Magic woven in prose. Review on Collected Stories - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Rudyard Kipling, V.S. Naipaul, William Faulkner and J.M.Coetzee they all have one thing in common, well without making all you people scratch your overworked grossly malnourished gray cells, let me tell you what is the common strand that runs across all of them. Well not exactly them per se but their writings, they all borrow heavily from their lands of origin and they talk about the ground realities and give them the garb of fiction and make it so very readable. Each of these writers use the local culture and mannerism, set their stories in the historical perspective of their native lands and etch out their protagonists from people of day to day walks of lives in their homeland. I am not sure if there is any term in literature to define writers of this genre, well lets see, maybe we can call them the so called nativists, did anyone have any other ideas, please visit me in the comments section and we can discuss it further.

Having started with that brief background, talking about the nativists, I cant dare to miss out one name and that is the name of the Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and before I start let me make it clear, this review is not about any particular book of his per se, but rather his writing style, themes, patterns and narration, the same I would elucidate further with the help of some of his masterpieces. I hope this approach doesn’t peeve off anyone, as whatever I write here for Marquez would be the common strand that you will find in all his books, so after the reading the review you can decide for yourself if you want to pick up any of his works from the shelf.

Like many Latin American writers, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been inextricably linked to a style of literature known as magical realism. Literature of this type is usually characterized by elements of the fantastic woven into the story with a deadpan sense of presentation. The term is not without a lot of controversy, however, and has come under attack for numerous reasons. Some claim that it is a postcolonial hangover, a category used by whites to marginalize the fiction of the other. Others claim that it is a passé literary trend, or just a way to cash in on the Latin American ''boom.'' Still others feel the term is simply too limiting, and acts to remove the fiction in question from the world of serious literature. The term magic realism was coined by the German art critic Franz Roh in 1925 to describe a magic insight into reality. Magic realism expressed man's astonishment before the wonders of the real world.

In his works many impulses and traditions cross each other. Folk culture, including oral storytelling, reminiscences from old Indian culture, currents from Spanish baroque in different epochs, influences from European surrealism and other modernism are blended into a spiced and life-giving brew. From it Marquez derives material and inspiration. The violent conflicts of political nature - social and economic - raise the temperature of the intellectual climate. His superlative writing skills and the tapestry that’s evident from his stories complement the picture of a writer who combines the copious, almost overwhelming narrative talent with the mastery of the conscious, disciplined and widely read artist of language. His fervor for the written word was an interweaving of solemn respect and gossipy irreverence and it leaves the writer spell bound at the genius of a master at the top of his creative skills and leaves him spellbound and rasped as if listening to a Mozart or Beethoven.

Marquez is strongly committed politically on the side of the poor and the weak against oppression and economic exploitation and his political leanings reflect in his works and ramblings. His book One Hundred Years of Solitude is a family saga that mirrors the history of Colombia. Like many of his works, it is set in the fictional town of Macondo. Mixing realism and fantasy, the novel is both the story of the decay of the town and an ironic epic of human experience.The Autumn of the Patriarch again explores the theme of decay, this time by depicting with typical exaggeration and ironic humor the barbarism, squalor, and corruption that prevail during the reign of a Latin American military dictator.

Death is perhaps the most important director behind the scenes in his invented and discovered world. Often his stories revolve around a dead person - someone who has died, is dying or will die. A tragic sense of life characterizes his books - a sense of the incorruptible superiority of fate and the inhuman, inexorable ravages of history. The comedy and grotesqueness in Marquez can be cruel, but can also glide over into a conciliating humor. With his stories he creates a world of his own which is microcosmic, it is tumultuous, bewildering yet graphically convincing. It at once reflects a continent and its human riches and poverty.

Love in the Time of Cholera is a tapestry of the complicated human emotions: love, repression, nostalgia, sex, concupiscence, and pride. It is a tale of morbidly repressed love, of passion, of obsession, and of indomitable longing and fulfillment. In all his works he talks passionately about human emotions and bonding. He comes across as a conscientious writer who speaks in a universal language, one that appeals to all and has human values in it. William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway are his ideals. The former is like a meandering traveler who doesn’t know where he is going, but knows one thing that he wont stop while the latter is methodical and his knowledge of the craft of writing is amazing to say the least.

His other noteworthy stories are the Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother, Big Mama's funeral, The other side of death, A very old man with enormous wings, the handsomest drowned man in this world, Monologue of Isabel Watching It Rain in Macondo,Death Constant Beyond Love and many other. They leave one in no doubt that here is a master,he leaves an ineffaceable impression of magic, mystery and mastery.

I know I have been guilty of not talking about any one work of his per se, but as I said at the start of my review, whatever themes and ideas I have talked about are a common strand that runs across all his works and one should expect to find most of his stories on the same lines and themes.

Questions

What is about the so-called nativist band of writers that attracts us to their works? Are they living in today’s world or are they too nostalgic about the past per se?

How does the works of William Faulkner compare to that of Marquez?

Which are the other Latin American writers that impress you?

Do watch out for my next review on one of the best Indian writer, Ruskin Bond and his works.