Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (2004)

At the age of 90, a nonentity and failure decides to do something he thought he would never do, and becomes a new man.

Book Review:  Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is not a book for prudes or those whose minds are so dirty they cannot fly. This is not Lolita in Spanish; this is a fairy tale of a sleeping beauty, of a year and a day, of metamorphosis. It is a novella of hope, memories, age, love, tenderness, patience. Our narrator is so insignificant he doesn't even have a name. He is ugly, shy, poor, friendless, loveless, living in a decaying house, his only hot meal a daily potato omelet. He's never had sex without paying for it; he almost married once, but couldn't leave his nights with prostitutes. He has refused on principle to consider underage prostitutes, and considers Shirley Temple the center of an obscene cult. But at 90, "an age when most mortals have already died," he decides to violate his principles and sleep with a virgin girl, who has just turned 14 (the legal age of consent in Colombia). Who can say what we may do at 90? Until we are that age, can we judge the actions of those who have lived far longer than we? Perhaps, as one character says, "morality ... is a question of time." Let me be clear: If you believe this book approves, validates, or even enjoys pedophilia, you're reading it wrong. Our narrator does not consummate with the girl the first night, but that night is the beginning of the first year of his new life, the life he had never lived. Memories of My Melancholy Whores shows the transforming power of love even as Garcia Marquez looks at the wounds of age and regrets of a life not lived. In that year our narrator learns patience, learns to love, to appreciate women without sex. He adopts an ancient cat, learns to make a home, begins to despise his old life, all because of his first love at 90. He is no longer the boy who was assaulted by a prostitute at 12, the man who had sex instead of love, the one who had lived without a life. He at last becomes a person, and Memories shows the ageism of society, where the old are barely noticed, easily dismissed, and not expected to have a life. Memories of My Melancholy Whores covers much ground in its few pages. Although Edith Grossman's translation seems mediocre (in fairness, I did not have the Spanish version), with many "is that the right word?" moments and times when the lucid prose becomes tortured, the book is still overflowing with Marquez's beautiful writing, even at 77 his powers undiminished. A deceptively small and simple book, with many great realizations. [4.5 Stars]