as i have mentioned before in this blog, gabriel garcía márquez's one hundred years of solitude is one of my all-time favorite books. when he passed away on may 17, i was sadden, and then next day on a visit to strand bookstore (i was in nyc) i purchased innocent eréndira and other stories in honor of him. it was in a book tote that i purchased and so kind of forgot about it, but i came across it and decided to finally read it.
i have mixed feelings about this collection of short stories. the first three stories, i absolutely adored, but the rest of the stories bored me a bit. his writing was not poor in the later, i did not find the topics interesting or compelling.
so lets start with the good. the first three stories, "innocent eréndira and her heartless grandmother", "the sea of lost time" and "death constant beyond love" were written in 1972, 1961, and 1970 respectively. they were written around one hundred years and contained that mythical, magical realism that caused me to fall in love with garcía márquez's work. growing up, i went through a period in which i loved greek mythology, and this is soft spot for myths is why i love garcía márquez's work. one hundred years and these stories remind me of myths, they are filled magical seas and lands, individuals with special talents and gifts, and the crossing between the dreamworld and reality. i quickly become lost in these stories, caught up in their magic.
the title story, innocent eréndira and her heartless grandmother is the story of eréndira, a young girl who was a slave to her grandmother and as the title states, she was heartless. poor eréndira, worked all day and night taking care of fat grandmother, and one evening, her wind of misfortune, caused their mansion to burn down. since eréndira caused the fire, she had to pay her grandmother back. i hate to be such a prude but i was shocked by how eréndira earned her money. her grandmother turned her into a whore, she sold her body! i know i was so shocked to read that! eréndira did fall in love with a magical young man, and he saved her on his second attempt. but they do not end up together, which i found disappointing but i think in order to escape her misfortune she had to escape everything.
"the sea of lost time", i enjoyed as well, specifically the actual sea, which held a village and the dead, including the most beautiful woman in the world, old jacob's dead wife. the sex in this story shocked me too, there was a prostitute that slept with 100 at $5 a piece. but i did enjoy tobias and his wife sex life being described as doing it as earthworms and rabbits. lol. i liked "death constant beyond love" for it's ending, though again my inner prude was shocked that a father gave up his daughter like that. enjoyable tales though my inner prude blushed as i read.
after those three stories, i began to lose interest in the collection. his stories from the 40's and 50's were not for me. i didn't enjoy the topic of death. i understand, as a child, i was always frightened of death because i imagined that i would be conscious of the world around me. this fear would keep me up at night. it was though garcía márquez's stories from this time was his confrontation of this fear. each story is told from a spirit/ghost/energy's perspective that has died. they were well-written, but the subject matter didn't interest me. "eva is inside her cat" was just bizarre, why didn't she just return to the cat, reincarnation is better than nothing. though i must admit that they were not all bad, i did enjoy "eyes of a blue dog", the story of lovers that meet in their dreams but can not remember the next day so they can meet in real life. i also liked "someone has been disarranging these roses", this spirit was fine with his death and simply wanted to put roses on his grave. all the other stories were good because they were written by garcía márquez but they did not remind me why i love his work.
check out this collection of stories, and i won't judge you if you only read the first three.
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