Artists on Writers - No. 4, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

46 min read

Deviation Actions

techgnotic's avatar
By
Published:
22K Views
Gabo by Quadraro







The Spectre of Magical Realism Comes to TexasGabriel Garcí­a Márquez


•••




When he died last April at age 87, he had for a half century been a candidate for “world’s greatest living writer.”






Author of short stories and novels, including his masterpiece, One Hundred Years of Solitude, he received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1972 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in Literature in 1982. He was a fierce critic of the United States and had a friend in admirer Fidel Castro, with whom he sometimes shared notes on his works-in-progress. He was banned as a “subversive” from entering the U.S. for several decades until President Clinton lifted the travel ban in 1995. But great art always has a way of prevailing over petty politics in the end. It was announced this week that Márquez’s archives of extant manuscripts and other writing-related items will become a part of the prestigious Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin. His papers will be in good company with those of James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.






Márquez was the creator of a literary style that came to be emulated by many other writers throughout Latin America.




It’s called “magic realism,” reflecting the surreal quality of lives lived in the perpetually unstable and volatile nations south of the U.S border. When life so often balances between life and death on the edge of a razor, passions become more intense, fear is a constant companion and life itself takes on a dream quality more palpable than actual reality. This is why “Gabo” is so beloved—for being able to capture this in his tales. His characters’ lives are “realist” narratives of the brutalities they must endure to survive, yet ancestors speak from their graves and moments of magic occur with no indication that they might be supernatural, hallucinated or even odd. For Márquez and his Latin brethren, the surreal running memory in their heads that is their life is as “real” as any documentarian’s or journalist’s “facts.”




Evaluating one’s life in terms of an ever-shifting personal story narrative made up of memories interwoven with dreams and fantasies is something that rubs North Americans the wrong way.  But it is the glorious and most human way to perceive one’s existence in this cruel and disappointing world of serial tragedies, according to fans of Márquez and his magical literary world. Márquez was a writer who painted tantalizing portraits and beautiful if dangerous landscapes with his words – and in a way that many will continue to be inspired by and try to emulate (some quite successfully, like Isabel Allende with her “House of the Spirits”).  But there will forever be only one “Gabo,” the recognized heart and soul of Latin American literature (and dream culture).  Rest assured, his recent death won’t keep him from stopping by for a visit from time to time.











About Artists on Writers


•••



Writers will always find inspiration in the visions of artists, always feeling compelled to tell the stories behind the moments captured in artists’ unforgettable images,




Just as,




Artists will always find inspiration in the words of writers, always feeling compelled to lend visual reality and habitat to the characters described in the scribe’s haunting words.















A Quote From Gabriel Garcia Márquez


•••

“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.”
— Gabriel Garcia Márquez









Gabriel Garcia Márquez Inspired Artwork










Love in the Time of Cholera


by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.












:thumb258414593:
Written by lady-of-the-quill











Quotes from Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez


•••






“No medicine cures what happiness cannot.”








“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.”













Love in the Time of Cholera


by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

Tell him yes. Even if you are dying of fear, even if you are sorry later, because whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life if you say no.













Questions For the Reader


•••

  1. What is your favorite aspect of the genre of Magical Realism?
  2. What is your favorite Book or Film with Magical Realism as it's main theme?







Research & Curation


•••









Comments25
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
CaroleHumphreys's avatar
Sorry for coming late to the discussion.

I also adored 'Of love and other demons'.  Whether you term it magical realism or carnivalesque, it can be a wonderful experience for the reader when a plot becomes topsy-turvy and bleak environments suddenly can be filled with the extraordinary.  Yes, it is has strong political asppects in how the nobility might become subject to ridicule and servants dress up in the finest of close, a kind of reversal of power for a while.  It also has a way of showing up the flaws in those in power, wheter they be kings, the clergy or beaurocrats.

A favourite book of mine containing magical realism is Bulgakov's 'The Master and Margarita'.