Realization

Of Love & Other Demons
Gabriel Garcia Marquez; ©1994
Fiction; 160pgs

As part of my continuing education in all things Marquez, I read this book directly after finishing A Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Though similar in length and setting, Of Love... is a wholly separate beast. Among other threads, it revolves mainly around a young girl and the affecting power she has on the world around her.

The prose in Of Love & Other Demons has a rather methodical gait. It plods forward, like an unassuming moose. As one reads, the book patiently leads the reader, lulling one into a sort of malaise. While one is vitally interested, one is never enraptured. In the last fourth of the book, the work blossoms into something unmistakably powerful and beautiful. It is a profound marvel, like walking out of a dark theater into a dazzlingly sunny afternoon...disorienting, yet wonderful. This book, of all I've read, illustrates Marquez's unique finishing power. I'm not certain I've ever found an author so adept with endings.

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