Gabriel García Márquez

I had TweetDeck open in the background last night, when I saw the AP's tweet, "BREAKING: Source close to family says Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez has died." He was eighty-seven, and had been in the hospital in the past couple of weeks. And yet – yet I was unbearably sad.

I read One Hundred Years Of Solitude when I was eighteen, and fell in love with both, the book and the author. When people would ask me to recommend a book, without batting an eyelid, I would recommend the much-acclaimed novel that probably won him the Nobel Prize in 1982. Over the course of the last decade, I've read one book by him every year, instead of reading his works back-to-back. I want to be able to savour each word, in each sentence, and get lost in the magical world that only he could weave.

Over the years, as I read more of his works, I wanted to read more. Where else could one find magical realism as beautiful as his, with hints of the extraordinary, balanced with touches of verisimilitude? To quote the New York Times:

Mr. García Márquez was a master of the literary genre known as magical realism, in which the miraculous and the real converge. In his novels and stories, storms rage for years, flowers drift from the skies, tyrants survive for centuries, priests levitate and corpses fail to decompose. And, more plausibly, lovers rekindle their passion after a half-century apart.

It's bizarre, as I mentioned to a friend; I don't know him, nor his family, and obviously, my sadness was completely selfish, based on the fact that we wouldn't see any new books by him hit the stand, and I would run out of works by him. I was looking forward to We'll See Each Other In August, despite the rumours about his ailing health and dementia. I look forward to reading the unread books by him that sit on my bookshelf, and once I finish those, to purchase the remainder of his books, and lap them up. Hungrily.

It would be incredibly clichéd to end with RIP, but what else does one say? Thank you? I feel lucky to have read so many of his works, and I am equally lucky to have a lot of his works still waiting to be read. It is true though, I suppose – even though the artist is dead, the art lives on; that makes us incredibly fortunate.

RIP Gabo, and thank you for leaving behind a wonderful world of magical realism for us.

Gabriel García Márquez - Leaf Storm

It's been just over a year since I read Of Love And Other Demons, so I figured it's time to read another book by one of my favourite authors. Well, not exactly. I had just pulled out four books from my bookshelf as I headed for a week long respite from reality, and ended up talking to one of my colleagues about the books I was taking with me. So, he mentioned that his favourite authors were Camus and Calvino (neither of which have any presence on this blog, embarrassingly - I really need to catch up on their works! I've only read the one Calvino!!). I automatically replied that Márquez is one of my favourites, and then realised that I have an unread book by him on the shelf, so surely - surely, it should travel with me. And so it did. Leaf Storm is Márquez's first published work, and it took him seven years to find a publisher for the book, before it was eventually released in 1955. While Márquez claims this is his favourite work, ambivalence floods me. I can categorically state that this isn't my favourite work by the Nobel Prize laureate. It's not even in the top three, but, the novella does still wow me. Márquez seems to have that effect on me every single time.

The entire novel is set in a single room, on one afternoon. Three voices from three generations - the Colonel, his daughter, and his grandson - take centerstage, as the Colonel attempts to keep a promise made a long time ago: give the much-disliked French doctor a Christian burial.

The doctor arrived in Macondo, a village one might know from One Hundred Years of Solitude, on the same day as the village priest, and while the latter became an influential part of the society, the doctor made himself fairly unpopular. He lived with the Colonel for eight years, and then, moved two houses down with the housemaid. Through all the time the Colonel knew him, he never knew his name.

While the premise is straightforward, and the scope of the book tightly contained, the wonder of the book lies in the stream-of-consciousness narration of the three protagonists, as they reflect on the current state of affairs, what brought them here, and how their actions here (to bury the doctor) will influence their future in a village, which once prosperous, has gone back to being poverty-stricken, after the leaf storm passed. Amidst other things, the reader is privy to the circumstances surrounding the Colonel's daughter's wedding, the thoughts of the child as he encounters death for the first time, the commitment of the Colonel, and of course, the explanation behind why the doctor is as unpopular as he is.

What was incredible was being re-introduced to the fictional village of Macondo, and Colonel Aureliano Buendía making an appearance again - even if it was only as the writer of the letter which the doctor gave the Colonel on first arriving in the village, which led to the Colonel extending an invitation to the doctor to stay at his house. There is something quite special about finding old friends in new books, and being on familiar ground. Of course, in this case, Leaf Storm is the predecessor to One Hundred Years Of Solitude, but, that's a small detail.

