‘Memory composes a story of shames and amazements.’
Czelaw Milosz, I Should Know
Imagine two newspaper columnists with enormous libido - one is a closeted married gay man, the other is a nonagenarian bachelor who frequented brothels to satisfy his urges. It is a great deal for me to have read two novels that are incidentally written by distinguished journalists.
After taking a 10-year hiatus, Gabriel García Márquez came up with a powerful novel that transcends love, lust, and life in Memoria de mis putas tristes (Memories of my melancholy whores, translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman; New York : Knopf, 2005. 115 pages). The 1982 Nobel Prize winner proved that he has still the literary flame, keeping the trademark García Márquez style in his prose, that is, tempered narrative technique. You’ll never get a headache reading García Márquez’s texts. It is simple enough to be read by majority of readers but critically Marquez shows aspiring writers how they should work on their prose.
Even with the opening sentence, Marquez draws an impact - "The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin." Marquez has also chosen not to reveal the name of his protagonist. His name is not important. What is important is the element of the story and how it evolves.
Set in the 1950s in a Colombian coastal town, the story shows how the protagonist, a columnist for a Sunday newspaper El Diario de la Paz, has found love, at last, after so many trips to the brothel, with a powerful element so uncontrollable which he cannot even understand. (See, you so think columnists are invincible; they are human, too).
Told in a first-person point of view, it is a great contribution to the romantic genre. Imagine a 90-year-old man falling in love with a 14-year-old girl, certainly a virgin. The protagonist even lost count of the number of times he has had sex; it was 514 in his last count when he was at age 50, thus, “I have never gone to bed with a woman I didn’t pay, and the few who weren’t in the profession I persuaded, by argument or by force, to take money even if they threw it in the trash. When I was twenty I began to keep a record listing name, age, place, and a brief notation on the circumstances and style of lovemaking.” Imagine that. Now at age ninety, kaya pa ba ni tatang? Well, that’s the power of fiction. (Last week, I even had the pleasure of meeting a 102-year-old woman at a social lunch in a church organization here in Rochester. Well, she’s still able but I cannot think of any man in that age can be that active sexually. Okay, we have read reports about old men involved in rape cases involving minors).
Overall, Marquez has not lost the charm as a storyteller. Grossman has done an excellent translation.
The second novel is an amusing novel. Not only that it tackles gay love but it also has a controversial appeal.
Someone you know by Gary Zebrun (Alyson Books, LA, 2004, 198 pages) tells the story of a closeted columnist who got entangled in a series of controversies, primarily on the slaying of the men he had sex with. Zebrun’s character, Daniel Caruso, has a wife and a daughter whom he loves deeply but his life is a mess. Caruso lives another life far away from his reputation – a respected columnist whom people trusted.
The story began with the main character meeting a handsome firefighter in a bar, whom he ended up in bed with and whom he later learned, after waking up alone in the hunk’s pad, was brutally murdered. What was trivial was he knew that the condom his one-night-stand lover used leaked (hmm, what brand do you think it was?) but he did not stop his lover from accomplishing the act. Later he also found out a bottle of AZT tablets from the cupboard of his lover’s bathroom. AZT is the drug used to treat HIV-positive individuals. Well, our journalist author (who works as the news editor of The Providence Journal) must also be an advocate of safe-sex.
The story, told in a first-person point of view, is full with gay sexual escapades; one might think that it is the sole purpose of the story. The author takes us to the world of homosexual life – sex in bathhouses, etc. - and the bizarre twist of the story. You’ll definitely wonder who the culprit is.
The high-point of the story is our protagonist revealing to his wife and daughter that he is gay and accounted to her his sexual encounters. Even after the revelation he continued with these encounters. Well, some men cannot just control their urges.
Czelaw Milosz, I Should Know
Imagine two newspaper columnists with enormous libido - one is a closeted married gay man, the other is a nonagenarian bachelor who frequented brothels to satisfy his urges. It is a great deal for me to have read two novels that are incidentally written by distinguished journalists.
After taking a 10-year hiatus, Gabriel García Márquez came up with a powerful novel that transcends love, lust, and life in Memoria de mis putas tristes (Memories of my melancholy whores, translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman; New York : Knopf, 2005. 115 pages). The 1982 Nobel Prize winner proved that he has still the literary flame, keeping the trademark García Márquez style in his prose, that is, tempered narrative technique. You’ll never get a headache reading García Márquez’s texts. It is simple enough to be read by majority of readers but critically Marquez shows aspiring writers how they should work on their prose.
Even with the opening sentence, Marquez draws an impact - "The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin." Marquez has also chosen not to reveal the name of his protagonist. His name is not important. What is important is the element of the story and how it evolves.
Set in the 1950s in a Colombian coastal town, the story shows how the protagonist, a columnist for a Sunday newspaper El Diario de la Paz, has found love, at last, after so many trips to the brothel, with a powerful element so uncontrollable which he cannot even understand. (See, you so think columnists are invincible; they are human, too).
Told in a first-person point of view, it is a great contribution to the romantic genre. Imagine a 90-year-old man falling in love with a 14-year-old girl, certainly a virgin. The protagonist even lost count of the number of times he has had sex; it was 514 in his last count when he was at age 50, thus, “I have never gone to bed with a woman I didn’t pay, and the few who weren’t in the profession I persuaded, by argument or by force, to take money even if they threw it in the trash. When I was twenty I began to keep a record listing name, age, place, and a brief notation on the circumstances and style of lovemaking.” Imagine that. Now at age ninety, kaya pa ba ni tatang? Well, that’s the power of fiction. (Last week, I even had the pleasure of meeting a 102-year-old woman at a social lunch in a church organization here in Rochester. Well, she’s still able but I cannot think of any man in that age can be that active sexually. Okay, we have read reports about old men involved in rape cases involving minors).
Overall, Marquez has not lost the charm as a storyteller. Grossman has done an excellent translation.
The second novel is an amusing novel. Not only that it tackles gay love but it also has a controversial appeal.
Someone you know by Gary Zebrun (Alyson Books, LA, 2004, 198 pages) tells the story of a closeted columnist who got entangled in a series of controversies, primarily on the slaying of the men he had sex with. Zebrun’s character, Daniel Caruso, has a wife and a daughter whom he loves deeply but his life is a mess. Caruso lives another life far away from his reputation – a respected columnist whom people trusted.
The story began with the main character meeting a handsome firefighter in a bar, whom he ended up in bed with and whom he later learned, after waking up alone in the hunk’s pad, was brutally murdered. What was trivial was he knew that the condom his one-night-stand lover used leaked (hmm, what brand do you think it was?) but he did not stop his lover from accomplishing the act. Later he also found out a bottle of AZT tablets from the cupboard of his lover’s bathroom. AZT is the drug used to treat HIV-positive individuals. Well, our journalist author (who works as the news editor of The Providence Journal) must also be an advocate of safe-sex.
The story, told in a first-person point of view, is full with gay sexual escapades; one might think that it is the sole purpose of the story. The author takes us to the world of homosexual life – sex in bathhouses, etc. - and the bizarre twist of the story. You’ll definitely wonder who the culprit is.
The high-point of the story is our protagonist revealing to his wife and daughter that he is gay and accounted to her his sexual encounters. Even after the revelation he continued with these encounters. Well, some men cannot just control their urges.
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