Of Love and Other Demons

Product Information

He becomes the puppeteer, the illusionist and the enthralled readers can only follow his lead and believe in what he wants them to believe. I tried telling the Bishop of my doubts regarding the satanic possession of the girl and maybe rabies was the true reason behind the girl's instability and the girl should be left in the deft hands of doctors or physicians to come up with a cure. As we proceeded with the discussion,I tried to reason with him but he came up with an invincible ambiguity which left me more perplexed than defeated.

Todo, absolutamente todo, gira alrededor de Sierva María quien luego de ser mordida por un perro es sospechada de haber contraído la rabia y de ahí, luego de las peores sospechas de creerse que está poseída por demonios. A partir de allí y de la reclusión en el convento por imposición de su padre el marqués se desarrollará la trama del libro hasta el final. I’m positive I’ve read this book more than a decade ago and, re-skimming it today, I find again the reasons I enjoyed it so much then, and now. You can always count on good old Gabo, the almighty father of magical realism, to tell you a profoundly bittersweet tragic story that will perpetually endure within your memory for years and years to come, if not forever. Recommendable. He had no room in his heart for anything but Sierva María, and even so it was not large enough to hold her. He was convinced that no oceans or mountains, no laws of earth or heaven, no powers of hell could keep them apart' Sierva María de Todos los Ángeles fué mordida por un perro con rabia. Cuando se lo informaron a su padre no había nada que hacer y pronto moriría.Demonios de rencor, de intolerancia, de imbecilidad. ¡Es detestable!” AY, sí… el amor, en un sentido amplio que incluya la pasión y el deseo, puede ser un demonio temible y seductor y devastador y delicioso y corruptor y transgresor, y como tal afectará a varios de los protagonistas de esta gozosa novela. Un poder animal que Garcia Marquez encarna en dos negros: un negro, Judas Iscariote, que provocó la desgracia de Bernarda, madre de Sierva María, y una negra, una cautiva abisinia capaz de perturbar a los hombres hasta la locura con su sola desnudez. Of love and other demons”, written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (GGM), is a fictional story, constructed around a real event, when a skeleton of an adolescent female with long hair, is discovered from the crypts of a Convent (in Santa Clara). GGM, relates this incident with a legend told to him by his grandmother, about a 12-yr old girl, a miracle worker, believed to have contracted rabies, with her copper long hair continuing to grow post her death! It is a concise plot, a classic work of magical realism, where reality (the excavated skeleton) blends with imagination (the legend) 😊 Father Cayetano falls in love with Sierva Maria and declares her his love; he soon begins visiting Sierva in her cell in secret, climbing up from the sewer (that in future is fixed). They eat, sleep, and recite poetry together, even though it does not appear that they are sexually involved. The dangers of half-knowledge and ignorance, which results in superstitions and prejudices, leading to bounty hatred and intolerance!! Mary was bitten by a dog with rage. When they informed his father there was nothing to do and she would soon die.

She is sent to the convent of Santa Clara to receive an exorcism, which many people have died from. She receives attention from a priest, Father Cayetano, who is kind to her and initially believes she does not need to be exorcised. Pero este diablo metafórico que todos sabemos que puede ser el amor se convierte aquí en el auténtico Maligno, todo cuernos y rabo, gracias a otros demonios aún más peligrosos y detestables: la intolerancia, la imbecilidad y la ignorancia combatida a base de superstición y representados aquí por la Iglesia inquisitorial del siglo XVIII. Unos demonios que atacaron sin piedad a Sierva María, criada entre la servidumbre negra y mulata de su padre el marqués, educada en sus tradiciones e idiomas, otra vez la amenaza negra, y que arrastrará a Delaura, el cura cobarde de treinta y seis años enamorado, por primera vez, de una niña de doce.

In the prologue, García Márquez claims the novel is the fictional representation of a legend the author was told by his grandmother when he was a boy: of a 12-year-old marquise with long flowing hair who had died of rabies, and was believed to be a 'miracle-worker'. In this frame-story, it was only after an excavation of tombs that García Márquez is witness to the grave of a similar young girl with long red hair still attached to the skull, that he was inspired to write Of Love and Other Demons. Muy posiblemente con Crónica de una Muerte Anunciada, una de las mejores obras de Garcia Marquez que leí hasta el día. Especialmente disfruté la triste y trágica historia de fondo de Ignacio, Bernarda y Judas Iscariote. No me agradó particularmente mucho la última parte en el Convento de Santa Clara y el Padre Cayetano para ser sincero; pero esa escena con el pelo…. ¡Cielos! Eso sí fue increíble.

Which is why I was surprised that you came,' said the physician.'I am no more than hunted prey in the game preserve of the Holy Office.' Nobel Prize winner and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez blends the natural with supernatural in Of Love and Other Demons - a novel which explores community, superstition and collective hysteria.

Need Help?

Casi de una manera similar a “Crónica de una muerte anunciada”, cada uno de los personajes tiene su propia historia y así, nos vamos enterando de lo que le sucede al marqués de Casalduero, Ygnacio Alfaro y Dueñas, padre de Sierva María, o de lo que viven otros personajes como Bernarda Cabrera, su esposa, los avatares del sacerdote Cayetano Delaura, que muere de amor por Sierva Maria, los oscuros pasajes que leemos del obispo don Toribio Cáceres, la ponzña y perfidia de una de las villanas de la novela, me refiero a la abadesa del convento de Santa Clara, Josefa Miranda y de otros personajes secundarios como la negra Dominga de Adviento y una monja presa en el convento, Martina Laborde. An ash-grey dog with a white blaze on its forehead burst on to the rough terrain of the market on the first Sunday of December' Sierva María 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 exorcizing the evil spirit recognises the girl's sanity, but can he convince the town that it's not her that needs healing? Sierva is of noble birth, but her family is on the cusp of ruin. With a mother who wallows in obsessions of her own and a father who can barely take care of himself, the girl is subjected to all manner of voodoo-esque cures. But does she even have rabies? That is the million-dollar question left to the studious priest, Father Cayetano Delaura. Le dijo que el amor era un sentimiento contra natura, que condenaba a dos desconocidos a una dependencia mezquina e insalubre, tanto más efímera cuanto más intensa."