Of Love and Other Demons

By: Gabriel García Márquez

Narrated by: Christopher Salazar

On her 12th birthday, Sierva Maria - the only child of a decaying noble family in an 18th-century South American seaport - is bitten by a rabid dog. Believed to be possessed, she is brought to a convent for observation. And into her cell stumbles Father Cayetano Delaura, who has already dreamed about a girl with hair trailing after her like a bridal train. As he tends to her with holy water and sacramental oils, Delaura feels something shocking begin to occur. He has fallen in love - and it is not long until Sierva Maria joins him in his fevered misery. Unsettling and indelible, Of Love and Other Demons is an evocative, majestic tale of the most universal experiences known to woman and man.

©1994 Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the heirs of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing

The narrator’s voice made it almost impossible to enjoy

I was excited to read this book as I love the author and recently got back from a trip to Colombia and stayed in the hotel that used to be the convent that is central to the story so I really had an essence of the place. Garcia Marquez’s writing can be a bit challenging at times, but Love in the time of Cholera is one of my all-time favorite books so I was expecting that. In my opinion, the voice of the narrator was so unpleasant that it made it almost impossible to listen and get through the book. He almost sounds like he’s sarcastic through the entire thing which really ruined the tone and made it difficult to get a sense of what the real emotion was of the story. I would recommend reading this instead of listening to it. Or find a different narrated version. I also felt that the ending was not as satisfying as I had hoped and that it’s sort of just ended without any real sense of completion.

Love/Religion/Family: Making people nuts for years

"When I stand and contemplate my fate and see the path which you have lead me. I reach my end, for artless I surrendered to one who is by undoing and my end."
- Gabriel García Márquez, Of Love and Other Demons

I bought 1st Edition Knopf version of this novel shortly after the Edith Grossman edition was translated and published in 1995 to give to my fiancé right before we graduated college. I had read Márquez's two masterpieces Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude a few years earlier, secretly, while my missionary companion slept in the other room. It, along with every other book that wasn't Mormon Scriptures was forbidden. But those rules were a bit loose, and I was looser with them than most. While in that town in Colorado I consumed Marquez, Mailer, DeLillo, and Bertrand Russell. But even with all of that preparation, it still took until today for me to read this book that sat on our communal bookshelf, more a symbol of our love than something we consumed. It sat there silent, virginal and unopened*.

Anyway, I loved it. Not as great as his BIG TWO, but I did waver on whether it should be 5 stars. I gave it 4, but with the option to change it at a later date. Like with love, stars can blink and equivocate. Back to Of Love and Other Demons: I think it should be made into a movie. Hell, I want an animated version that mixes the style of Disney's Sleeping Beauty with Henri Rousseau and the Cusco School.

Somebody with power and money should do it. That is all.

*Technically, it still sits there silent, virginal and unopened because I bought a paperback version to read (and this audible version to listen to), but that is just a trivial detail.

Of Love and Other Demons

One of my favorite books. I think I’d like the Spanish version better, but it was interesting to hear it in English. I really enjoyed it.

Depressing story

Well written but definitely invokes uncomfortable and hopeless feelings whilst reading about the death and loss of innocence of 12 year old Sierva Maria

Read instead of listening

The story is beautiful, but the narrator ruined it unfortunately. Such a terrible performance. I wish I read this one instead of listening.