Garcia Marquez offer back

[Hoboh]

I'll pass again if its alright with you William.

Does anyone know if Jeffery Archers retired?

Thought 'Janet and John' was more your level...

Cheeky! I read some real highbrow stuff, I've just finished the "world according to Clarkson" and its the funniest book ever!

HAHAHAH.

I think he means "funny peculiar"

No funny as in side splitingly funny! and really touching in parts when he likens putting Concorde away for good like locking up your favourite dog and never going back, ever!
Or trying to shoot a fox in the dead of night while rolling drunk.

[William the White]

I bought these first time round.

Am currently reading 'In Evil Hour'

How many have you managed so far enfield?

To be honest this is the first. Question to those who have read it. Is there a prequel?

The story is around an South American town split and resentful after an obviously bloody civil conflict, but no references are made as to when and what occurred.

He builds characters well and I find myself liking the Mayor and the Priest, more that the petty-minded villagers, in spite of their influence and power. There go my working class ideals!

Many of his novels are set in 'Macondo' - a regional town, often unnamed, on a river, at a time after civil war, often under military or dictatorial rule, rotting in bureaucracy, with ruling families and the poor, priest-soaked, lot of sexual desire and 'misbehaviour', death lurking, often violent, during times when it seems that nothing can change but everything needs to, with rich foreigners and implied massacres... I can't remember 'In Evil Hour' clearly, over 20 years since i read it, but a lot of his work is self-referential, the same characters emerge, events are referred to over again, particularly civil war, and military leaders, like Colonel/General Aureliano Buendia, revolutionary leader and brigand. There is no prequel as such - but 'Macondo' makes its first appearance (I think) in 100 years of Solitude, which was my starting point for Marquez and the book that ensured him the Nobel prize... In summary - his two major themes are the impossibility and cost of being Latin American and retaining human dignity and the equal impossibility/cost of being in love...

Magnificent...

[Little Green Man]

No funny as in side splitingly funny! and really touching in parts when he likens putting Concorde away for good like locking up your favourite dog and never going back, ever!

OMG!!!!!! Did Clarkson's dog explode mid-air killing scores of German tourists? Must have missed that one!!!

[Hoboh]

No funny as in side splitingly funny! and really touching in parts when he likens putting Concorde away for good like locking up your favourite dog and never going back, ever!

OMG!!!!!! Did Clarkson's dog explode mid-air killing scores of German tourists? Must have missed that one!!!

Lippy! how many "soulless" Airbuses have smashed out or boeings gone bong?
There's plenty more queue jumpers and sun bed hogger s out there.

[William the White]

oh, enfield, your question made me research the opus and i found, to my amazement, that 'Macondo' was the location for Marquez's first published novella 'Leaf Storm'... So i was quite wrong in ascribing this to '100 years'...

So, almost certainly, In Evil Hour, another early work, is set in 'Macondo' - I'm going to dig it out and reread!

[Hoboh]

I thought this guy was Posh!!!!!! Sounds like the BFG to me

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings is a short story that begins with a husband and wife, Pelayo and Elisenda, finding a very old man in their courtyard during a stormy afternoon. They watch in astonishment the enormous wings attached to the body of the old man as he struggles to get up from the mud. The couple attempts to communicate with the old man but are unable to as he speaks in a different language. Their neighbor comes over and lets them know that the old man is an angel who has come to take their sick child. Pelayo locks the angel in a chicken coop overnight. Early next morning the local priest, Father Gonzaga, with the rest of the community in town, tests the old man to determine whether he is really an angel, with debated results. Elisenda, tired of having the community at her house, decides to charge an entrance fee to see the angel. The family becomes rich and builds a mansion with the money collected. The crowd soon loses interest in the angel as another freak has arrived in the community. The new town attraction is a woman who disobeyed her parents when she was young and was transformed into a tarantula, and now tells her misfortunes to the audience. In order for her to continue telling her stories, the people of the town tossed meatballs into her mouth as it was "her only means of nourishment." Meanwhile, no longer trapped in the chicken coop, the angel is free to roam around the house until one day he leaves the house and flies off away into the distance.

[Bruno]

The Twits is a good read.

