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Title: The General in His Labyrinth by GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ ISBN: 1-4000-3470-1 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 07 October, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.09 (22 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Larger Than Life
Comment: One of my good friends is the person whose opinion I trust most when it comes to books and literature. And, I'm happy to say, we usually agree on what's good and what's not so good. Although my friend loves Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "The General in His Labyrinth," however, is one book my friend didn't like and I did.
"The General in His Labyrinth" tells the story of the melancholy and sad final journey of General Simon Bolivar, fondly known as "The Liberator" in many South American countries. Bolivar is the man who drove the Spanish from the northern part of South America during 1811-1824, even though the local aristocracy chose to fight against him. In the end, he became a sad and defeated man, old before his time and burdened with the knowledge that his dream of a unified South America would not be realized during his lifetime.
Although Bolivar is revered in much of South America (and the world in general), his final days were quite unhappy. In this book, Garcia Marquez takes us along with Bolivar on his final cruise along the Magdalena River from Colombia to the sea. Bolivar was sad, disillusioned, in shock from the after effects of an assassination attempt and suffering from an unspecified illness; in short, this mythic man had become old at the very young age of forty-six.
After Bolivar had been denied the presidency of Colombia he decided to spend his final days in Europe, far away from political strife of any kind. But Bolivar wouldn't have been Bolivar had he not given his life to the people. His dreams of living in peace in Europe were dashed when the government that replaced him failed.
It didn't take years of history to make Bolivar larger than life. He was larger then life to those who knew him intimately as well as to those who knew him only by reputation. And no wonder...he possessed a terrible temper, a extraordinarily passionate nature and his political and leadership abilities were virtually unsurpassed. Everyone paled next to Bolivar, in life just as (almost) everyone pales next to him in this book. (His enemy, Santander, and his commander, Sucre, are two notable exceptions. His lover, Manuela Saenz is also a well drawn character, but Bolivar's valet, Jose Palacios lets us know that, other than saving Bolivar from assassination, she was really nothing special, just one more lover among very many.)
I read, in a interview with Garcia Marquez, that the voyage along the Magdalena was chosen to be fictionalized since this was a little-known episode in a very publicly-lived life. Personally, I think it was a wonderful choice. The voyage was one that was no doubt filled with melancholy and nostalgia and no one writes of melancholy and nostalgia, especially South American melancholy and nostalgia, as well as does Garcia Marquez. This is a book in which real memories become confused with the hallucinations of delirium, a confusion that is only enhanced by the descriptions of the steamy jungle interior. The floods, the oppressive heat, the epidemics that Bolivar and his weary band of supporters encounter only serve to enhance "The Liberator's" own physical decline.
I also think that showing us Bolivar, not at the height of his glory, but at what was no doubt one of the lowest points of his life, was also a wonderful choice. Bolivar was, apparently, a man of contradictions. He was flamboyant and mythic, yet ultimately tragic; he could be elegant in public matters yet coarse in private; he was obviously a genius at strategy, yet his last days were filled with the incoherence of illness. And, all along the way, through this maze of contradictions, Garcia Marquez never loses sight of the one driving force in Simon Bolivar's life: his desire for a unified South America.
I also love the way Garcia Marquez twists and folds the narrative of this book until the reader isn't quite sure what's real and what's fevered hallucination; what really happened and what didn't. Of course, Garcia Marquez is a master at just this sort of narrative and he really outdoes himself in this book.
In the end, Bolivar, himself, decides that South America is ungovernable; it is, he declared, a land that will inevitably fall into the hands of tyrants, both large and small. Sadly, Bolivar's prophecy seems to be, at least in part, true. And, even more sadly still, although the world has come to love and rever "The Liberator," "The Liberator," himself, died a sad and defeated man.
Rating: 5
Summary: Bolivar's last days
Comment: In this book Garcia Marquez describes, using facts and fiction, the last days of Simon Bolivar, known to many countries in South America as the Liberator. In fact, Garcia Marquez generally refers to Bolivar as Liberator in the book.
I really enjoyed the read, as GM paints a picture of someone who once was powerful and begins to degenerate, both in terms of power and body. He re-lives many of Bolivar's loves, while the general becomes more and more disheartened by the lack of love the people show for him. He reminices about the times when the arrival of Bolivar in any city was cause for tremendous celebration. We almost join the general on his last few days, as one former lover, who once was young and beautiful, joins him, and we enjoy the loyalty of his last few warriors, who refuse to leave him.
It is definitely a departure from GM's usual novels, but worth a try especially for the historical nature of Bolivar and the novel. I also read "The October of the Patriarch", which seems to touch on the same issues (of a powerful man getting old and weak), but I thought this book was better because of the realism GM brings into it, which Latin America's prime independence figure as protagonist.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Master Work
Comment: Marques remains an international literary treasure, a writer of passion and eloquence whose work defines his generation. Many readers have found his work daunting and given up, but those who persevered discovered a world where magic and passion reigned. With Oprah Winery's choice of Marques's most famous work, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" for her book club, I can only hope that readers will not stop there and will continue on to his other works. "The General and His Labyrinth" would make an excellent stop for those wanting to further explore this author's imagination.
The work follows Simon Bolivar, the liberator of his South America, as he wanders towards an early grave, destitute and nearly friendless. Through this lens Marques examines the idea of loss, futility, dreaming, desire, friendship, and humanity. As a man who achieves so much but ends with so little, Bolivar's life makes an excellent cautionary metaphor for modern society. Readers will find little of the humor this author so cleverly places in his other work, but his style remains both unique and haunting. Marques here builds a complex and perplexing world and when the reader becomes confused, it is because that was the authors goal.
"General" is quite a bit shorter than most of Marques's other works, but his powerful language and masterful imagery rings out from the page. Bolivar has a long and painful trip to take and you will not regret deciding to join him.
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Title: The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez ISBN: 0060932678 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez ISBN: 0060929790 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 November, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution by Mariano Azuela, E. Munguia, Ana Castillo ISBN: 0451526252 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: May, 1996 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez ISBN: 0140119906 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: November, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Strange Pilgrims: Twelve Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Gabriel Garcia Marquez ISBN: 0140239405 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: November, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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