Gabriel García Márquez 8/2/21

Continuing with the website The Modern Literary Novel and moving onto Colombia. As I have mentioned, the only Colombian I have read is Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Gabriel García Márquez opened my eyes, bowled me over, made me want to write even though I cannot write like him, I lack any talent for magic realism, but he did show me that realism is more than just journalistic facts. Out of the six novels reviewed on The Modern Literary Novel I have read three:  One Hundred Years Of Solitude,  Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and Love in the Time of Cholera.

All three defy easy plot summaries - I did not even think of trying in my notes but then I was more interested in the means of story-telling than telling about the story-telling - but the website does an excellent job of providing short summaries. I like what he says about all three, do not disagree with a word since I feel the same way. This is one paragraph of the summary of One Hundred Years Of Solitude 

Not only is this book García Márquez’ masterpiece, there is a very good case for declaring it the masterpiece of twentieth century literature. It is a book that everyone should read – it is available in numerous languages – both as a literary wonder but also to show, for those that do not know, that the boundary between reality and fantasy is thin at best. It is impossible to summarize the plot of this novel. Firstly, there is no plot and, secondly, like many great novels, what makes this novel is not the plot. It starts with the hero, if he can be called that, Aureliano Buendía, before the firing squad, though a lot happens before we get back to the firing squad.

Here is more Colombian literature 

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