昔年种柳，依依汉南.今看摇落，凄怆江潭.树犹如此，人何以堪含义是怎么
“昔年种柳，依依汉南.今看摇落，凄怆江潭.树犹如此，人何以堪”含义是：过去在汉水之南种下的柳树，曾经枝条飘拂依依相惜；今天却看到它枝叶摇落凋零，江边一片凄清伤神的景象。树尚且如此，又何况人呢？这里作者是用树来自喻，将树的衰荣和自己的人生坎坷遭遇联系起来，树即是人，人即是树，见此树而思己身，同病相伶而有感而发。
语出庾信《枯树赋》：
枯树赋
殷仲文风流儒雅，海内知名；世异时移，出为东阳太守；常忽忽不乐，顾庭槐而叹曰：此树婆娑，生意尽矣。
至如白鹿贞松，青牛文梓；根抵盘魄，山崖表里。桂何事而销亡，桐何为而半死？昔之三河徙植，九畹移根；开花建始之殿，落实睢阳之园。声含嶰谷，曲抱《云门》；将雏集凤，比翼巢鸳。临风亭而唳鹤，对月峡而吟猿。
乃有拳曲拥肿，盘坳反覆；熊彪顾盼，鱼龙起伏；节竖山连，文横水蹙。匠石惊视，公输眩目。雕镌始就，剞劂仍加；平鳞铲甲，落角摧牙；重重碎锦，片片真花；纷披草树，散乱烟霞。
若夫松子、古度、平仲、君迁，森梢百顷，搓枿千年。秦则大夫受职，汉则将军坐焉。莫不苔埋菌压，鸟剥虫穿；或低垂于霜露，或撼顿于风烟。东海有白木之庙，西河有枯桑之社，北陆以杨叶为关，南陵以梅根作冶。小山则丛桂留人，扶风则长松系马。岂独城临细柳之上，塞落桃林之下。
若乃山河阻绝，飘零离别；拔本垂泪，伤根沥血。火入空心，膏流断节。横洞口而敧卧，顿山腰而半折，文斜者百围冰碎，理正者千寻瓦裂。载瘿衔瘤，藏穿抱穴，木魅睒睗，山精妖孽。
况复风云不感，羁旅无归；未能采葛，还成食薇；沉沦穷巷，芜没荆扉，既伤摇落，弥嗟变衰。《淮南子》云“木叶落，长年悲”，斯之谓矣。
乃为歌曰：建章三月火，黄河万里槎；若非金谷满园树，即是河阳一县花。桓大司马闻而叹曰：昔年种柳，依依汉南；今看摇落，凄怆江潭。树犹如此，人何以堪！
《枯树赋》是南北朝时期文学家庾信羁留北方时抒写对故乡的思念并感伤自己身世的作品，全篇荡气回肠，亡国之痛、乡关之思、羁旅之恨和人事维艰、人生多难的情怀尽在其中，劲健苍凉，忧深愤激。
文章从殷仲文"见庭槐而叹"写起，先侧面写树的茂盛高大"声含嶰谷，曲抱云门"，再正面写其形象"熊彪顾盼，鱼龙起伏";由盛而衰，便写到"鸟剥虫穿"、"膏流断节"、"百围冰碎"、"千寻瓦裂"。最后归到"羁旅无归"的感伤:"木叶落，长年悲"，"树犹如此，人何以堪!"作者以枯树自比，寄乡关之思于枯树之景，读来令人垂泪。
“昔年种柳，依依汉南；今看摇落，凄凉江潭。树犹如此，人何以堪？”请问出处和全诗的解释
出自南北朝时庾信的《枯树赋》。
译为白话文大概为：当年我在汉南种下的依依杨柳，是多么袅娜动人；而今的江边潭畔，如眉的柳叶片片摇落，让人感到多么凄婉悲怆啊。时光匆匆而逝，树木尚且敌不过春秋的更替，人又怎能逃得过岁月的沧桑呢？
“树犹如此，人何以堪！” 用了刘义庆《世说新语》“言语”篇中桓温之典：“桓公北征，经金城，前为琅琊王时种柳，皆已十围，慨然曰：‘木犹如此，人何以堪？’”
昔年种柳，依依汉南.今看摇落，凄怆江潭.树犹如此，人何以堪含义是怎么
“昔年种柳，依依汉南。今看摇落，凄怆江潭。树犹如此，人何以堪。”的含义是“怎么过去在汉水之南种下的柳树，曾经枝条飘拂依依相惜；今天却看到它枝叶摇落凋零，江边一片凄清伤神的景象。树尚且如此，又何况人呢？” 这诗句出自南北朝时期文学家庾信的《枯树赋》。原文：况复风云不感，羁旅无归。未能采葛，还成食薇。沉沦穷巷，芜没荆扉，既伤摇落，弥嗟变衰。《淮南子》云：“木叶落，长年悲。”斯之谓矣。乃歌曰：”建章三月火，黄河万里槎。若非金谷满园树，即是河阳一县花。“桓大司马闻而叹曰：“昔年种柳，依依汉南。今看摇落，凄怆江潭。树犹如此，人何以堪！译文：更何况像我这样机运不佳，生逢国难，出使不归，羁旅异朝的人。身居陋巷，荒草掩门。看到草木的凋谢自然会伤心，看到草木的衰老枯死更要哀叹不已。《淮南子》说：“树叶落了说明一年又要过去了，这是使老年人最感伤心的事。”这些话所说的意思正和我现在的心情是一样的啊。于是我作歌唱道：“建章宫的栋梁毁于大火，黄河里的木筏烂在水中。如果不像金谷园中的柏树那样人去园空，也会像河阳县里的桃花那样枯萎不存。”桓大司马听了我的歌恐怕还会大发感慨：“当年栽种的柳树，繁茂可爱。现在看到它们枯败凋零，不能不令人凄伤。在短短的时间里树都老得不成样子了，人又怎么能经受得了年龄的催迫！”扩展资料：创作背景梁武帝末，侯景叛乱，庾信时为建康令，率兵御敌，战败。建康失陷，他被迫逃亡江陵，投奔梁元帝萧绎。元帝承圣三年（554年）他奉命出使西魏，抵达长安不久，西魏攻克江陵，杀萧绎；他被留在长安。在此期间，庾信时常感怀自己的身世，于是就写作了一篇荡气回肠名流千古的骈赋《枯树赋》。作者简介庾信是由南入北的最著名的诗人，他饱尝分裂时代特有的人生辛酸，却结出“穷南北之胜”[4] 的文学硕果。他的文学成就，也昭示着南北文风融合的前景。
