Memories of My Melancholy Whores - Marquez

Translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman.
First published 2004; translation 2005

An old man wants to celebrates his 90th birthday by sleeping with a young virgin.

This is a man who has spent his life in pursuit of art and scholarship and prurient pleasures. He has never married and lived all his life alone working as a journalist. At 90 and fearful of death, when he stands at the edge of the virgin’s bed, before he can do anything, and before he knows it, he falls in love with her – falls in love for the first time in his life! – and wants to save her from the life of a prostitute.

Love descends on him with its disturbing components: he expects loyalty from the girl but explodes into a fit of rage when he suspects she’s been sleeping with other customers. Things begin to awry from that point on and he desperately tries to forget her and move on. But can he?

The book explores questions of old age, self-image, loyalty, and to fall in love when people expect you to fall into the grave!

Despite it’s title and the storyline the novel is not at all sexually graphic or frivolous in how it deals with the concupiscent life of the main character.

I won’t say it is as good as other Marquez novels but it is a pleasurable read, short and direct. It is typical Marquezine: masterful and objective, telling the story with remarkable facility with words of the old man, the virgin of 14 and the brothel madame who procured the girl for him.