It's inevitable that this book should be somewhat off-putting compared to One Hundred Years of Solitude or Love in the Time of Cholera--Autumn of the Patriarch isn't really meant to be a 'pleasant' read. It is a grim portrait of the title character, and other characters come and go without having inner lives of their own; they have relevance only insofar as they intersect with his life. It is without a doubt one of the least novelistic novels you will ever read--indeed, in many ways it's more like a prolonged character study than a novel.

Some people complain about the style in which the book is written--no paragraph breaks, few chapter breaks, long run-on sentences (the final chapter--fifty pages or so--is one massive sentence), perspective shifts mid-sentence and even mid-clause--but the truth of the matter is that, although this can become a little bit wearing at times, it is by no means 'difficult.' Not in the sense that Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow, and Absalom, Absalom! are difficult. It can occasionally be disorienting, but in general it's always pretty easy to tell what's going on, and the style results in a surreal, dreamlike atmosphere that, I think, is perfect for describing the General's long, nightmarish reign. Sure, it could have been written in a more conventional style, and it could well have still been a good book, but Garcia Marquez's decision to push narrative boundaries provides just the right feel. After all, the General is a composite of many Meso and South American tyrants, and to couch his reign in more concrete, everyday terms would have taken away some of his universality (his selling of the Caribbean is a clear demonstration of this, as well as one of the most striking literary metaphors you'll ever encounter). He isn't really a human being; he's an implacable, negative force. For all his flailing around, occasionally making half-hearted and futile efforts to change, his life ultimately has no other meaning.

Autumn of the Patriarch certainly isn't the best of Garcia Marquez's movels to start with (that would be One Hundred Years of Solitude, of course), but it's an important part of his oeuvre, even if it's not as 'fun.' I recommend it to literate people everywhere.

Written during 1968-1975, Marquez has fashioned a grand narrative of a Caribbean tyrant caught in the prison of his own power, slowly losing it and dying (with shades of Lear and Macbeth).Garcia Marquez's theme is once again solitude. The language is more like a poem than a novel -- sentences run on for pages, changing voice several times before coming to a period. This style can be irritating, forcing re-reading to find out who is speaking or acting, but it also lends a dream-like, fluid quality that perfectly embodies the ambiguity of reason and truth. In this it is Post Modern. In it's surreal content and luxuriant sensual prose (the translation by Gregory Rabassa is an inspiration), it shows who is the father of Magical Realism. It is worth reading alone for the details -- a herniated testicle that whistles, the effete torturer listening to Bruckner records, the mighty dictator napping in a hammock under tamarind trees at his mother's house while his cabinet ministers argue the fine points of law, and the final act that brings ruin on his nation -- the sale of the sea (numbered and boxed for shipping) to foreign creditors.

Beware, those of you who have not read a Gabriel Garcia Marquez book yet! The style and literary techniques employed by the venerable author here are not, at first, user-friendly. In place of a sequence of actions, a run-on assault of descriptions tell the tale of a seemingly immortal yet completely despicable Caribbean tyrant. Sentences last for pages, each chapter is but one paragraph, the narrative perspective changes in mid-sentence, etc: This anti-traditional approach proves to be extremely rewarding, I felt the ending was even better than the build-up. Worthy of a score of Doctorate theses--but none by my hand. Upon finishing this book you will be awakened to a unique artistic literary style by one of the century's greatest authors--then go out and buy yourself some more Marquez novels. The more straightforward "General in his Labyrinth" and the illustrious "100 Years of Solitude" I also highly recommend.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez applied his special tatic of mystery and confusion just like the famous boo, ¡°One Hundred Years of Solitude here. It describes a story of the murder case that happened 27 years ago in a town where the narrator, ¡°me¡± of the book grew up. It is based on a true story which the author heard when he grow up. But, the story was modified and fictionalized by him. There are so many characters in the book that the readers have to pay special attention to keep track of all of them; it is very easy to get confused.
Santiago Nasar who is murdered brutally had not even known the reason for his death. He was confused when he was informed that the Vicario brothers wanted to kill him. ¡°I don¡¯t understand a God-damned thing¡±(p.135) The Vicario brothers, Pedro and Pablo feels that they were obliged to kill Santiago since their sister, Angela confesses he was the one who took her virginity. Without any future investigation or proof, they decide to kill Santiago. Angela marries a rich guy named Bayardo San Roman who has just come in to the town looking for a girl to get married. Unfortunately, Bayardo finds out that Angela is not a virgin after the wedding and then returns her home. Angela takes a little time and tells her brothers that it was Santiago. The Vicario brothers feel that Santiago has dishonored their family and that they have to kill him. This news gets spread between townsmen, but nobody dares to take it seriously. The death, which could be prevented, then occurs when the Vicario brothers meet Santiago in front of his house.
The narrator interviews all the people who were involved in that incident 27 years later, but never explain or clarify whether Santiago actually took Angela¡¯s virginity or not. Also, it is not clear why people did not help Santiago.
There has been controversy over whether it rained or not on the day in which Santiago is brutally murdered. Some claims that it rained when the others say it was a beautiful shiny day. Santiago could avoid the murder if he had sat down with his future father-in-law and talk about the murder plan of the Vicario. Extremely confused, he just wanders around and finally finds his house when the Vicario brothers have been waiting for his appearance. It is a mystery who actually took Angela¡¯s virginity. ¡°She looked for it in the shadows, she found it at first sight among the many, many easily confused names from this world and the other¡¦¡±(p. 53) The Townsmen claim that Angela picked Santiago since he was pretty powerful and wealthy guy in the town. They think that there is a secret lover she protected. Santiago faces his death without even knowing why he had to be killed.
Chronicle of a death foretold has a lot of mystery which arouse people¡¯s curiosity. The readers want to read more and more, however, at the end nothing gets clarified. The inhumane `murder of Santiago is the only thing that is explained well.

