Izulde
04-18-2014, 02:14 AM
Saw it this afternoon, but have been too busy to post it before now. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one of the giants of world literature and one of my personal favorites, has passed.
This is the first author passing that I've been genuinely in deep sorrow over, though I knew it was coming soon. Although I am myself do not really invest myself in magic realism (and hence why I never list him among my greatest influences) in the dreamlike, opulent without purpleness beauty of his language and humor I found a kindred spirit.
He was also one of the best of all time at writing opening lines.
"It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love." - Love in the Time of Cholera
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Just to cite his two most famous novels.
Being very much involved and invested in the aesthetic and memory myself, I slightly echoed GGM in the opening line of my MFA thesis, which I won't repeat here because it's a dull little wisp in comparison.
I also used OHYOS's opening line in slight paraphrase as part of a free writing exercise in a few of my classes. Heh, maybe he *did* influence me more than I realized.
Anyway... this part of today has sucked.
This is the first author passing that I've been genuinely in deep sorrow over, though I knew it was coming soon. Although I am myself do not really invest myself in magic realism (and hence why I never list him among my greatest influences) in the dreamlike, opulent without purpleness beauty of his language and humor I found a kindred spirit.
He was also one of the best of all time at writing opening lines.
"It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love." - Love in the Time of Cholera
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Just to cite his two most famous novels.
Being very much involved and invested in the aesthetic and memory myself, I slightly echoed GGM in the opening line of my MFA thesis, which I won't repeat here because it's a dull little wisp in comparison.
I also used OHYOS's opening line in slight paraphrase as part of a free writing exercise in a few of my classes. Heh, maybe he *did* influence me more than I realized.
Anyway... this part of today has sucked.