Easier to Consume as an Audiobook
Márquez gives us a story of optimism and sorrow. Optimism for continued happiness in the life of the ninety-year-old protagonist. Sorrow in having never really experienced love. This story is told with the same elegance as other Márquez stories. Even the most brutal depictions are recounted in a way that makes them seem like fields of flowers without falling into the trap of coming off as purple prose. As with any Márquez story, it should be listened to multiple times. Each listen will provide new insight into the story. Like Cormac McCarthy’s fiction, Márquez can be difficult to read in print because of dialogue built into paragraphs without any quotation marks to create easily recognizable dialog and no subchapters to evoke natural pause points. Often times, narration results in the loss of aspects contained in the print version. In the case of this audiobook, Thom Rivera deftly uses distinct character voicing and dramatic pacing to cut out the confusion for the listener, demonstrating that some audiobooks can enhance and clarify a story.