Author : Gabriel Garcia Marquez
What is it about : A "novella" set in a South American township/island, about the daily life of a retired colonel - edgy exchanges with his asthmatic wife, finding scrapes of foods to feed his treasured bird before the next cock-fighting season, figuring out where the next Pesos would be coming from and most eager of all, waiting hopefully at the dock every Friday (for the past fifteen years) for the news of his delayed pension money.
Some thoughts after having read the book : Despite the book being the length of a short essay, the author showed his masterful pen strokes and painted an intense and colorful story packed with interesting characters together with a taut plot. The readers would feel that they too lived in a shanty town where nothing much ever happened other than placing a tin can under a leaky roof, watching the Friday boat-docking, the wait of the start of the cock-fighting season or a very un-appetizing lunch of mush corn. I would guess the author managed to conjure up such intense imagery in such a short space, by focusing each character into just "doing" or "performing" just one task - the colonel "being optimistic", the wife "being worried", the postman "being un-caring", the cock "just surviving" and the rich land-owner "not being bothered". A good method of writing a short novel.
Would I recommend this book to you : Yes ! If you have a few hours to spare, or wanting to immerse as a bystander in a dream-like South American township or you would like to learn how a "Pro" applied his writing methodology - go get this book out !
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