The Autumn of the Patriarch (P.S.) | 
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Product Description
One of Gabriel García Márquez's most intricate and ambitious works, The Autumn of the Patriarch is a brilliant tale of a Caribbean tyrant and the corruption of power. From charity to deceit, benevolence to violence, fear of God to extreme cruelty, the dictator of The Autumn of the Patriarch embodies the best and the worst of human nature. Gabriel García Márquez, the renowned master of magical realism, vividly portrays the dying tyrant caught in the prison of his own dictator-ship. Employing an innovative, dreamlike style, and overflowing with symbolic descriptions, the novel transports the reader to a world that is at once fanciful and real.
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Customer Reviews:
• An Epic Latin-american Poem 25 August, 2006
This novel, written in a stream of incessant imagery of beauty and cruelty, is a masterpeice of narrative skill. One must be 'in the mood' to tackle the work which is dense and whose language is difficult at first. I say at first because, once underway, and the narrative understood, the book unfolds like a dream.
This book is a testament to Marquez's skill. The events that take place (three hundred donkey-pulled pianos falling into a ravine/ the attempt to hide two thousand children)are almost beyond comprehension. I finished the book last night and was beside myself. The use of language and imagery will stay with me forever. This book alone should've earned Marquez his Nobel prize.
And don't think the style of the novel is pretensious or used to make something easy difficult. There are many literary devices at play but all to serve the purpose of the story.
This book should also be interesting for anyone curious about the lonliness and insanity of despotism.
And don't be fooled by Oprah and the critics, 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' is NOT his best book by any means. "The Autumn of the Patriarch" is where 'magical-realism' really comes to life.
For anyone intersted in contemporary literature or something wholly original, this novel is a must.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AGW7V7DO0EDXP
• A Universal Masterpiece 29 August, 2007
I have read the Hebrew translation and parts of the English one. Translation-wise the Hebrew one is an amazing work fully capture the spirit and richness of the Language. One of those that makes you wonder if the original one is as good as the translated one (and, yes, I know it is much better). As for the book, in my view, it is the best work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez so far, and I believe I have read all of his books.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3VYLI555OXMD4
• Gabo's Prose Masterpiece 23 August, 2006
While it lacks the startling originality and narrative sweep of "One Hundred Years of Solitude," this novel is Gabriel Garcia-Marquez's masterpiece of prose. The story is good and the many surreal touches are magnificent and deployed to great political effect (the selling of the sea, for example, is an unforgettable image of impoverished nations selling their natural resources to wealthy nations and only suffering from the transaction), but the real story here is Gabo's prose: he channels William Faulkner to create a style that's as sinuous and labyrinthine--and beautiful--as anything yet accomplished in our Western Hemisphere.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3AQDBRJTL9PQG
• The Terror Of The Miracle 12 February, 2008
Unlike other writers who embed the Christian ideals and symbolism into their work to evoke mystery and majesty, Marquez uses a religious vernacular to cast the dictator into the same shadow of doubt into which he wants the reader to hold the god figure. Marquez' countless allusions to Christ and his Mother render the reader into a surrealistic land of never-ending make-believe deaths and resurrections.
The Autumn of the Patriarch rends the "terror of the miracle" (p. 237) in the form of the macabre mini-miracles of Marquez' magical realism: the general who sprouts fish scales, the general's weathered skin turning into infant skin, the cows who eat from paintings, leaving little doubt that these miracles dominate the novel. What is less evident is that Marquez' assertions after these or the more debased miracles occurring in the form of tyranny are a screed against the dictatorial nature of religion. The dictator is not the anti-Christ but rather the reverse embodiment of Jesus Christ. The General of the Universe becomes the King of the Universe and neither comes out well ahead of the game in the telling.
The accumulation of religious detail is sometimes so evident and overpowering that one wonders whether Marquez is merely ornamenting the Roman Catholic Latin American culture begun by Spanish clerics in the 1500s. However, religious imagery and incantation cannot convey a sense of religiosity within the dictatorship because they blaspheme rather than uphold a religious connotation of the novel. If the General "[remembers] suddenly that cow was written with a c" then Marquez also writes god with a lowercase `g.' (p237)
The General's meditations on the aloneness of power stand as counterpoint and counterpart of his partner in the game of all-powerfulness. The General does becomes Christ meandering in the desert of his solitude, wondering if his lofty perch is worth enduring. Like the General who is pained since birth with his malformed [...], Christ was born to and had no choice but to endure. For Marquez, the question is not one of endurance but rather a perdurance of "uncountable years." The General and Christ suffer the "fiction of commanding without power, of being exalted without glory and of being obeyed without authority." (p. 254) Marquez fuses the actions of the debased General by debasing the inauthenticity of Christ.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1AE77YQN8E6IR
• Marquez At His Best - A Masterpiece 01 February, 2008
Amazing.
I have no other words describing this book. The narrative style, for those complaining - is in my humble opinion Marquez BEST : spell binding magic realism.
The book details in long and convoluted sentences the minutiae of every day life of a maniac, a universal type of tyrant - which just happens to be caught in Marquez writer's cross hairs in South America. It may be one of the many South American dictators and it could easily be one of their European monster counterparts. Marquez is sometimes sublime, often bold and always funny in a strange way. Recommended !
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2R6M6OZFR05CO
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