昔日种柳，依依汉南.的字面意思.及内敛？
“昔日种柳，依依汉南”出自南北朝时庾信的《枯树赋》。这句话的字面意思是：往昔在汉南种下的依依杨柳。其中，“昔日”代表过去的日子，形容时间流逝，事物已成过去。“种柳”可以理解为种植杨柳，这是一种具有诗意和象征性的比喻，表示对美好事物的追求和向往。“依依汉南”则是形容杨柳的柔弱可爱，像是在依依不舍地招手告别，又像是表达对远方亲人和友人的眷恋和思念。这句话的内敛含义则比较丰富，可以有多重解读。首先，它可以被理解为对往昔美好事物的怀念和留恋。过去的时光已经逝去，留下的只是对那些美好瞬间的回忆和思念。而杨柳的柔弱可爱，也暗示了对生命脆弱和短暂的反思，以及对生命中珍贵瞬间的珍惜。此外，这句话还可以被解读为对人生离别的感慨和反思。杨柳在古代文学中常常被用作离别的象征，代表着离别的悲伤和思念。而“昔日种柳，依依汉南”则像是表达了对过去某个时刻的追忆和思念，同时也暗示了对人生中离别的不可避免和无奈。总之，这句话通过富有诗意的比喻和对时间的深刻感受，表达了对生命、时光和人生的深刻反思，同时也揭示了人类在面对生命短暂、时光荏苒以及人生离别时的种种情感和思考。
昔年种柳，依依汉南。全文是？
庾信（隋朝）
《枯树赋》（全文）
殷仲文风流儒雅，海内知名；
世异时移，出为东阳太守；
常忽忽不乐，顾庭槐而叹曰：
此树婆娑，生意尽矣。
至如白鹿贞松，青牛文梓；
根抵盘魄，山崖表里。
桂何事而销亡，桐何为而半死？
昔之三河徙植，九畹移根；
开花建始之殿，落实睢阳之园。
声含嶰谷，曲抱《云门》；
将雏集凤，比翼巢鸳。
临风亭而唳鹤，对月峡而吟猿。
乃有拳曲拥肿，盘坳反覆；
熊彪顾盼，鱼龙起伏；
节竖山连，文横水蹙。
匠石惊视，公输眩目。
雕镌始就，剞劂仍加；
平鳞铲甲，落角摧牙；
重重碎锦，片片真花；
纷披草树，散乱烟霞。
若夫松子古度平仲君迁，森梢百顷，搓枿千年。
秦则大夫受职，汉则将军坐焉。
莫不苔埋菌压，鸟剥虫穿；
或低垂于霜露，或撼顿于风烟。
东海有白木之庙，
西河有枯桑之社，
北陆以杨叶为关，
南陵以梅根作冶。
小山则丛桂留人，扶风则长松系马。
岂独城临细柳之上，塞落桃林之下。
若乃山河阻绝，飘零离别；
拔本垂泪，伤根沥血。
火入空心，膏流断节。
横洞口而敧卧，顿山腰而半折，
文斜者百围冰碎，理正者干寻瓦裂。
载瘿衔瘤，藏穿抱穴，木魅睒睗，山精妖孽。
况复风云不感，羁旅无归；
未能采葛，还成食薇；
沉沦穷巷，芜没荆扉，既伤摇落，弥嗟变衰。
《淮南子》云"木叶落，长年悲"，斯之谓矣。
乃歌曰：
建章三月火，黄河万里槎；
若非金谷满园树，即是河阳一县花。
桓大司马闻而叹曰：
昔年种柳，依依汉南；
今看摇落，凄枪江潭；
树犹如此，人何以堪！
长亭怨慢·雁原文_翻译及赏析
结多少悲秋俦侣，特地年年，北风吹度。紫塞门孤，金河月冷，恨谁诉？回汀枉渚，也只恋江南住。随意落平沙，巧排作、参差筝柱。别浦，惯惊移莫定，应怯败荷疏雨。一绳云杪，看字字悬针垂露。渐欹斜、无力低飘，正目送、碧罗天暮。写不了相思，又蘸凉波飞去。——清代·朱彝尊《长亭怨慢·雁》 长亭怨慢·雁 结多少悲秋俦侣，特地年年，北风吹度。紫塞门孤，金河月冷，恨谁诉？回汀枉渚，也只恋江南住。随意落平沙，巧排作、参差筝柱。 别浦，惯惊移莫定，应怯败荷疏雨。一绳云杪，看字字悬针垂露。渐欹斜、无力低飘，正目送、碧罗天暮。写不了相思，又蘸凉波飞去。 咏物 ， 写鸟 ， 寓人抒怀 译文及注释 译文 北风年年有意吹到塞外，悲秋的大雁结成伴侣将飞向南方。寂寥的关塞，广漠的天空，满腔的哀怨向谁倾诉呢？雁群飞过水滩，越过水中的沙洲，只是恋着江南的故土，它们落在沙滩上象是筝上参差错落的弦柱。 雁群飞蓟水滨，落下又惊起，似乎败荷疏雨都使雁群惊恐不安。大雁升空继续高飞远去，它们象一条绳悬挂云端。雁群飞得疲惫了，在暮色苍茫的天际渐渐欹斜低飘：但对江南的相思萦绕于心，它们没有停留下来。又蘸着冷风离去。 鉴赏 这首词是朱彝尊咏物词中最著名的一首。它题咏的是雁，说 得具体一点则是秋雁。全词字面，均扣住“雁”字来写：既有对群雁憩息时的静态描述，如“随意落平沙，巧排作、参差筝柱”，又有对雁 阵飞行时的动态勾勒，如“一绳云杪，看字字、悬针垂露”；既有形象的外观描写，如“渐欹斜、无力低飘”，也有逼真的心理刻画，如“惯 惊移莫定，应怯败荷疏雨”；既有一般的白描手法，如“回汀枉渚，也只恋、江南住”，还有曲折的典故运用，如“紫塞门孤，金河月冷” ……从而生动细致地描绘出了一幅大雁南飞的画图。而时当金秋，却是满眼的北风、冷月，孤门、败荷，疏雨，暮色，成群的大雁排 成不同的队形，在略作休息之后又疲倦地向南飞去，这里面充满著 苍凉悲凄的气氛。 然而，咏雁只是这首词的表层现象，作者的用意显然在于以雁 喻人，通过咏雁来表现自己的身世之悲。