Marquez's book Chronicle is a poignant novel and its relationship with real life events makes the story especially intriguing. Set in Columbia, the novel highlights the tradition of "machismo" and the strong Hispanic male ego. In this story a young Spanish-Arab womanizer has apparently messed with the wrong girl and will suffer the wrath of her family. Marquez, apparently touched by the actual death of a friend involving similar circumstances, chose to "report" on the issues of male and female roles withing society, especially focusing on the consequences of these stations. Murder, depression, and social exile are the result however instead of being ultimately depressing, the novel intrigues the reader and educates her through the journalistic style and detective-story subject matter. Never the less, the end result is a challenge of the social norms. AS readers we are forced to examine our own ideas of male and feamle roles. How would we act in the place of the different characters? Would we have tried to stop the forestold death? Or complacently watched like most other towns people?

When faced with these questions, and others, hte reader becomes a participant in hte story not just a spectator and this is what makes the novel fascinating. Great for a book club!

I do not like to give 5 stars, but this novel is so good on so many levels. Besides being just a great page-turner, the author demonstrates a few very unique and engaging storytelling techniques:

The gimmick of the book is that the main character's death is "foretold" from the beginning. Readers know from the opening chapter that Santiago Nasir is going to die, and when, and why, and by whom. The story generates suspense, not because we do not know the outcome, but because we see the inevitable happening and feel powerless to stop it. Like watching a train wreck, we cannot keep from staring, and we feel guilty when we enjoy it so much.

The murder is also foretold to other characters. Almost everyone in the book has the opportunity to intervene but for a variety of reasons-apathy, malice, fear, coincidence-do not. Marquez heaps irony upon irony, mingling both comedic and violent scenes, highlighting the role of fate in our lives. On another level, this novel is also a scathing indictment of Latino "machismo", a culture that turns two young boys into killers to protect their sister's honor and makes an entire town of bystanders accessories to the fact.

The narrator tells his story in a pseudo-journalistic style, through interviews and flashbacks. This allows Marquez to tell and re-tell scenes from different vantage points, jumping back and forth in time, adding details and exposing layer after layer of hidden motives. By the time we actually see the murder scene, we already know all the actions that led up to it and the repercussions that will result.

Although Marquez is known for his use of magical realism, this tale is told without the use of the supernatural, excepting one small incident near the end, when a young girl sees an apparition of Santiago climbing the stairs to his bedroom, just before he is murdered outside her door.

The authors make a valiant attempt to compile a comprehensive register of Brazilian slang but by its very nature is flawed due to the impossibility to keep up with the rapid pace at which languages change. The authors neglect to include commonly used expressions like "pagar um mico" and "soltar a franga" but is, overall, the impressive result of an obviously tremendous amount of hard work. Despite some inescapable shortcomings the book prooves itself to be one of the most definitive reference guides to a side of Brazilian Portuguese too often excluded by mainstream textbooks.

