Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Cosmopolitanism in García Marquez’s Works (II)

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.