[William the White]

I thought this guy was Posh!!!!!! Sounds like the BFG to me

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings is a short story that begins with a husband and wife, Pelayo and Elisenda, finding a very old man in their courtyard during a stormy afternoon. They watch in astonishment the enormous wings attached to the body of the old man as he struggles to get up from the mud. The couple attempts to communicate with the old man but are unable to as he speaks in a different language. Their neighbor comes over and lets them know that the old man is an angel who has come to take their sick child. Pelayo locks the angel in a chicken coop overnight. Early next morning the local priest, Father Gonzaga, with the rest of the community in town, tests the old man to determine whether he is really an angel, with debated results. Elisenda, tired of having the community at her house, decides to charge an entrance fee to see the angel. The family becomes rich and builds a mansion with the money collected. The crowd soon loses interest in the angel as another freak has arrived in the community. The new town attraction is a woman who disobeyed her parents when she was young and was transformed into a tarantula, and now tells her misfortunes to the audience. In order for her to continue telling her stories, the people of the town tossed meatballs into her mouth as it was "her only means of nourishment." Meanwhile, no longer trapped in the chicken coop, the angel is free to roam around the house until one day he leaves the house and flies off away into the distance.

The question being, hobo (though i'm pretty sure I know the answer in your case), where do you find your salvation - by imprisoning angels or feeding meat to poisonous spiders - and how can both be exploited for the means of survival?

[Hoboh]

I thought this guy was Posh!!!!!! Sounds like the BFG to me

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings is a short story that begins with a husband and wife, Pelayo and Elisenda, finding a very old man in their courtyard during a stormy afternoon. They watch in astonishment the enormous wings attached to the body of the old man as he struggles to get up from the mud. The couple attempts to communicate with the old man but are unable to as he speaks in a different language. Their neighbor comes over and lets them know that the old man is an angel who has come to take their sick child. Pelayo locks the angel in a chicken coop overnight. Early next morning the local priest, Father Gonzaga, with the rest of the community in town, tests the old man to determine whether he is really an angel, with debated results. Elisenda, tired of having the community at her house, decides to charge an entrance fee to see the angel. The family becomes rich and builds a mansion with the money collected. The crowd soon loses interest in the angel as another freak has arrived in the community. The new town attraction is a woman who disobeyed her parents when she was young and was transformed into a tarantula, and now tells her misfortunes to the audience. In order for her to continue telling her stories, the people of the town tossed meatballs into her mouth as it was "her only means of nourishment." Meanwhile, no longer trapped in the chicken coop, the angel is free to roam around the house until one day he leaves the house and flies off away into the distance.

The question being, hobo (though i'm pretty sure I know the answer in your case), where do you find your salvation - by imprisoning angels or feeding meat to poisonous spiders - and how can both be exploited for the means of survival?

If the Angel didn't play ball I'd lob it to the spider, simple!

[Lord Kangana]

I'd be tw*tting the living bejaysus out of any poisonous spider within 100 yards of me. So the Angels win by default.

[William the White]

Me too, hoboh, me too...

Life is, as you so often point out, simple...

[Hoboh]

Me too, hoboh, me too...

Life is, as you so often point out, simple...

Now your getting too clever! Don't know if feeling insulted or chuffed you agree is the correct course of emotion called for here?

[William the White]

Me too, hoboh, me too...

Life is, as you so often point out, simple...

Now your getting too clever! Don't know if feeling insulted or chuffed you agree is the correct course of emotion called for here?

I think you got to the point of Marquez's story absolutely accurately - we hover between angels and spiders testing one and then the other to see which pays us best...

[enfieldwhite]

The Twits is a good read.

Yes. My 8 year old daughter also recommends it.

[bobo the clown]

ten books from the master of 20th Century literature for £9.99

http://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/w ... __category_

Includes his greatest two novels - Love in the Time of Cholers and 100 Years of Solitude, his brilliant Autumn of the Patriarch and vol 1 of his auto-biog Living to tell the Tale...

I remember that this was on couple of years ago and some missed out...

It was last year, and they're still here, on my shelf of shame.

It was my bro who posted it on here - he bought them for me for Christmas and I've not read a single page either.

http://www.the-wanderer.co.uk/boards/vi ... ht=marquez

Is Verbal your brother? I thought Batman was.

tee-hee-hee.

[Zulus Thousand of em]

It gets his post count up Bobo. So all's not lost eh?

[Bruno]

Jean-Luc Picard

[Athers]

Bought, chucked in a few other things to get me just past the £25 free delivery marker as well. Should see me sorted for the Winter.

[TANGODANCER]

Mine arrived this morning. El Coronel has to be first, to see if it differs from the Spanish version in translation.

[enfieldwhite]

I've noticed a few typo's, and the paper quality isn't the best, but it's good value for £6.00

Enjoy TD