Gabriela Garcia Marquez, man. He’s so good!

This is actually the exact cover of the edition I have. Thank you, Google search.

I had to read Marquez’s The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor for my English class, and I liked it so much that I went straight to the library after we finished our class discussion on it and looked up if Skillman library held any copies. They did, so I went to the shelf, and picked between two English copies which were sandwiched next to a Spanish copy, which I found charming.

I’ve made progress through the first couple of chapters since then, and it’s a very strange book. It takes place in the village of Macondo, in some undefined Hispanic country (representative of Colombia, the internet seems to agree) and follows a family: Jose Arcadio Buendia, the father, Ursula, the mother, and sons Jose Arcadio and Aureliano. In the first chapter gypsies keep showing up to the town and presenting different mystical and scientific advances, including alchemy tools and magnifying glasses. At the end of the chapter, they invent ice . . . and then things go on their merry way into the next chapter. It’s written very matter of fact. Listen to this sentence, from page 46, after the entire village has fallen prey to an “insomnia plague”:

At the beginning of the road into the swamp they put up a sign that said MACONDO and another larger one in the main street that said GOD EXISTS. In all the houses keys to memorizing objects and feelings had been written. But the system demanded so much vigilance and moral strength that many succumbed to the spell of an imaginary reality, one invented by themselves, which was less practical for them but more comforting.

I think what I like so much about it is that it is just a story. It seems like the younger sons are going to grow up, and my friend Joe told me that the book goes through multiple generations, and their loves, and their deaths, and treats it all as just a very interesting tale that happens to sometimes involve magic. And that works for me; I don’t mind as long as the story is interesting hahaha. Books can be very magical if you let them be – though of course they aren’t always like that for me.

I’d say more, but I’m not exactly sure what I mean. Maybe I need to write more about this. Hrm.