Leaf storm, and other stories /
Leaf storm: As a blizzard of warehouses and amusement parlours and slums descends on the small town of Macondo, the inhabitants reel at the accompanying stench of rubbish that makes their home unrecognisable. When the banana company leaves town as fast as it arrived, all they are left with is a void...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Language Notes: | Translated into English from the original Spanish. |
| Published: |
New York :
Harper & Row,
[1972]
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| Edition: | [First American edition] |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | Leaf storm: As a blizzard of warehouses and amusement parlours and slums descends on the small town of Macondo, the inhabitants reel at the accompanying stench of rubbish that makes their home unrecognisable. When the banana company leaves town as fast as it arrived, all they are left with is a void of decay. Living in this devastated and soulless wasteland is one last honourable man, the Colonel, who is determined to fulfil a long standing promise, no matter how unpalatable it may be. With the death of the detested Doctor, he must provide an honourable burial -- and incur the wrath of the rest of Macondo, who would rather see the Doctor rot, forgotten and unattended. The handsomest drowned man in the world is about a small, isolated village that discovers the body of an unusually large and handsome drowned man washed ashore, which transforms their lives as they imagine his story and are inspired to improve their own village and community. The villagers, initially seeing him as a mythical figure, come to see him as a real person, and his presence prompts them to beautify their homes and lives, turning a corpse into a catalyst for change and a symbol of potential. A very old man with enormous wings critiques human cruelty, religious hypocrisy, and the tendency to commodify the extraordinary, suggesting that people often fail to recognize true miracles, preferring instead the familiar or exploitable, and that suffering often arises from fear and misunderstanding of the "other". The story highlights the contrast between superficial faith and genuine compassion, as the community turns a potential angel into a circus sideshow, showcasing a lack of empathy and a focus on personal gain. Blacamán the Good, vendor of miracles explores themes of deception, power, and magical realism. It follows a narrator who learns the art of fraudulent miracles from a cruel mentor, "Blacamán the Bad," eventually surpassing him to become a true miracle worker. The last voyage of the ghost ship: the story, written as one long sentence, follows a boy's journey from doubt to action, culminating in him guiding the phantom ship into the village harbor to prove its existence. Monologue of Isabel watching it rain in Macondo: a young woman, Isabel, sits through a relentless, apocalyptic, and, at times, magical rainstorm in Macondo. The monologue highlights themes of solitude, decay, and the psychological impact of oppressive, continuous nature on a town falling into a "fossilized sleep". Nabo is an early surreal story featuring a mentally disabled black stableboy who experiences time distortion while lying in straw after being kicked by a horse. The narrative blends past and present, focusing on his interaction with a "little dead and lonely girl" who obsessively plays a gramophone. Presents a collection of seven short stories written between 1957 and 1968 by twentieth-century Colombian-born author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. |
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| Physical Description: | 146 pages ; 22 cm |
| ISBN: | 0060127791 9780060127794 0060906995 9780060906993 |