Gabriel García Márquez in Mexico City on March 29, 2004. © The Richard Avedon Foundation. From The New Yorker.
How sad I was to learn this week that Gabriel Garcia Marquez had died. He was truly one of my favourite writers. I started reading his work in high school, when our curriculum included the book of stories, Leaf Storm. I loved it so much I graduated to One Hundred Years of Solitude and then Love in the Time of Cholera, which remains one of my favourite books of all time. Since then I have tried to read as much of his work as possible. Most recently (several years ago) I read his novella, Memories of My Melancholy Whores.
I loved Marquez's writing, but he also introduced me more generally to the world of Latin American fiction, and to magic realism. Marquez was my jumping off point into Isabel Allende, Mario Vargas Llosa, Laura Esquival, Jorge Luis Borges, Octavio Paz and Pablo Neruda. And my mother, a great reader and a great influence on me, also loved Marquez. It was her copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude that I read, complete with her pencilled-in, ease-of-reference family tree covering the title pages of the book. That book contains one of the great opening lines in all of literature:
It's right up there with the opening lines of Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany and Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Perfection.
Hearing of Marquez's death was a shock, for some reason, even though he was 87 years old. In honour of his writing and his life, I am going to turn back to his work in the next few months. I would love to re-read Love in the Time of Cholera, but I would also like to read some of his work I never got around to - like The Autumn of the Patriarch.
Who is with me? Let's have a Marquez love-fest. I will post details when I have decided which book of his to read first.
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