I bought Mr Marquez's book on impulse, and since i have the impulsiveness of a gad fly i dont put trust in impulses.
I read it in the middle of the night while at work, trying to kill the hours and see the night through till sunrise. I am glad i had this book for company.
It would be all to easy to list the contents of this book, so i wont, Instead i will focus on one of the many facets of it. Mr Marquez's play on the geography of his home city is a particularly fresh way for a stranger to gain familiarity with a city (Los angeles) so encased by self made myths. His technique of rendering his stomping grounds by area allows the reader to become an accomplice riding on a bus or a metro train. We stand ghostlike next to the author as he tears along Brentwood while fires burn or dreams of carrying ancient wisdom away from the fairground pier at Santa monica.
As you can tell im not familiar with that fat land on the edge of the pacific and like most people my knowledge of it is derived secondarily from throwaway popular culture. i am however very interested in work that allows a certain framework to underline its ideas.
Mr Marquez's stories themselves border on Outrageousness, But they never offend for the sake of offensiveness. He writes as he observes and i gained the impression that even when he says what we do not particularly wish to hear, he says it because we should be listening.
i thoroughly recommend his work both as an interesting snapshot of ideas from within the city of Dis, and as an entertaining and thoroughly readable selection of tales.