Of Love & Other Demons By Gabriel Garcia Marquez

 

“Of love and other demons”, written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (GGM), is a fictional story, based 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) 😊
 
GGM, has astutely, used this blend to unravel layers of love, passion, half-knowledge, ignorance, superstition and much more!!
 
The story revolves around the 12 yrs-old daughter of a noble family of Latin America, who was bitten by a rabid dog in the market.
 
Sierva Maria, the protagonist adolescent, is raised by her father, Don Ygnacio de Alfaro y Duenas, and her Indian mother, Bernarda de Cabrera, who rejects Sierva, at an early age. She spends her childhood in slave quarters, learning their languages and culture. As a precocious child, she learns to dance before she could speak and drinks rooster’s blood before breakfast. Being alienated and raised by the slaves, she starts behaving weirdly from the rest of the children of her age. Her father, seeks help of the church, attributing her violent reactions and imbecility, to the contracted rabies!  
 
The bishop regards, rabies to be a sign of demonic possession, and convinces the family to send her to a Convent for exorcism. The exorcist priest in the Convent, Caytano Delauro, falls in love with the girl, <spoiler> but the girl finally dies due to all the psychological and physical abuse, subjected to, in the convent, by the nuns and others, during exorcism!

My views-
The plot, focuses on various aspects-
Threading reality with imagination, ingeniously.
Love & passion (wherein, love between the girl and the priest, has been  shown as a demonic force).
The dangers of half-knowledge and ignorance, which results in          superstitions and prejudices, leading to bounty hatred and intolerance!!
Sierva, represents the clash of two worlds- the colonial power and the  African culture of the slaves. She is represented by GGM, as the martyr of the intolerant catholic church (A lot of darker shades of the catholic church have been exposed, which I want to skip discussing, though it holds the prime theme in the plot!)
 
 
NB-What buzzed my senses, was - a middle-aged man, with a social standing in the church, falling in love with a 12-year adolescent. Maybe, magical realism as a work of art and unpredictability, shouldn’t be questioned, and the analyst hat , should be dropped-off when picking up such books!
The striking aspect is, for greater part of the novel, whether the protagonist, has actually contracted rabies or not and the reason of her imbecility, is not disclosed.
Considering all above points, this work of magical realism grabs, 3.75 stars!