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BOOKS I READ: Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel García Márquez (1993) translated by Edith Grossman. The second Marquis de Casalduero, worried about his daughter after she is bitten by a rabid dog, commits her to the Convent of Santa Clara, overseen by a superstitious Abbess. Servia María, with never-shorn overflowing reddish hair, is a peculiar child, ignored by her parents and raised among the household slaves. The Catholic Church decides that an exorcism is necessary to drive out her demons, and Father Cayetano Delaura, the Bishop’s librarian, is put in charge of the girl’s future. When the priest is overwhelmed by his feelings for Servia Maria, he seeks help from Abrenuncio, a physician and non-believer, who tries to reason with Delaura about the futility of an exorcism.
This was my second reading of this novella. I had remembered it fondly for the way García Márquez weaves class and status, and the smothering prominence of the church in the colony. The story takes place at a time when being Spanish-born mattered. Even the nuns at the convent are categorized by their place of birth, Spain or American-born. Every character is tormented by demons of one kind or another, with the exception of the doctor, although he burnished his reputation by raising a tailor from the dead.
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