Secondary source, Reviews of Gabriel García Márquez's Books and Stories
Publication Date:
November 22, 2005
Published:
New York, NY : The New York Times Company
Location:
Library, University of Illinois
Related Item Details:
Section E; Column 1; The Arts/Cultural Dest;
Notes:
In reviewing the book, this article by Michiko Kakutani criticizes Memoirs of My Melancholy Whores, stating that "like the entries in his 1993 collection "Strange Pilgrims," this tale demonstrates that the shorter form of the story does not lend itself to Mr. García Márquez's talents: his penchant for huge, looping, elliptical narratives that move back and forth in time is cramped in this format, as is his desire to map the panoramic vistas of an individual's entire life. The fertile inventiveness that animated his masterpiece "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is decidedly muted in these pages, and the reverence for the mundane realities of ordinary life, showcased in more recent works , seems attenuated as well. As a result, "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" feels like brittle little fable composed on automatic pilot."