Leaf Storm by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: book review

Leaf Storm (1955 as La Hojarasca – The Newcomer, published in English in 1972, this edition 2014) is set in the fictional town Macondo. It is 2:30 pm on Wednesday, 12 September 1928. It is the funeral of the foreign doctor – ‘the most hated man in town.’

Only Colonel Aureliano Buendia, his 30-year-old daughter Isabel, and ‘the child’ who is almost 11 years old, attend the funeral; the rest of the town would rather let the old doctor rot. Isabel wonders how they will treat her now.

The doctor, who hanged himself, was about 60-years-old, arriving in Macondo 25 years earlier, in 1903, and living for the first eight years with the Colonel until he was ‘thrown out.’ The Colonel’s Indian housemaid, Meme, left the house too so that she could live with the doctor. Six years later she left Macondo– that was 11 years ago.

Through the three narrators (three generations of the Buendia family) we learn of Isabel’s husband who abandonned her nine years ago, never to return, when ‘the child’, the boy, was two-years-old. We learn of the Colonel’s wife, Adelaida, and ‘Pup’ the priest. And we learn why the townfolk despise the foreign doctor so much.

Leaf Storm is about abandonment, loss, betrayal, rejection, solitude, reclusion and isolation, and the rituals of death. The writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014) is succinct, evocative, and sensory – but continually wafting from the pages is the scent of death.

This novella is the precursor to One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967, published in English in 1970) set in the same fictional town, with some of the same characters. Although I am reading this novella many years after reading the novel, it nevertheless excels as a stand-alone short story by the Colombian winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature. And it makes me want to read One Hundred Years again.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Comments

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass

Sister cities discussed: Canberra and Islamabad

Two months ago, in March 2015, Australia and Pakistan agreed to explore ways to deepen ties. The relationship between Australia and Pakistan has been strong for decades, and the two countries continue to keep dialogues open. The annual bilateral discussions were held in Australia in March to continue engagements on a wide range of matters of mutual interest. The Pakistan delegation discussed points of interest will include sports, agriculture, economic growth, trade, border protection, business, and education. The possible twinning of the cities of Canberra, the capital of Australia, and Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, were also on the agenda (i.e. called twin towns or sister cities). Sister City relationships are twinning arrangements that build friendships as well as government, business, culture, and community linkages. Canberra currently has international Sister City relationships with Beijing in China and Nara in Japan. One example of existing

FEAST OR FAMINE

Search This Blog