For me, the difficulty in this book arose while trying to figure out which character was narrating at any given point in time. For the most part, it was not that laborious, albeit at times, passages had to be re-read, in order to determine who the narrator was, and personally, I found that diminished the reading experience.

All in all though, as a one-shot, and as a first novel(la), this really must be read - specially by fans of Márquez. Have you read this novella? What did you think? And more importantly, which of Márquez's works should I read next?

Gabriel García Márquez - Of Love And Other Demons

Last year, I mentioned how I'm trying to read one book by Gabriel García Márquez every year. That was a resolution I made on reading my first novel by the Nobel Prize laureate (One Hundred Years of Solitude), but now - now, I'm thinking, why shouldn't I read them back-to-back? That gives me ample time to go back and enjoy each of his books again, and again, and - you get the idea, right? This novella re-affirms the conclusion I reached. At only 160 pages, it's a fairly quick read, but I already feel like re-reading it, and losing myself in the wondrous world so skillfully created by Márquez.

Set in Latin America in the eighteenth century, this bleak story is about a twelve year old, Sierva Maria, who is brought up by the slaves in her parents' estate. She imbibes the cultures, languages and traditions of the slaves, and is closer to them than to her own parents who have little, if any, time for her. Subsequently, she's also prone to fabricating stories and exaggerating the truth, as per her convenience - sometimes, for no rhyme or reason ("She wouldn't tell the truth even by mistake").

When she is bitten by a rabid dog, despite not showing any signs of hydrophobia, people assume that she's either rabid, or possessed by a demon.This changes her father's attitude towards her, as he showers her with more love and affection, and tries to save her, but is forced to listen to the bishop, who believes that an exorcism is to be performed to cleanse the girl, despite the famous Jewish physician, Abrenuncio, dismissing the possibility of any such possession. In a world of wild beliefs and crazy superstitions, Abrenuncio is one of the few pragmatic minds, but the Bishop's belief that rabies is one of the forms the demon can adopt to enter the human body is popularly accepted.

Subsequently, Sierva Maria is incarcerated to the convent at St. Clara, where the Cayetano Delaura, the chief exorcist, is assigned to her. Delaura, almost typically, falls in love with the girl, and tries to figure out a way to save her life, with the help of Abrenuncio. However, because the girl's ways is so different from what they accept, it's almost impossible to cast the accusations aside. Her familiarity with the slave traditions, and the ease with which she speaks their languages and blends in with them is essentially why no one believes that she is perfectly unblemished, despite the bite.

Delaura, an extremely religious person, and the Bishop's trusted subordinate, tries sticking up for the girl, as love for the girl thirty years his junior, possesses him, but in a world where superstitions are predominant and rational reasoning dismissed, he is fighting a lost battle.

What are the demons though? Rabies? Traditions? Superstitions? Clashing of cultures - the Christians and the slaves? Or, love? And how does one overcome these demons? More importantly, can they be overcome?

People are desperate to cling on to the supernatural in order to explain some of the calamities that occur in their lives, at the expense of ignoring completely rational explanations. Is it that they don't know better, or that they choose not to know better? In this incredibly dark and gloomy book, Marquez again creates a world that shows the class divide and how the religious customs take precedence over all else. Despite this being a comparatively short read, the depth of the story and the emotions it evokes linger on long after you put the book back on the shelf.

Have you read anything by this incredibly talented Nobel Laureate? Which book is your favourite?

Gabriel García Márquez - Chronicle of a Death Foretold

After reading One Hundred Years of Solitude some four years back, I decided to read one book by the Nobel laureate, Gabriel García Márquez, every year. This is the fifth book by Márquez that I'm reading, and I found it as brilliant - and different - as the previous four. The plot of the book is revealed with the title of this novella, and the first line:

On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on.

So, Santiago Nasar was going to be killed, and most of the people living in the small unnamed Columbian village knew the details : the perpetrators, the reason, the place, and the way in which the murder was going to be carried out. No one warned the victim, and by the time the people likely to warn him found out about the plan, it was too late.

