Memories of My Melancholy Whores – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I read this almost entirely in one sitting whilst luxuriating in a warm bath, but the circumstances didn’t really help me enjoy it. Late, minor Marquez and reading a first-person account of a ninety-year old man’s lust for a fourteen year old can’t help but feel a bit tawdry. A major problem for me was that the girl has no voice - we never even get to find out her name.

Having said that, there is always beauty to be found in Marquez’s prose and insights, and I particularly liked this:

I confirmed with horror that one ages more and with more intensity in pictures than in reality.