Beware the temporal snob I always say, as a good colloquial saying never goes out of style. This book is FANTASTIC. I've worked many of the expressions from this book into my conversations with Brazilians and they not only knew what I was talking about, it always produced a great laugh and the question "where does a gringo ever learn to say such things?" From this book I tell ya! CERTAIN (not all) slang expressions do fall from usage, and some new ones are added - does that erase the value of this incredible text? Not for a second. Can you imagine how old our expression "take a hike" is? Or how about "What's up?" (I'm sure it was around before Bugs Bunny said it in 1939) "What's up?" Is as hip now as it was over 60 years ago, as are the expressions used in this book. But it's not about being hip, it's about understand figurative language and being able to express yourself figuratively. That's what this book does for you, and I assure you that as much as people said "that's diesel" 5 years ago, we never needed that expression to begin with (but I doubt we'll ever stop saying "what's up"...case closed). The good ones never die. Buy it! And to you guys who don't like the fact that whatever was said in the latest rap cd isn't in here - deixa de encher o saco, PQP~!

I must disagree with the other reviewer who said this book was out of date. This book is amazing and super-useful. I just came back from a year in Brasil (I returned in January of 2001) and I carried this book everywhere. It was very helpful when it came to reading, drinking and brandishing insults.

At first glance the book does look old. It looks like it might be xeroxed pages from a typewriter, but after a couple moments with the book all my friends were trying to steal it from me. It made me feel local so much faster than any other book, tape or video I had packed in my arsenal. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

The less said about 'Leaf Storm,' the better, I think. It was Garcia Marquez's first piece of long fiction, written in his twenties, and the truth is, it's not very good. Actually, it's pretty bad. It's overwritten in that 'bad Faulkner' way, and it lacks anything that would make for an interesting story--compelling characters, powerful conflicts, interesting ideas--none of these are to be found therein. It feels as if it should have received quite a bit of revision before publication. As it stands, its only real value is as an embryonic draft of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

'No One Writes to the Colonel,' on the other hand, is a truly excellent story. It's a slow, meditative piece with very little action, chronicling a month or so in the life of the title character and his wife in a stagnant Colombian town as he waits in vain for the pension, which he has been owed for fifteen years, to arrive in the mail. Although it's a subdued story saturated with sorrow and regret, it also features a strong undercurrent of hope which cannot be extinguished. The Colonel is an inspiring character, and, after One Hundred Years of Solitude, his story is my favorite thing I've read by Garcia Marquez. Apparently there's been a movie made of it, but I have no desire to see it.

'Chronicle of a Death Foretold' is also very good. It tells of the events surrounding and leading up to a brutal murder which ultimately implicates an entire town. Featuring the recollections of dozens of characters who were involved in the event, peripherally or seriously, it weaves a mesmerizing web of small events that all happen just the wrong way. The death is indeed 'foretold;' it could easily have been prevented by just about anyone in the story, yet somehow, no one does. In spite of knowing what's going to happen from the beginning, the story remains riveting, and even suspenseful, throughout. Don't miss it.

This volume is certainly a must-own for Garcia Marquez fans. Combined with Collected Stories, it includes the entire body of his early short fiction--so don't buy Leaf Storm and Other Stories, No One Writes to the Colonel and Other Stories, Innocent Erdendira and Other Stories, or Chronicle of a Death Foretold. They're redundant. No sense flinging money out windows, eh? Cheers!

Here between the bounds of this paperback we have 3 very good translations of short novels from the hand of Marquez...although I have yet to fully grasp "Leaf Storm", it does offer to the reader a sort of prelude to "Macondo"...although don't expect the world to be potrayed as it was in "One Hundred years of Solitude". ...the 2nd novella "No One Writes Colonel" is a great read...here is everyday life, as the colonel awaits a letter...however it is the third novella, "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" that drew me in, as a gripping page turner. Marquez holds our interest with his detailed account, even though we already know the outcome. It is a great collection and a good follow up if you have finished "One Hundred Years of Solitude". Highly recommended because in this edition you get al three works, whilst you could pay up to thrice as much if you pursued them seperately....

I read this novel which was written in spanish for part of my spanish A level course at school. I am now at university and have decided to do a topic about Garcia Marques as his work was so insperational to me. The novel portrays a poor mans strugle for survival and has a theme of poverty and deceipt running throughout the novel. The colonel is a symbol of hope whilst his wife is the complete opposite. The colonel waitsfor a letter that never arrives and at the end of the novel the colonel has to force himself to wake up to reality which is displayed by the ironic use of the word 'mierda' at the end of the novel. The imagery and language used in the novel is excellent and i would definatly recommend this novel.

Looking forward to a family chronicle which would give the history of Venezuela in its pages, I was deeply disappointed. The first several chapters ramble on and on with the voice of Dona Ines talking to her husband and his illegimate son while mentioning the names of others unknown to this reader. It is confusing, disorienting and portrays her as crazily consumed with all the negative things in her past. Many pages had no paragraphs which provided no relief to the stream of disjointed memories. I did not find any saving grace to this work.