Written in first person, this is a 'chronicle' of Santiago Nasar's death, as the author goes about interviewing the locals, some twenty-seven years after the incident, in order to figure out why no one attempted to stop this event. To cut a short story shorter (sorry!), Bayardo San Roman, a wealthy out-of-towner, married the beautiful Angela Vicario. On their wedding night, he discovered that she wasn't a virgin and subsequently, returned her to her parents' house. Her brothers, Pedro and Pablo Vicario, coerced her into telling them who the man responsible for this act was, and her reply was Santiago Nasar. In order to defend their sister's honour (and their family honour), the brothers decided to kill Nasar. However, it seemed as though it was tradition that prompted them to plan the murder, as opposed to any real desire to kill Nasar. Tradition that dictated that the brothers must always avenge their sister's honour.

The writing is repetitive, in a way, as it follows the same event from many different perspectives. It's almost like a mystery story going backwards, with the crime, the criminals and the motive being laid out at the very outset, and the "investigation" (i.e. the interviews conducted by the narrator) happening later. The pivotal question remains: how did the locals of the village allow the Vicario brothers to kill Nasar, despite knowing all the details of their plans?

The writing is precise and to-the-point, almost as though it's a journalist doing the writing, not an author. The flowery poetic language found in One Hundred Years of Solitude is completely absent, as this book seems to be more factual. It's completely engrossing, and I thought it was a non-fictional account. However, a quick search on Google told me otherwise.

I enjoyed this book, and for those of you who are intimidated by Márquez, this might be a good place to start, as it's quite short, and the language isn't overwhelming. The story is fantastic, and it lets the reader interpret certain key moments/events in their own way.

Have you read any Márquez? Which is your favourite book by him?

Gabriel Garcia Marquez - News of a Kidnapping

Background:

This is another one for the Take A Chance Challenge, hosted by Jenners at Find Your Next Book Here: Public Spying. I commute for a couple of hours daily, and loads of people around me are reading something or the other; some books that I'm intrigued by, and some books I see and go: Meh. I saw someone reading this book, and my curiosity piqued. I love Gabriel Garcia Marquez's works, but surprisingly, I hadn't stumbled upon this one before. So, I made a mental note of it. With a book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one can't go wrong, right?

Review:

This non-fictional book traces the last few months of Pablo Escobar's freedom, as he used every trick in the book to ensure he wasn't extradited to the United States. Kidnapping important socio-political figures, like journalists and family members of politicians in high places, Escobar attempts to leverage his bargaining power with the President/Government of Colombia.

This book follows both, the life in captivity (relationships with each other, the guards, their fears, and hopes) for the ten hostages, as well as the struggle their family went through, trying to get them released - from trying to convince the President, to avoiding an armed raid, lest it led to someone innocent dying. While the President is pressured by the families and the media to take a stand that will ensure the hostages' release sooner, he sticks by what he believes in.

The Constituent Assembly, shrouded in uncertainties, would meet in the next few days, and he could not allow weakness on the part of the government to result in an amnesty for the drug traffickers.

As he says:

"The real threat came at those moments when we faced the temptation or risk, or even the rumor of a possibility of an amnesty" - in short, the unthinkable danger that the conscience of the Constituent Assembly would also be taken hostage.

This book is scary, it reminds us of the devil Escobar was, and how all of Medellin was in his hands; a result of the charitable works in the marginal neighborhoods where the spent their impoverished childhoods.

Luck and a clandestine life had left Escobar in charge of the hen house, and he became a legend who controlled everything. ... At the height of his splendor, people put up altars with his pictures and lit candles to him in the slums of Medellin. It was believed he could perform miracles. No Colombian in history ever possessed or exercised a talent like his for sharing public opinion. And none had a greater power to corrupt. The most unsettling and dangerous aspect of his personality was his total inability to distinguish between good and evil.

The story is gripping, haunting and fantastic. It is an insight into Colombian history, Escobar himself, and the trials and tribulations of the hostages and their families. Despite being a work of non-fiction, not being grossly exaggerated, and despite knowing what happens to Escobar eventually, the book still reads like fiction, with one caveat: by the style of writing, it was easy to tell which hostages had been killed, and which survived, from the very beginning.

What makes this book very 'real' is that Marquez interviewed all the protagonists he could, and then retold their stories. In fact, Maruja (one of the hostages) and Alberto Villamizar (a Colombian politician) approached Marquez to write about her sixteen month captivity. The book itself has minimal exaggeration, as Marquez weaves his magic making all of us hope that something like this never befalls anyone ever again.

If you've ever wondered about the enigma that is Escobar, read this book, for a combination of Marquez's style of writing, and the story itself makes this book simply unputdownable.

Rating: 5