Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4867 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Synopsis
An ash-gray dog with a white blaze on its forehead burst onto the rough terrain of the market on the first Sunday of December...When a witch doctor appears on the Marquis de Casalduero's doorstep prophesizing a plague of rabies in their Colombian seaport, he dismisses her claims - until he hears that his young daughter, Sierva Maria, was one of four people bitten by a rabid dog, and the only one to survive. Sierva Maria appears completely unscathed - but as rumours of the plague spread, the Marquis and his wife wonder at her continuing good health. In a town consumed by superstition, it's not long before they, and everyone else, put her survival down to a demonic possession and begin to see her supernatural powers as the cause of the town's woes. Only the young priest charged with exorcising the evil spirit recognizes the girl's sanity, but can he convince the town that it's not her that needs healing?

Customer Reviews

The oppression of religion
In this bitter and emotional tale, G.G. Márquez exposes the `narrowness of mind' and the concomitant fanatical oppression by the Christian authorities, who put a straitjacket even on a perfectly normal child.
The history of the Christian Church is one of death, of anti-life: `The Holy Office is even worse than the witchcraft of the blacks. The blacks only sacrifice roosters to their gods, while the Holy Office is happy to break innocents on the rack or burn them alive in a public spectacle.'
Speaking here is G.G. Márquez's alter-ego, the atheist (`You can't forbid what I think') doctor Abrenuncio, a clairvoyant, not a stinking, healer: `You have a religion of death that fills you with the joy and courage to confront it. I do not. I believe the only essential thing is to be alive.'
He expresses also another recurrent theme in G.G. Márquez's work: `Sex is a talent, and I do not have it. ... Love was an emotion contra natura that condemned two strangers to a base and unhealthy dependence, and the more intense it was, the more ephemeral.'

In his characteristic imaginative and brilliantly colorful style (`the more transparent the writing, the more visible the poetry'), G.G. Márquez painted a dark world dominated by an oppressive religion, the only light coming from those who oppose it.
A must read.

Step back and weep
What has amazed me most about Of Love and Other Demons is that Garcia Marquez is such a good storyteller that he has made so many other readers wax lyrical about the love between a 12 year-old child and her 36 year-old paedophile priest.
Admittedly the story is written in a bygone century, when such things were more socially acceptable, by why do readers with today's morals find the story so beautiful? I give the story 5 stars for duping other readers into thinking so. Amazing.

Marquez Scores Again - I Read It In 2 Hours!!
'Of Love...' is only the second of Marquez's book I have read (1st was '100 Years..') and I continue to be impressed and completely engrossed by his work. To illustrate how engrossed I was --THIS BOOK TOOK ME TWO HOURS TO READ. I felt like I was reading a fairytale at bedtime to my daughter, the magic and wonder of Sierva's existence stands second only to Marquez's style of prose. I fell in love with Marquez after '100 years...' and the second visit I've paid him, will only serve to keep me coming back for more. ASTONISHING!