Currently reading
Gabriela, Cravo e Canela
Progress:
157/358 pages
Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph (The Authorized Doubleday/Doran Edition)
Progress:
189/672 pages
The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve
Progress:
41/608 pages
Peter the Great
Progress:
472/934 pages
Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty
A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge
Progress:
191/712 pages
The German Army 1933-1945
Progress:
198/598 pages
Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914-1918: The List Regiment
Progress:
22/238 pages
'NO ONE WRITES TO THE COLONEL...'
| "NO ONE WRITES TO THE COLONEL AND OTHER STORIES" is made up of 10 short stories, each more fantastic than the one that preceded it. Of the 10, my favorite was 'No One Writes to the Colonel' which provides the reader various glimpses into the lives of a colonel from Colombia's Thousand Day War (1899-1902) and his wife, amid the colonel's longstanding hope and expectation of receiving through the mail (which only arrives by boat once a week on Friday) his belated pension. This would prove to be a 60 year wait for the old colonel, who lived a rather threadbare existence in a small town near Colombia's Caribbean coast. The other short stories focus on the lives of various people, rich and poor alike, in a Colombia that at times seems more mystical than real. Sometimes the stories would drone on a bit. But I'm glad I read "NO ONE WRITES TO THE COLONEL AND OTHER STORIES" and have no intention to read it again. (Previously, I had read several years ago, Gabriel García Márquez' novels 'The General in His Labyrinth' and 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' - both of which I enjoyed reading very much, because each of them fed deeply into my imagination and thrilled it.) |
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