如同朱彝尊《解佩令‘自题词集》“十年磨剑，五陵结客，把平生、涕泪都飘尽”云云所反映的 那样，他由于抗清失败，生 计艰难，在很长一段时期 内飘零四海，客游幕府，先后到过山西、山东、北京等 地。这种漫长的羁旅生 涯，加上时时要担心清廷 的追捕，不能不使他既感 到厌倦，又感到惊恐，梦想着能够回到自己江南的家 乡，过上安定的日子。正 因为如此，所以他看到秋 天南飞的大雁，心中产生 了强烈的共鸣，忍不住发出了“也只恋、江南住”的 慨叹；而大雁尚能南飞，人 却不能自主，有家难归，有 “恨”也不知道向谁倾诉 ! 难怪乎这样一首秋雁词会充满著如此悲凉的气氛。 更有可说者。朱彝尊的身世之感，最根本的原因在于明清改朝换代。因此，这首词在叙述秋雁南飞的背景时，也特地点出了是 “北风吹度”。这里的“北风”，以及下文的“紫塞”、“金河”，事实上都象征著来自北方的满清贵族势力。而与此相反，下面“也只恋、 江南住”的“江南”，则自然象征着明朝故国。词的结拍“写不了相思”云云，脱胎于南宋词人张炎的《解连环·孤雁》：“写不成书，只寄 得相思一点。”然而如今故国久已灭亡，连“相思”也“写不了”了，其感情显然更为沉痛。如果说这首词有更深层的寓意的话，那么就 在这里。陈廷焯《白雨斋词话》卷三说此词“感慨身世，以凄切之情，发哀婉之调，既悲凉，又忠厚”，所谓“忠厚”，恐怕也就是由个人 进而想到家国吧。 创作背景 朱彝尊(1629～1709)，清代诗人、词人、学者、藏书家。字锡鬯，号竹垞，又号驱芳，晚号小长芦钓鱼师，又号金风亭长。汉族，秀水（今浙江嘉兴市）人。康熙十八年（1679）举博学鸿词科，除检讨。二十二年（1683）入直南书房。曾参加纂修《明史》。博通经史，诗与王士祯称南北两大宗。作词风格清丽，为浙西词派的创始者，与陈维崧并称朱陈。精于金石文史，购藏古籍图书不遗余力，为清初著名藏书家之一。 朱彝尊 开时似雪。谢时似雪。花中奇绝。香非在蕊，香非在萼，骨中香彻。 占溪风，留溪月。堪羞损、山桃如血。直饶更、疏疏淡淡，终有一般情别。——宋代·晁补之《盐角儿·亳社观梅》 盐角儿·亳社观梅 开时似雪。谢时似雪。花中奇绝。香非在蕊，香非在萼，骨中香彻。 占溪风，留溪月。堪羞损、山桃如血。直饶更、疏疏淡淡，终有一般情别。 宋词三百首 ， 婉约 ， 咏物梅花露浥初英，早遗恨、参差九日。还却笑、萸随节过，桂凋无色。杯面寒香蜂共泛，篱根秋讯蛩催织。爱玲珑、筛月水屏风，千枝结。 芳井韵，寒泉咽。霜着处，微红湿。共评花索句，看谁先得。好漉乌巾连夜醉，莫愁金钿无人拾。算遗踪、犹有枕囊留，相思物。——宋代·吴文英《满江红·刘朔斋赋菊和韵》 满江红·刘朔斋赋菊和韵 露浥初英，早遗恨、参差九日。还却笑、萸随节过，桂凋无色。杯面寒香蜂共泛，篱根秋讯蛩催织。爱玲珑、筛月水屏风，千枝结。 芳井韵，寒泉咽。霜着处，微红湿。共评花索句，看谁先得。好漉乌巾连夜醉，莫愁金钿无人拾。算遗踪、犹有枕囊留，相思物。 咏物菊花一片能教一断肠，可堪平砌更堆墙。飘如迁客来过岭，坠似骚人去赴湘。乱点莓苔多莫数，偶粘衣袖久犹香。东风谬掌花权柄，却忌孤高不主张。——宋代·刘克庄《落梅》 落梅 一片能教一断肠，可堪平砌更堆墙。 飘如迁客来过岭，坠似骚人去赴湘。 乱点莓苔多莫数，偶粘衣袖久犹香。 东风谬掌花权柄，却忌孤高不主张。 古诗三百首 ， 咏物 ， 梅花 ， 品格抒怀
长亭怨慢·雁译文 | 注释 | 赏析
长亭怨慢·雁 [清代] 朱彝尊 结多少悲秋俦侣，特地年年，北风吹度。紫塞门孤，金河月冷，恨谁诉？回汀枉渚，也只恋江南住。随意落平沙，巧排作、参差筝柱。别浦，惯惊移莫定，应怯败荷疏雨。一绳云杪，看字字悬针垂露。渐欹斜、无力低飘，正目送、碧罗天暮。写不了相思，又蘸凉波飞去。 咏物,写鸟 译文及注释 译文 北风年年有意吹到塞外，悲秋的大雁结成伴侣将飞向南方。寂寥的关塞，广漠的天空，满腔的哀怨向谁倾诉呢？雁群飞过水滩，越过水中的沙洲，只是恋着江南的故土，它们落在沙滩上象是筝上参差错落的弦柱。雁群飞蓟水滨，落下又惊起，似乎败荷疏雨都使雁群惊恐不安。大雁升空继续高飞远去，它们象一条绳悬挂云端。雁群飞得疲惫了，在暮色苍茫的天际渐渐欹斜低飘：但对江南的相思萦绕于心，它们没有停留下来。 又蘸着冷风离去。 注释 俦（chóu）侣：伴侣。紫塞：指长城。此处泛指北方塞外。金河：指秋空。古代以阴阳五行解释季节演变，秋属金，所以称秋空为金河。回汀枉渚：汀，水边平地。渚：水中小洲。回，枉：弯曲的形状。筝柱：指筝上的弦柱。此处用以形容大雁飞行的队形。浦：水滨。一绳云杪（miǎo）：形容大雁排成一字形飞向天边。欹(qī)斜：倾斜不平。 鉴赏 这首词是朱彝尊咏物词中最着名的一首。它题咏的是雁，说 得具体一点则是秋雁。 全词字面，均扣住“雁”字来写：既有对群雁憩息时的静态描述，如“随意落平沙，巧排作、参差筝柱”，又有对雁 阵飞行时的动态勾勒，如“一绳云杪，看字字、悬针垂露”；既有形象的外观描写，如“渐欹斜、无力低飘”，也有逼真的心理刻画，如“惯 惊移莫定，应怯败荷疏雨”；既有一般的白描手法，如“回汀枉渚，也只恋、江南住”，还有曲折的典故运用，如“紫塞门孤，金河月冷” ……从而生动细致地描绘出了一幅大雁南飞的画图。 创作背景
