September 2, 2012
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Week 36: Nutmeg
Nutmeg starts out with Gabriel Angélico and an interesting situation - his heart is on the right side of his chest rather than the left. So you are led to believe that this will be the premise of the novel and that somehow, "nutmeg" will come into the story. While Gabriel Angélico does indeed share a nutmeg tree with his neighbor, the story ends up being broader than this one man. I don't even feel that he ends up being the main character at all.
I have no idea what language this book was originally written in, but it felt like a Gabriel García Márquez novel. It talks about love in a roundabout way. It shows you the intimate, painful details of every day life. And it feels just the tiniest bit foreign, and yet completely familiar at the same time. Universal.
