Leaf Storm: and Other Stories [Paperback]

"Leaf Storm" isn't a conventionally plotted novella. Instead, it's more of a dreamy and dreamlike character study of three people and their reactions to the suicide (or possible murder) of the town outcast and recluse. When the novella ends, we are left with many unanswered questions, but still, we feel fulfilled for we sense there are things about this suicide/murder that it's best simply not to know.

I have to disagree with opinions that Gregory Rabassa didn't do a good job with the translation. I think he did a superb job. He not only translated the story for us, he managed to capture the rain-soaked, steamy melancholy that is the essence of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Rabassa is well-known as having been one of the world's premier translators and it's easy to see why.

I loved the two fantasy stories, "The Hansomest Drowned Man in the World" and "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings." They are filled with the brand of magical realism that only Gabo can write and are just wonderful. I also liked "Monologue of Isabel Watching it Rain in Macondo" and "Ghost Ship."

This book gives us a glimpse into the world of Macondo and it's a very seductive glimse indeed.

Told through the voices of three characters of a small town, the story revolves around a stranger who appears the same time as the notorious "leaf storm," becomes the town doctor, has a mental breakdown, and dies a friendless recluse, both loathed and feared by the townsfolk.

The story is dreamlike and lush, yet the translator, Gregory Rabassa, did a poor job of marking changes between narrators. The story is told all in first person, but the person speaking changes frequently, sometimes even from paragraph to paragraph. So, with no stylistic break or transition, this made for a very difficult read.

Once past "Leaf Storm," however, I found myself enraptured by the tales in the six other short stories in the collection. Two of the stories are actually subtitled "A Tale For Children," and are the ones I found most compelling.

In "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World," (originally published in Playboy) we see a town transformed when the body of a stranger washes up on the shore. And "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" tells of an angel kept captive as an oddity by a curious family who rescues him after a flood. These two stories remind me a lot of the "children's" stories of Hans Christian Andersson ("The Little Match Girl") and Oscar Wilde ("The Selfish Giant").

I would recommend finding Leaf Storm and Other Stories translated by someone other than Gregory Rabassa, if you can, to see if you'll get a clearer version of the title story. Gabriel Garcia Marquez has created some fabulous mythological characters that will stay with you long after you finish this collection.