The Paired Paradoxes of GGM’s Magic Realism
Space and Time
If I had to select my favorite writer
based on space management and description, I would probably think of Honoré de
Balzac, or would have nearly no preference for any writer in Latin American
literature. Again, if I had to raise the same concern for a selection based on
time management, I then would choose García Márquez, whom I consider the Master
of Masters in literary time management. Although Cortázar had written Rayuela
to create a novelistic gender that could be read in any order with consistency,
García Márquez manages time in such a fashion that present and past and past
and future are linked through many years of solitude, of resemblance in the making
of history. On the other hand, for literary space management, García Márquez
conveys a flat description as what the recent world in One Hundred Years of
Solitude looks like; thus, that envisioning such a recent world with large
stones resembling prehistoric eggs is left to the reader’s imagination, at
least, partly. In the narration of dynamic action, García Márquez embeds
description with a nuanced perception on action, as in Chronicle of a Death
Foretold and No One Writes to the Colonel, in particular, and clearly in each
one of his writings. However, the best combination of description embedded in
the dynamic action of magic realism is in the Autumn of the Patriarch and his
many shorter novels, such as Leaf Storm, and in his short stories. Because of
dynamic action implies, both movement and living time, it implicitly represents
a nuance of space and time.
Love and Passion
Lovers in the Love in Time of Cholera
care more about true love than they do about passion, and dream of reviving old
times, as they realize their love. However, love and passion are more physical
in One Hundred Years of Solitude… True love is normally physical, and just
Jorge Isaacs has made a masterpiece of Maria’s platonic love, which results in
her death, as a dreamt love, never realized, which turns into a hysteric
compulsive disease… But love is so physical in García Márquez’s masterpiece,
that the reader can sense the smell of the lovers and the heat of their bodies through
his narration. Even incest scatology provides a mix of passion and luster.
Furthermore, in One Hundred Years, love is no so tide to social concerns,
because it is tenderly mixed with passion, even denying class or tradition,
although it does in Chronicle, where the loss of virginity represents one of
the novel’s leit motif, as a cultural
issue in a Northern Colombian town. But in contrast, the gay sex between two
army men presented in The Autumn
probably points out some of the dictators [from the real world] targeted in the
book, which is presented with a sordid language and shocking morbidity, and not
as Christian love or physical love between a man and a woman. There is,
however, no reference to Sodom and Gomorrah or anyone frozen into a salt statue.
Race and Ethnicity
Gypsies, black slaves, purely white Spaniards,
European explorers, Creoles, mulattoes, baboons, and other examples of ethnic
diversity occur in the writings of García Marquez. Ethnicity is shown
more culturally than as the physical characterization of an actor in his
writings, but there are some clear ethnic descriptions, easily representing the
relaxed perception and tolerance of race and cultural ethnic diversity in a
Latin American country.
Tragedy and Death
While many scenes in GGM’s writings can
have a humorous approach, most writings, novels, short stories, and movie
scripting mixed traditional comedy with tragedy. Struggle for territory control
and power in One Hundred Years of Solitude, results in rivalry for the control
of the land, and main characters in the novel play a key role there.
Power and Pleasure
Consistent with Western philosophies and
life styles, power and pleasure are widely evidenced in each one of GGM’s
novels. But the extreme version of power is only perceived in the leading
character in the Autumn, which represents a dictatorship, where rotten
greatness is the fragrance described upon the fall of the dictator, a fragrance
that sparse all over the city with a tender, warm breeze.
Freedom and Slavery
Culturally, slavery is mentioned in some
historic citations within GGM’s writings. Besides, the master moral and the
slave moral ever preached by Nietzsche are presented in the novel of power The
Autumn, but there are many other scenarios in many of his other writings where
the excess of power overcomes freedom, such as in scenarios, where either male
or female dominance is present in the control of a family. But freedom and
liberty are primarily linked to the environment and nature (this is also
Rousseau paradigm, and it is also emphasize in Bolívar’s poem My Delirium atop Chimborazo, as he
follows the footprints of La Condamine and Humboldt, a true praise to nature). Thus,
enjoying nature is the greatest gift of [divine] freedom, where the divinity
implicit in nature meets with human nature allowing for men and women to attain
both liberty and happiness. But slavery is represented in the course of the
generations attached to the Buendía family, and it is also a paradox as the
outcome of oppressive power in The Autumn.
And it is indeed death that results in total freedom with the end of the
genealogy and the end of the novel, with a second chance for happiness for them
on the face of the earth. And it is indeed death that brings total freedom to
them, with the end of their genealogy and the end of the novel, with no further
chances for for them to be happy on the face of the earth.
Reality and Fiction
Although most of dramas presented in
GGM’s works tend to be real, based on reality or consistently presented as
real, it contains a variety of fiction or magic, mystically attached to the
story: there are many instances of this approach to his works. For instance,
insomnia and forgetfulness; the gallery of the mirrors; the last of the
Buendías born with a pig tale. Besides, some stories are nuanced by some
existentialist anxiety, such as, the exasperating wait of the Colonel for his
pension; Santiago Nassar’s anguish when everyone knows they are going to kill
him for taking Angela Vicario’s virginity. And Even Ursula says to live “with a
constant shock". While each one of these events is real, they are mixed with a poetic
narrative, which expands into fiction.
Concluding Remark
Indeed, from every set of pair
categories, I have encountered a relationship between GGM’s writing and a
sacred book, like the Bible.
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