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

2016 update on Rike Park, Tbilisi: from construction to busy park

From a flat patch of uninteresting dirt, Rike Park in Tbilisi, Georgia, has transformed in four years (from 2014-2016) into a busy park full of trees, flower beds, sculptures, fountains, and events. Rike (Rikhe) Park is on the left bank of the Mt’k’vari River (the Kura River) near the Old City of Tbilisi. The Peace Bridge links the right bank to Rike Park. Rike Park is below the hillside Presidential Palace and, via cable car, it is the starting point for the ride to Sololaki Ridge (with the Narikala Fortress and the Mother of Georgia statue). The glass box-shaped cable car terminus was opened on 23 June 2012, and since then the park has continually developed into a ‘people’s park’ where people can walk around, eat at the nearby restaurants, sit next to the statue of American president Ronald Reagan, climb the steps to Avlabari district, and access the sights of Meidan Square, the Peace Bridge, the Metekhi Church, the Old City, the waterfall, the sulphur baths, and t...

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. ...

Hop on hop off bus tourism comes to Tbilisi, Georgia

City Sightseeing buses have arrived in Tbilisi. The iconic red double-decker buses, a feature of many cities around the world since the company was established in Seville, Spain in 1999, is now in six continents and almost 100 cities. The company established its Tbilisi business in November 2013, with its operations commencing in February 2014. The 90-minute tour stops at 11 major locations in Tbilisi (with 2 to 5 minute waiting times at each location): the Old City (where it commences), Freedom Square, Rose Revolution Square, Marjanishvili Square, the Dry Bridge, Konka, Avlabari, Metekhi, Akhundov Museum, the Sulfur Baths, and European Square. Passengers can hop off at any stop and see the sights, hopping back onto the next bus at any time. Alternatively, passengers can remain on the bus for the whole tour and take photographs when the bus stops at each location. There are one day (24-hour) passes (for 35 lari – about $20) and 48-hour passes for 55 lari, with family d...

FEAST OR FAMINE

Search This Blog