Oh how I enjoy a Márquez! La próxima vez yo lo leeré en español (quizás).
It’s a typical short novella by Márquez, with some echoes of Love in the Time of Cholera or No One Writes to the Colonel.
In the story we go to the village of Macondo (from One Hundred Years of Solitude) and sit in vigil with one of the village’s most unpopular inhabitants, the old dead doctor. Death is tangible, not sugarcoated, as the characters sit around his open coffin.
A man (named the Colonel) and his daughter and grandson are there to see the doctor off to his afterlife, fulfilling a promise made to the doctor by the Colonel. This code of loyalty is a complex one and the Colonel feels compelled to help the doctor on his way despite the doctor’s actions during an earlier tenancy at their house.
The story unfolds in snatches, moments, and memories. The atmosphere is oppressive, mysterious, and even sultry. I love some of the inherent ambiguity.
Leaf Storm came out in 1955, first translated in the 70s.
This is apparently the first appearance of the village of Macondo and there are themes here that are developed in One Hundred Years of Solitude, a book I haven’t read yet!
I love how the book unravels its central mysteries slowly. Like all of his work, there are a lot of interesting characters and vignettes here.
One word: honeyed.
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