First things first: Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Memories of My Melancholy Whores, touted as his first novel in 10 years, is anything but. Clocking in at a slim 115 pages, Whores is a glorified short story; a novella at best. The term "novel" suggests dense layers of narrative and fictive powers; what we have here is sparse and straightforward storytelling -- as light and fluffy as last week's mashed potatoes.
If I sound a bit incensed, it's only because such a short offering by such a great contemporary writer is a tease, a curt little slap in the face. Is it fair to whine and beg for the same novelistic feats like One Hundred Years of Solitude or Autumn of the Patriarch instead of this little homily? As is, Whores should be nestled inside a short story collection. On its own, however, it reads more like a diversion, a way for Marquez and his publishers to satiate literary nerds until his next major work.
"I don't have to say so because people can see it from leagues away: I'm ugly, shy, and anachronistic. But by dint of not wanting to be those things I have pretended to be just the opposite." And so Marquez introduces us to our nameless hero, a 90-year-old newspaper columnist who decides to celebrate his 90th year on earth by indulging in "a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin."
Aside from the numerous paid professionals (read: whores) that parade in and out of the protagonist's sexual memories, there has been no spontaneous, emotional intimacy in his life. Indeed, his only solid relationship in this novella is with Rosa Cabarcas, the madame of the whorehouse where he attempts to fulfill his request.
Once alone with the young virgin -- a child laborer named Delgadina -- his carnal needs soon make way for more complex emotional ones. Their wordless, sexless interactions with one another become a conduit for our hero's journey (however brief) toward self-discovery.
"I sailed on my love for Delgadina with an intensity and happiness I had never known in my former life," the journalist recalls. "Thanks to her I confronted my inner self for the first time as my ninetieth year went by ... I discovered that I am not disciplined out of virtue but as a reaction to my negligence, that I appear generous in order to conceal my meanness, that I pass myself off as prudent because I am evil-minded, that I am conciliatory in order not to succumb to my repressed rage, that I am punctual only to hide how little I care about other people's time. I learned, in short, that love is not a condition of the spirit but a sign of the zodiac."
This is not so much a year of solitude in the life of our narrator but a year of social and psychological networking. Marquez's strengths as a magical realist seem muted within such a short piece of fiction.
And yet the penchant for nostalgia that hovers like dense clouds throughout much of his earlier fiction is clearly on display here. We are grateful for the discoveries that our humble columnist makes, but the trip toward them is heart-rending and burdened with an unmistakable melancholia.
The serious reader of Marquez may feel similar emotions after flipping through this quick read only to begin the wait for the next, hopefully more substantial, piece of fiction.
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