昔年种柳的作者简介
加布里尔·加西亚·马尔克斯,1927年3月6日生于哥伦比亚阿拉卡塔卡。1940 年迁居首都波哥大。1947年入波哥大大学攻读法律，并开始文学创作。1948年因哥伦比亚内战中途辍学。不久他进入报界，任《观察家报》记者。1955年，他因连载文章揭露被政府美化了的海难而被迫离开哥伦比亚，任《观察家报》驻欧洲记者。1960年，任古巴拉丁通讯社记者。1961年至1967年，他移居墨西哥，从事文学、新闻和电影工作。之后他主要居住在墨西哥和欧洲，继续其文学创作。1975年，他为抗议智利政变举行文学罢工，搁笔5年。1982年，获诺贝尔文学奖，并任法国西班牙语文化交流委员会主席。1982年，哥伦比亚地震，他回到祖国。1999年得淋巴癌，此后文学产量遽减，2006年1月宣布封笔。BECAUSE the great subject of the fiction of Gabriel García Márquez is time, no reader of his luminous, strange new book should fail to be aware of exactly how much time its author has spent on earth: on the day of the publication in English of Memories of My Melancholy Whores, García Márquez will have lived 78 years, 7 months, 3 weeks and 4 days, and he continues to write, as he so often has, about the people for whom time has seemed to stand still. He has always been most interested in the extremely old and the extremely young - for the reason, I think, that our first experiences of the world and our last are the ones that stop us in our tracks, and turn the long confusion of our days into something like stories.Caleb BachGaM. K. PerkerThe hero and heroine of Memories of My Melancholy Whores are a 90-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl, both nameless, who meet periodically in a room in Rosa Cabarcas's brothel - the theater of our nights, the old man calls it - and, more constantly and more vividly, in his fevered imagination, where the curtain never comes down. The nonagenarian narrator is the latest in an illustrious line of cranky, obsessive García Márquez geezers, of which the most memorable, perhaps, is the romantic madman Florentino Ariza, whose determination to woo and win in his 70's the woman who spurned him in his 20's is the perpetual-motion machine that powers Love in the Time of Cholera. But the writer was only in his late 50's, a mere pup, when he invented