Once, I read this book at school (Valencia, Venezuela). Now I'm studying college (NM, USA) and I decided to write my outside reading report for Social Anthropology on this book. It's amazing the way Ana Teresa Torres describes 300 years of venezuelan history. I loved it!

Im ana's nephue i just want to say that this book is great it was used in my school for the 11th graders and it was just fabulous

This short novel is a good but not great. I found it difficult to get into in spite of it's brevity. The book captures the imagination but on a limited scope as the plot is a little convoluted to say the least. I found myself along the way wondering where the story was going as GGM meandered along revealing bits and pieces of his vision of a small town caught up in the grips of the harsh political climate in Colombia. I didn't think any one character was dominant enough nor for that matter were any in particular shown to have much depth. Coming from the Latin American literary giant GGM I was a bit dissappointed. I suppose the characters were not as important as the overall sense of fear cast by an oppresive government which is in search of dissidents while the mice that are menacing the church scurry about at night as the people do likewise under a curfew. The ominous tension created by GGM is the reality that many have to live under in Latini America and the author shows the depth of that fear resides not only in big cities but in small towns as well. Persecution exists in every level of society and GGM shows that even in a sleepy, pictureque little town near the river the serenity of nature can be disrupted by evil. Recommended for those that like GGM and a glimpse at a precursor to "One Hundred Years of Solitude."

The initial reaction to reading this short novel is that the author forgot to finish it. The book has a plot and the reader gets drawn into it but the story seems to end ahead of the anticipated conclusion. The reader is left wanting answers and may go away disappointed. However, I believe Garcia Marquez only meant to give us a snapshot in the life of a community in turmoil. I believe he meant for us to be left in the dark. Perhaps he wanted to give an impression of a world where there is always conflict without resolution.

This is a well-written book with an interesting cast of characters. It is, nonetheless, a snapshot; not the whole roll of film.

It took me only a few hours to read this book. I find the idea of this book really interesting- it's not the magical realism that we know from other books by Marquez. However, no other book has drew me into its action in such a way that , while reading, I actually felt I was sharing the fear and the sense of terror that came over the citizens of the town. And that's something!
I didn't like the way it was written, though.The sentences were neither cohesive nor precise. Maybe it's the translation, although I must say I didn't read the English one.

The story reads very much like J.D. Salinger's Catcher in theRye, except that JD's was a work of fiction and Vilar's is a true andheart wrenching account of her own experience. From a literaryperspective, it is obvious that Vilar is young. But this work holds the promise of greater literary works by Vilar. Vilar's talent is in her ability to drag you in to her story and aid you in understanding it without too much of a fuss. The books makes great reading for HS students. It is valuable in terms of it's linkage to contemporary historical facts about which HS students may just be learning. The books biggest benefit is in its telling in the intimate way only an insider can about the aftermath of political actions of the 1950's.

In general, I am an admirer of Amado's work, but this is not his best effort. He has once again introduced us to the cast of characters that he grew up with in his native Bahia - the miserably poor of the sertao, the vaqueros, the itinerant peddlars (one of which - a Turk again, no less - is the main character), the narrow-minded clergy, all milling around and not really going much of anywhere. The "Showdown" is a faceoff between bandits, which is a culmination of the events in this little backwater village on the Sao Francisco.

As usual, Amado is very good at providing us with a slice of life and a variety of interesting characters, but the story is a bit too thin in this work. Not up to the level of "Dona Flor" or "Gabriela."

Incidentally, the reference to a Sudbury Horse Classic in the trade reviews for this book are obviously for some other book, apparently an English mystery of the same name. No horses here, except in an incidental way.

The potential for this book was tremendous. The author is the daughter of Lolita Lebron, the Puertorican independentist imprisoned for, along with a group of men, storming Congress and riddling it with bullets.

Instead of telling us what it was like growing up in a *revolutionary* atmosphere, during the short spurts of time spent with her mother - or offering some insight into who her mother was and how she became what she became, instead Irene Vilar obsesses on a tenuous thread of mental illness and wastes an opportunity to tell a great story.

There remains a great story to be told.

This is a beautifully written memoir by the grand-daughter of Puerto Rican nationalist Lolita Lebron. Alternating chapters, Vilar presents her family history as well as her personal memoirs from inside of a mental hospital. This is not necessarily meant to be a political project. Nonetheless, it effectively captures the the emotion and experience of a woman who has inherited a heavy political legacy.