innocent eréndira and other stories. gabriel garcía márquez.

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.

midnight's children. salman rushdie. (87)

i waited almost a year for salman rushdie's "midnight children". a year. i think the library has a policy where if a person requests a book from the library it is originally from they get priority over others already on the request list. i can only assume this is why i waited forever.

it had been so long that when i finally got "midnight's children" i forgot why i checked it out, i know it was flavorpill inspired. i tried googling it but came up with nothing. (though i did discover that a movie version is coming out so that became a reason to read it.). since i couldn't find a post, i realized that i had requested the book by mistake. i had wanted his new book and ended up with "midnight's children" instead. (i just realized how this mix-up was a perfect set up for this book.)

but even with the mix-up the book looked interesting. the cover declared it as a winner of the booker prize. and when i googled it, "midnight's children" was compared to "one hundred years of solitude" (which we all know i absolutely love). however, i did not fall in love "midnight children" like i expected. "one hundred years" it was not. with garcia marquez's classic, i couldn't put it down and became invested in the family. this didn't exactly happen with "midnight'd children".

to be completely honest, i found "midnight's children" a challenge to read. i never give up on books, but the thought to stop often crossed my mind. and it's not that the premise for the book is bad. saleem sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on the day of india's independence and ends up with special powers. he and all the children born in that hour have special powers and they make up the midnight's children conference. intriguing , right?

i think that part of my issue with the book was that based on synopses i read online, i was expecting a book about the midnight children's conference but instead it is solely saleem's biography. so in my head i kept waiting for them to appear and they rarely did. i have to add i blame googling for this, if i just read the backcover i would have known better. lesson: read don't take short cuts.

another thing that i struggled with were the historical references. saleem's life truly mirrored the course of india's history. i am not familiar with indian and pakistani history so a lot of the references went over my head. though thanks to google i did learn that indira ghandi did have white and black hair (and just like saleem wrote, i was misled by her surname). and that morarji desai was actually a urine drinker, though the book made it sound more sinister like some sexual perversion instead of being for health reasons. however, i often got lost in the political and war talk so those parts were quite tedious for me. i also felt like i was missing out on some foreshadowing because i wasn't familiar with india's history. for example, was the midnight child who could time travel correctly predict the future? if anyone can help me i would greatly appreciate it!

but what i found the most tedious was how long it took rushdie, as saleem, to get to the point or the meat of his stories. i mean the climax of the story comes at page 491 . . . there are 533 pages total. and i mean his stories are great, brilliant! but he's kinda liked my sister, jill, she gets so lost in random details that i often stop listening to her stories or ask her to pick it up.

but let me reiterate his stories are brilliant! and i have to admit that there was mythical element to his tales that was very one hundred years-esque (but garcia marquez is the superior storyteller.) i loved the tale of how his grandparents met and the perforated sheet. i like saleem, fell in love with his sister, brass monkey and enjoyed how as a child she would set fire to shoes. the story of saleem's birth and the secret of mary pereira took me by surprise. i was on the edge of my seat with the tale of commander sabarmati's baton. i was scare of the jungle which reminded me of the forest of "the hobbit". and i loved hearing about all of the secret powers of the midnight children but wished he would would have wrote more about them.

there were also some very sad and tragic moments in the story. like how saleem lost his family. or what happen to his favorite uncle. i was also heartbroken with the end of the midnight's children. what made their end was worse was that it was pointless. because the widow didn't even come into power. and i believe in the end of shiva, i believe saleem's lie.

the heart of the story was great it was just cluttered which made it difficult to love. if rushdie was more straight forward with his writing and focused on the stories, it would have been great.

also this was the first book that i used my first bookmarks for my friends shawn and dan. they are super cute and allow me to take notes which is helpful with the blog. this is the one i wrote for this book:

so here are my notes:

i wrote down "mercurochrome" because it reminded me of my grandfather. saleem's grandfather was a doctor and he helped care for protesters for india's independence and appliesd it to them which results in him looking bloody which frightened his wife. this reminded me of my grandfather, he used to use mercurochrome which always confused me as a child. he would put on his cuts which made him look more bloody.

i wrote down swastika because when saleem told the story of lifafa das. saleem described the scene of his attack with a swastika on the wall but not the "nazi swastika which was the wrong way round, but the ancient hindu symbol of power. svasti in sanskrit for good." i am not sure how the nazi ended up using it but it was interesting to see how a symbol can take on one negative connotation and be ruined for all of history.

last but not least, padma from "top chef". so the first thing i noticed was the character padma and wonder if she was named for padma lakshmi. padma was rushdie's second wife but they were not married, let alone knew each other at the time that he wrote "midnight's children" so that was not the case. but how odd that he ended up marrying the name of a lover of one of his characters?!? also padma is nothing like the other padma in terms of looks/size but both cook. i read that a character in his new book is based on her and their troubled marriage, so will have to check that out.

so yes even though this book was tedious, i have not given up on salman rushdie and look forward to reading his works. hopefully they don't take another year to get to me when i request them.

a book vending machine and "my ideal bookshelf".

i have often debated about whether i should post links to book-related things that i find. i decided not to because most of the time i would be posting links to flavorpill. (if you aren't on their mailing list you should join, they are a great source for neat stuff if you love books, art, music and film.) but . . .

my friend joann emailed me a link to an NPR article about the monkey paw's book vending machine! and it has to be shared. how cool, right?!?! i am a sucker for $1 book bins. so this is right up my alley. i also love the randomness of the books. you never know what you are going to get it! and i do agree this would be great for kids because it's almost like they are getting a toy. my brother will carry around a 25¢ vending machine toy like its gold, so i am sure the same would happen with a book. i would love to see this in bookstores. hmmm they should get on kickstarter.

i also decided to post a link to a flavorpill article about the ideal bookshelves of famous readers. the article is about the book "my ideal bookshelf" by thesslay la force and features adorable drawings of bookshelves. in the flavorpill article, james franco is featured. seriously can the boy be even more dreamier? he sat with marina abramović and loves "one hundred years of solitude" i mean can we say ideal man?!?! i mean the acting thing doesn't make me swoon but ho's art realm persona does. but back to the book, what a great idea? i might draw my ideal bookshelf for myself!