Florentino Ariza and granted that elderly fool for love the belated fulfillment of his desire. These days, García Márquez needs a dirtier, older dirty old man just to satisfy his insatiable taste for novelty, his lust for sudden and unforeseeable accesses of meaning, his itch to probe the mysteries of last things.And the central codger of Memories of My Melancholy Whores seems, at least at the outset, a very dirty old man indeed. The story begins, with García Márquez's characteristic hit-the-ground-running conciseness, like this: The year I turned 90, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin. A superb opening - Edith Grossman's translation is, here and elsewhere, elegant and exact - but not, perhaps, the sort of statement that generates waves of good feeling toward the speaker. The peculiar charm of this narrator, though, is that he really doesn't give a damn what his audience thinks of him. I'm ugly, shy and anachronistic, he writes, by way of introducing himself, and he's just warming up. I am the end of a line, without merit or brilliance, he calmly informs us; and despite enjoying some local fame as a critic and newspaper columnist in his native La Paz, he admits to being a mediocre journalist. His lechery is, in fact, among his more attractive qualities; it is, in any event, one of the few areas in which he has truly distinguished himself. I have never gone to bed with a woman I didn't pay, he writes, and with sheepish pride reports that he was twice crowned client of the year in the city's red-light district.That brief moment of boastfulness is a rarity in Memories of My Melancholy Whores. Mostly, this old man is beyond pride, and beyond shame, too. Because García Márquez doesn't often tell his tall tales in the first person, and because the story inevitably evokes comparisons to Lolita, readers might expect this little book to be more of a departure from its author's usual, unmistakable style - the lulling, deadpan bedtime-story tone that has always enabled him to get away with