Finished Candide by Voltaire a few days ago. Entertaining and a bit silly at times but I guess that's what satire is about. As I mentioned previously, I love the Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions and this one was a pleasure to read. The cover art added even more irreverence to the story and the diagram of the cast of characters inside the cover flap is cool. I'm currently reading the Nobel Prize winning One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It's been interesting so far and even a bit bizarre. One of the things that got me pumped about it though is an excerpt from a review by William Kennedy of the New York Times Book Review. Kennedy says, "The first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race." Uh, that's kind of a big statement. We'll see if it lives up to it. I'm about 60 pages in.
2 comments:
Not to be discouraging, but I bailed on One Hundred Years after 100 pages of pure torture. I can handle 1000-page biographies of Churchill, but Marquez's stories, to me, were simply confusing and goofy.
i hear ya squidman. it's kinda weird, there are a lot of names, and i really have to pay close attention while i'm reading it. i'm hoping that it comes around and will really hit me in the end but so far it's just been kind of bizarre. i'm encouraged to know that even a literary giant like you had a hard time finishing it.
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