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/lit/ - Literature

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6644977 No.6644977 [Reply] [Original]

Is this one of the most overrated books ever? It's long, boring, and when it gets political it's the worst thing in the world, until that point it was actually a good book.

>> No.6644990

actually its good, and the bad one, is you. sorry for owning you.

>> No.6645020

>>6644977
>translation

>> No.6645053

>>6645020

I'm spanish native, so i read it in spanish.

>> No.6645054

just moments before seeing this thread i ordered seven of his books from amazon, if possible i'd like to hear what you guys really think of his work and not just >>6645020 muh translations

>> No.6645079

>>6645054
>buying seven books from an author you are unfamiliar with

>> No.6645125

>>6645079
this might sound like a brag but i have the money for it, i've heard nothing but good things and if i end up not liking it i could always give it away or let it fill my bookshelves...still, i'd like to hear what you anons think of marquez

>> No.6645140

>>6645054
>>6645125
He's one of the greatest writers of the 20th century in any language. One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera are both masterpieces. Almost nothing he's written is bad. You could hardly choose a better author to buy 7 books of sight unseen.

>> No.6645175

>>6645020
Spanish translates so well into English.

Maybe Edith Grossman is just a god but I stand by that opinion.

>> No.6645178

>>6645140
cool, alright well now i cant wait till next tuesday to get these books, what order should i begin, here's what i'm getting

>love in a time of cholera
>autumn of the patriarch
>living to tell the tale
>the general and his labyrinth
>news of a kidnapping
>chronicle of a death foretold
>collected stories

>> No.6645183

This is probably my favorite book.

>> No.6645192

>>6645178
You didnt get 100yos?

>> No.6645200

>>6645192
no, i didn't, i'll order it now though, add it to the list

>> No.6645207

The first half was a little better and more interesting than the second half and I felt it lost some steam after the story started to encompass the family of Aurielano Segundo's generation, but overall still really good. 7.5/10

>> No.6645212

>>6645192
>>6645200
had to get some chesterton anyway, might as well add 100yos too

>> No.6645216

>>6644977
nice bait

>> No.6645217

>>6645200
might as well add No One Writes to the Colonel to complete the pantheon. havent read it myself but fuck it

>> No.6645225

>>6645217
fuck it, let's add it

>> No.6645252

>>6644977
As a Colombian I think you have to know the whole context (plus having lived a bit of what the guy lived in his childhood which I did) to understand the thing completely. Things like "checkered floors" (he coined the term in Spanish) or Zurumbáticos, which I have no idea how they translated to English, are unofficial words that make us think of our grandma/mom/neighbor using words known only in that region. That's a simple and concrete one, but there's a lot more that I can't describe because I'm dumb and I don't study Sociology.
Sure, a good author is probably able to be universal, which means García Márquez wasn't good enough. But it's good if you try to see the world behind the words. What he lived and thought, if you will.
Also, his later books are loved by the critics. Maybe you can look them up.

>> No.6645259

>>6645178
Dude, chronological order is always the best. Even more so with this guy. Reading his earlier stories that he wrote in some shitty cafeteria and moving to bigger works is a great experience.

>> No.6645263

The masterpice of García Márquez is No one Writes to the Colonel. 100 year of solitute was writen to please the literally establishment..l and it still a solid piece of amazing narative. He got old... and slopy

>> No.6645281

>>6645259
yeah, that's true and what i was going to do unless someone recommended stuff to read before other things

>>6645263
i could only find the colonel in the original spanish, luckily i could read spanish

>> No.6645294

>>6645263
Man I hate that title. It changes so much from the spanish, literally "The colonel has no one who'll write to him". I just feel it's more powerful.

>> No.6645315

>>6645294
>El coronel no tiene quien le escriba
>No one Writes to the Colonel

raised on spanish and english and can honestly say both these phrases carry the same sentiment. you're full of shit, anon

>> No.6645331

>>6645315
Nah, with No one... it feels like, no one writes to me, I don't give a fuck. Meanwhile, Has no one... feels like he needs that someone who'll write to him.
Now of course that sounds loveydovey but it's just the feeling I get. It's how it works in Colombia, maybe it's a regional thing.

>> No.6645345

>>6645175
Marquez seems to translate particularly well into English, for whatever bizarre reason (interested in theories if anyone has one).

>> No.6645350

>>6645331
'No one' implies he has no one to write to him. the idgaf could easily be transferred to the 'has no one...but idgaf' too if you want to go that route

>> No.6645363

>>6645315
I agree with >>6645331 - the difference is that the active party in English is "no one" and the active party in Spanish is "the colonel." With the English you think more about the other people, with the Spanish you think about the colonel and his implied desire to have someone write to him.

>> No.6645369

>>6645363
Jesus, thank you for putting it into words.

>> No.6645373

>>6645363
yeah, that's true, i could see that...this is the only discussion i've had on /lit/ that didn't resort to faggot and plebe and other insults in months lol

>> No.6646053

>>6645178
>chronicle of a death foretold

I would start there.

>> No.6646135

I just finished it and I didn't like it. I really like his short stories, i.e. A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings and The General, but this book just felt all over the damn place and abstract almost to the point of incomprehensibility. He tries to anchor the narrative with a consistent family timeline, which is Dostoyevskian and admirable, but then everyone turns out to be named almost exactly the same, which obfuscates the emotional and narrative impact of character deaths.I kept confusing characters at first. I got used to it after about 100 pages but, fuck, that was annoying.

Nothing garnered a sense of urgency for me because I knew that even if a character died his son or daughter or whatever would be the new protagonist(s) and I would have to repeat the process of trying to learn to care for the new perspectives over and over again. I just found reading the book excruciating.

I can understand people loving the actual prose and the imagery, but fuck, the actual narrative was just weak.

Why go through all that shit and just end it with no solid thematic basis? Goodness gracious.

>> No.6646152

>>6645054
enjoyable, probably wouldn't read 7 books unless I spread it out over a few years.

>> No.6648372

>>6645178
Chronicle. It is short and quite inventive. Will give you a good idea of what he's about.

>> No.6648381

>>6645207
The ending was GOAT. Like some Borges tier shit.

>> No.6648396

I agree with Bolaño when says Marquez-- and magical realism in general -- is shit.

>> No.6648409

>>6645217
I read it in Spanish and was pretty good.