both murder and the more improbable kinds of love. Some might even manage to persuade themselves that this monologue is, like Humbert Humbert's, an ironic apologia, a literary game whose object is to catch the speaker out in his evasions and self-deceptions.But that's not at all what García Márquez is up to here. The cunning of Memories of My Melancholy Whores lies in the utter - and utterly unexpected - reliability of its narrator. This daft coot is, in his way, as trustworthy as St. Augustine (whom he does not, I hasten to add, otherwise resemble) because his story is, like the saint's, a conversion narrative. His reason for writing, he says, is to record the beginning of a new life at an age when most mortals have already died, which means, of course, that he has no motive to be anything but brutally honest about the now-despised former life, the 90 years, to the minute, he wasted (his word) before seeing the light.The light is, in this case, nothing celestial, just the miracle of the first love of my life at the age of 90, the object of his passion being the anonymous teenage virgin whose naked body he rents from Rosa Cabarcas: a girl who is usually asleep when he comes to her, who rarely speaks even when she's awake, and with whom he does not consummate his physical desire. I preferred her asleep, he admits, and, sounding disturbingly like James Stewart in Vertigo, further confesses that seeing and touching her in the flesh, she seemed less real to me than in my memory.Yes, the young virgin - whom the old man calls Delgadina, after a girl in a song - is an abstraction, and that, as we all know, is no basis for a mature, healthy relationship. The wonderful joke of Memories of My Melancholy Whores, though, is that its hero's life is changed by the late onset of a profoundly immature and not especially healthy emotion: the painful, idealizing, narcissistic romanticism of adolescence. And the narrator knows all too well how ludicrously out of season this desperate yearning is, how silly it is