Indulgence

Of Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Anonymous
Now and then it is good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

I'm currently reading Living to Tell the Tale, the autobiography of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and I marvel at the amazing way in which he tells a story. Of course, much kudos to the translator Edith Grossman but nevertheless, the astute and keen awareness of Marquez is at the focal point as he begins to weave a magickal story that is true. I'm truly taken by the actually passionate way the Hispanics live their lives. It's really, truly amazing.

I don't know if I can track down to the very exact moment when my writer's instincts came into being. I can remember the very exact moment I decided to become a writer -- I was 14 and I had just finished a really bad book and told myself I can do better than this! What a horrible book, and then the idea hit home and I said to myself I'm going to be a writer and I never turned back since. But I think that my instincts for writing had already awakened before that. I think, before that, I was already very much aware of words and what they can do. Knowing the difference between I know and I think was very helpful growing up -- one was a declaration, a certainty while the other one was uncertain, giving space for the possibility of error.

I remember, I was around 8 or 9 years old and I went to Greenhills with my family. My brother Datu and sister, Michelle went to Radio City with me and I found a cassette tape that I really liked and I got it, went up to my sister and said Where do I purchase this? My sister was flabbergasted. She shouted, good-naturedly, Are you a freak? You're 9 years old, you don't purchase things! You buy things. You start purchasing things when you're 18! I didn't understand at the time what she meant. I used the right word, I thought, there should have been no reason for the outburst, even if it was light-hearted and in good humour. But I was already aware of words by that time.

I didn't even start reading correctly until college. Prior to taking up my majors, all I was reading were Michael Crichton books, Stephen King books and some easy to read classics like The Little Lame Prince, Call of the Wild and White Fang. I was shocked at the stuff we were expected to read when I got to college and my reading developed very quickly since then.

That was the first time I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez by way of Love in the Time of Cholera for Miss Connie Maraan's class in Introduction to Fiction. I loved the way he wrote, I wasn't all that in favour of his idea of the nature of love. While many found the book romantic, I found it a little amoral. I was never in the same wavelength as the Latin American writers in their expression of love. But I've always marvelled at their capabilities of their writing. I could recognize their extraordinary skills as writers, if not their idealogy regarding love.

Funny to find myself reading his autobiography now and finding out that their lives, their books, their stories are but a reflection of their real lives. I find that correlation really intriguing.

posted by wanggo @ 3:52 PM