Living to Tell the Tale [Paperback]

In the words of Gabito..."I was brought up in the lawless space of the Caribbean,"...the Nobel laureate explains with pride the difference between "Costenos" (Colombians raised on the coast) and "Cachacos" (Colombians raised in Bogota). In some ways...it is comparable to the difference between very laid-back, open minded Californians and super-serious, ambitious New Yorkers. However, the essential point the author makes is the cultural mind-set he was raised with. A mind-set filled with surreal coastal dreams and the reality of the 1928 banana workers massacre in Cienaga which his loving Mother explained to him, "that's where the world ended."

Gabito was born on March 6, 1927. He was heavily influenced by the sensitivities of his Mother and grandfather, Colonel Nicolas Ricardo Marques Mejia (called Papalelo by his grandchildren). The Colonel was a veteran of the Liberal/Conservative War of One Thousand Days (1899-1903). Consequently, the author learned from an early age that Colombia was a nation of many civil wars and that political differences inside the borders of his nation often ended in violence.

Papaledo taught his devoted grandson that General Simon Bolivar (the George Washington of South America) "was the greatest man born in the history of the world." But Gabito is quick to inform the reader that he grew up with a formal education at the splendid Liceo Nacional de Zipaquira and grew up "bloodthirsty for Faulkner." He adds that he started smoking heavily at 15 (he eventually quits) and strongly appreciated the genius of "Ulysses" by James Joyce and "Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka. Interestingly enough the author credits journalism for his sharp "reporter's eye" and states, "the novel and journalism are children of the same mother."

Still and all, the author is responsible and does not ignore the widespread "scorched earth policy of the government." In one of the most fascinating segments of this book he provides an eye-witness account of the April 9, 1948 murder of the beloved Colombian populist Jorge Eliecer Gaitan and vividly decribes the subsequent "Bogotazo" the greatest riot in the history of the Western Hemisphere. He also offers his own credible conspiracy theory that there was a well dressed man who incited the crowd after the murder of Gaitan and "the man managed to have a false assassin killed in order to protect the identity of the real one." Gabito also goes to extremes to document the heavy handed government censorship of the press afterwards.

Ultimately, the author tells us, "life itself taught me that one of the most useful secrets for writing is to learn to read the hieroglyphs of reality without knocking or asking anything." This is a true masterpiece and deserves to be read by all lovers of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and of the Republic of Colombia. Highly, highly recommended.

Bert Ruiz

The book reads like a literary work, its imagery allowing us into the inner sanctum of the writer. Reading Living to Tell the Tale is an easy yet rich, simple yet complex experience. Mr. Marquez tells his tale, as someone who has grown up in poverty, going on to live a rich, full life, never forgetting his roots. He is at the center of his tale, alone, yet part of his world. I was repeatedly astounded how something so simple could offer such depth and complexity.

The story is a life journey, in which we are jolted forward and back then forward again by the author. Marquez recounts his life beautifully only as a master story teller can recount it.

This may be read as a guide for writers, to trace the source of the author's skills; Marquez claims his heritage from the lineage of his European ancestor in the form of Greek Classical literature; from his Colombian and South American contemporaries, and from his upbringing and environment, which he draws upon for material.

Inspiration, magic and the unusual cast of characters he met in life also guided him. The author is an explicit, robust vibrant man, full of earthly desire for drink, women and cigarettes. He loved access to obscure facts, which allowed him to wheedle out of mundane examinations.

Marquez writes about Columbia, local cultural events, local people and the select group of artistic creatives among whom he traveled. As in his novels and stories he describes the social fabric, the political backdrop, human passions, crimes, and loves. He describes people, a relative with a "mordant smile", a character adherent to "inviolable laws". He describes a journalistic trip to document local military activities: "A colonel with battle decorations, the good looks of a film star and an intelligent affability explained without alarm that the advance guard of the guerilla had been in the house".

He loved reading. Living his life fully while learning his art and scrapping by, her reads everything he can get his hands on. He meets and converses with a vast array of people from amazing, deep thinkers to friends, to local roust-abouts. Some are recognizable to the average reader (Fidel Castro) while some may be known only to a select group of readers, the café culture of the 1950's Colombia.

The author weaves a descriptive memory-laden fabric of his path to becoming a writer " I learned to appreciate my sense of smell, whose power of nostalgic evocation is overwhelming." He recounts the journey with rewind, and fast-forward dreams, as well as with coherent, simple self-analysis while describing who he was and is, lightly gently, kissingly. "Today I realize, however, that the simple sentence was my very first literary success". He is a writer's writer while remaining a writer of the people.

Telling the tale of his families' past as well as that of his own, we discover the making of a Nobel Prize winning writer is deeply rooted in rich soil. He tells us enough of himself, but never too much.

On writers and writing-- Marquez has always loved poetry and believes that the short story is superior to the novel, this from a man who has given the world ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE and LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA. It is not surprising that he prefers the feature story to an interview or straight reporting. Marquez readily admits that dialogue is not his forte. (We'll gladly settle for his magical tales, however.) He would agree that good readers make good writers as he has read everyone. Writers in English include D. H Lawrence, Graham Greene, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck, Erskine Caldwell, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne et al. Hawthorne's THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES "marked" him for life. Upon discovering that a wooden crate that arrived one morning was filled with books, he writes: "My heart leaded up before I did. . . The first thing I did was to display the books on the table in the dining room while my mother finished clearing away the breakfast dishes." He goes on to "smell" them as he says he always does with new books.

Of course this volume is chockfull of sparse, wondrous descriptions. Drugs create an "artificial paradise." A man at an "all-night haunt" is "an Adonois-like man in his sixties." The moon is a "cold plate in the sky." Someone wears a "merinque-white uniform." Another person's hair was so unruly, that it "looked borrowed." An old man has a "maternal belly."

This volume is the first of a trilogy. We certainly hope that Mr. Marquez lives to finish his marvelous tale.