We hardly knew ye, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Izulde · 04-18-2014, 03:14 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.

Qwikshot · 04-18-2014, 07:40 AM

I have another author now that I must read...I read something of his a long long time ago.

britrock88 · 04-21-2014, 10:24 AM

Glad GGM got a post, and I'm not surprised Izulde carried the torch for the board.

chesapeake · 04-21-2014, 01:00 PM

I have been a big fan as well. I just reread Love in the Time of Cholera about a month ago and found all sorts of new things that I get now that I didn't get when I read it the first time 20+ years ago. Great works of art are like that.

DaddyTorgo · 04-21-2014, 01:08 PM

Similarly not a fan of magical realism - at least not when I read his works and when I was in my writing-phase, but undoubtedly a great writer.

04-18-2014, 07:40 AM	#2
Qwikshot Pro Starter Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: ...down the gravity well	I have another author now that I must read...I read something of his a long long time ago. __________________ "General Woundwort's body was never found. It could be that he still lives his fierce life somewhere else, but from that day on, mother rabbits would tell their kittens that if they did not do as they were told, the General would get them. Such was Woundwort's monument, and perhaps it would not have displeased him." Watership Down, Richard Adams

04-21-2014, 10:24 AM	#3
britrock88 Pro Starter Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Madison, WI	Glad GGM got a post, and I'm not surprised Izulde carried the torch for the board.

04-21-2014, 01:00 PM	#4
chesapeake College Starter Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Arlington, VA	I have been a big fan as well. I just reread Love in the Time of Cholera about a month ago and found all sorts of new things that I get now that I didn't get when I read it the first time 20+ years ago. Great works of art are like that.

04-21-2014, 01:08 PM	#5
DaddyTorgo Hall Of Famer Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Massachusetts	Similarly not a fan of magical realism - at least not when I read his works and when I was in my writing-phase, but undoubtedly a great writer.

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