for a man his age - the whores' client of the year, no less - to be born again into puppy love.Who needs Nabokovian verbal ironies when time itself plays practical jokes like this? The besotted old man of Memories of My Melancholy Whores may or may not actually deserve his 11th-hour redemption, but neither he nor García Márquez is inclined to question it too rigorously, to look this particular gift horse in the mouth. In the end, a marvel is a marvel, best left unexamined, and all any of us can do, this funny, dirty old story says, is laugh. The wisdom the narrator comes to after his great conversion is so mundane, so homely, it's hilarious: When I woke alive on the first morning of my 90's in the happy bed of Delgadina, I was transfixed by the agreeable idea that life was not something that passes by like Heraclitus' ever-changing river but a unique opportunity to turn over on the grill and keep broiling on the other side for another 90 years.Memories of My Melancholy Whores is García Márquez's first book of fiction in a decade - since Of Love and Other Demons, which was also a short novel about an unlikely romance. He has filled that time with memoir-writing: the first, large volume of his autobiography, Living to Tell the Tale, was published here in 2003. So perhaps it's natural, after 10 years of looking back, that he has now treated himself, and his readers, to this sprightly, perverse little fable about looking forward. Not many of the remarkable storytellers of Latin American literature's boom years are left: Borges and Cortázar are gone, and Puig and Donoso and Arenas; and earlier this year we lost the wily and passionate Guillermo Cabrera Infante, too. But Gabriel García Márquez is still around, turning on the grill, and gratefully. Although he has spent a bit less time in this world than the moonstruck narrator of his latest book, he is now old enough, at last, to feel that every new story arrives as a miracle, and to understand that as long as he writes he can keep being born again.
