of his 90th Birthday decides to give himself a gift of wild love an adolesent virgin. So he calls his old friend Rosa Cabarcas, a Brothel holder, and asks for her help in this regard and she do.
When he first sees the chosen girl, a shy 14-year-old, whom he calls Delgadina - asleep, entirely naked, in the brothel room, his life begins to change completely. He never speaks to her nor does he learn anything about her, nor she of him. Then he starts meeting her again and again and gradually falls in love with her. He thinks of many a relaionship he had earlier with a no. of other women but no one has given him the emotions and feeling of this kind. Then he starts bringing gifts for her, writing about her in his weekly newspaper column and visualizing her in his day to day life and with these changes he becomes more and more famous in his town. In the climax. there is a period of seperation due to his possesiveness and ego, in which he realizes how much he loves her. Finally he discovers the most important thing which was absent till then from his life, LOVE of someone.
What I liked most is the character of Scholar, an oldman with a heart of young man and it starts to reveal itself as he falls in love with the girl. The world is different when you are in love. Love is strange, it makes life exciting and livable till the last breath, and an old man of 90 desires to live more then 100, only when he is in love.
My Pick :
Few of the lines in the book that I liked a lot are :
"Love taught me too late that you groom yourself for someone, you dress and perfume yourself for someone and I’d never had anyone to do that for."
"Sex is the consolation you have when you can’t have love."
""The invincible power that has moved world is unrequited love, not happy."
"Age is not how old you are but how old you feel."
With this thought let me end this Review.
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Take Care and keep Writng and Smiling
Vikky Gural
PYAR HUMEIN PHIR MILAAEGA...........