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Can someone provide a quick summary of what was it that made Marquez so prominent? I had not know much about him at all. FYI, if like me, you have trouble acce

by paul_f 13y ago

Can someone provide a quick summary of what was it that made Marquez so prominent? I had not know much about him at all. FYI, if like me, you have trouble accessing the article, and using Chrome, right-click and open in an incognito window.

pmelendez 13y ago
He is the maximum exponent (and arguably the creator) of the genre "Magic Realism" and quoting wikipedia: "where magic elements are a natural part in an otherwise mundane, realistic environment" [0] He got most of his fame from "One hundred years of solitude". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism
danso 13y ago
His best known work is "One Hundred Years of Solitude", which sold 20 million copies. Or, as the OP describes it: > The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda called it “the greatest revelation in the Spanish language since ‘Don Quixote.’ ” The novelist William Kennedy hailed it as “the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race.” It's an excellent book, and he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. That said, I'm kind of surprised (but pleased) to see that his passing was noted by HN readers.
- bri3d 13y ago
  "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" also appears in a lot of US advanced (IB/AP) high school English classes, which I suspect many HN users took.
  - ch4s3 13y ago
    "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" (Crónica de una muerte anunciada) is a beautiful piece of fiction, and hugely influential. When I first read it, suddenly a number of other books and films seemed to spring from this single point of inspiration.
  - infinitebattery 13y ago
    That is correct! I read that novel about a month ago, in my IB English class.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
stplsd 13y ago
He's “a man terribly pleased to have hobnobbed with so many Presidents and Archbishops” He opened the flood gates of saccharine magic realism which haunts Latin America literature to this day.
- ulisesrmzroche 13y ago
  Oh chill out buddy, #1, you're being a jerk. #2, you're wrong, Borges had more to do with it, but really it was there long before them anyway.
- slurry 13y ago
  Disagree, but upvoted. Magical realism in general and Garcia Marquez in particular are more critically problematic than many realize. I don't think this thread should gloss over that entirely, even if the tone of objection is unlovely.
  - ulisesrmzroche 13y ago
    Nah, you're both wrong, and what's worse, you're holding strawmans. Not the time and place for this, my dudes.
    - ballard 13y ago
      Yup. Speaking ill of the dead is awful.
  - Myrmornis 13y ago
    Agree that this thread should not gloss over the gigabytes of rubbish written by undergrads in response to "magical realism", and what's worse, the person-years wasted by a devotion to the arts inspired by a combination of a childish attraction to this sort of stuff and the spurious academic credentials accorded to it.
- frozenport 13y ago
  He isn't responsible for his imitators!
diego_moita 13y ago
For me there a couple of things that stand out on him: * A builder of great narratives. His best books typically go through several little stories with a common unifying theme. * A sharp builder of catchy phrases. This works much better in Spanish, he was a master of rhythm, but you can get in English too. * A builder of great images. It is impossible to make a decent movie of the scenes he describes. It would be like dissecting an hummingbird.
jacques_chester 13y ago
I think he was, in no small part, popular for the same reason that Sean Penn got his second Oscar for Milk: politics. Marquez thumbed the eye of colonialism. And he wrote a bunch of rolling sentences with colourful imagery. But I don't see why he deserves the Nobel Prize over, to take a glaring example, Borges. Except that Borges didn't really write anything politically fashionable, as opposed to possessing any other literary virtue. So. Politics.
- leephillips 13y ago
  This is not a comment on Marquez, who probably deserved his Nobel, but: everyone knows that the literature Prize is thoroughly politicized, perhaps as much as that supreme expression of European political sentiment, the Nobel Peace Prize. Just reflect for a moment how it is that the writer of English sometimes described as the most important since Shakespeare never won: Nabokov's unwavering opposition to Communist tyranny and disdain for literature as a vehicle for political propaganda disqualified him.
- monjaro 13y ago
  This is utter nonsense. García Márquez wrote some of the most compelling and beautiful stories of the 20th century. Borges wrote the literary equivalent of late night stoner conversations, covering up a lack of substance with erudition. I don't deny that the Nobel Prize can be political, but García Márquez was one of the most deserving recipients.
  - CamperBob2 13y ago
    Yeah, that must be why entire philosophy courses are based on Borges. Stoner lit.
    - monjaro 13y ago
      I was considering phrasing my comment as "conversations between stoned philosophy students", so yes, that sounds about right. Not to mention the fact that a philosophy course about Borges will likely be examining the work of the philosophers Borges was referencing. I've yet to see anyone make the claim that Borges originated any of the important philosophical ideas in his stories. Edit: Just to back this up a little more, here is a quote from the man himself: "But I wonder if they are my ideas. Because really I am not a thinker. I have used the philosophers’ ideas for my own private literary purposes, but I don’t think that I’m a thinker. I suppose that my thinking has been done for me by Berkeley, by Hume, by Schopenhauer, by Mauthner perhaps." http://denisdutton.com/jorge_luis_borges_interview.htm http://denisdutton.com/jorge_luis_borges_interview.htm
e3pi 13y ago
“By two o'clock in the morning they had each drunk three brandies, and he knew, in truth, that he was not the man she was looking for, and he was glad to know it. "Bravo, lionlady," he said when he left. "We have killed the tiger.” “To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.” “He is ugly and sad... but he is all love.” “[The captain] looked at Florentino Ariza, his invincible power, his intrepid love and was overwhelmed by the belated suspicion that it is life, more than death, that has no limits.” Fermina Daza: "No. Forget it."

by paul_f 13y ago

pmelendez 13y ago

He is the maximum exponent (and arguably the creator) of the genre "Magic Realism" and quoting wikipedia: "where magic elements are a natural part in an otherwise mundane, realistic environment" [0] He got most of his fame from "One hundred years of solitude". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism

danso 13y ago

His best known work is "One Hundred Years of Solitude", which sold 20 million copies. Or, as the OP describes it: > The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda called it “the greatest revelation in the Spanish language since ‘Don Quixote.’ ” The novelist William Kennedy hailed it as “the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race.” It's an excellent book, and he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. That said, I'm kind of surprised (but pleased) to see that his passing was noted by HN readers.

bri3d 13y ago
"Chronicle of a Death Foretold" also appears in a lot of US advanced (IB/AP) high school English classes, which I suspect many HN users took.
- ch4s3 13y ago
  "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" (Crónica de una muerte anunciada) is a beautiful piece of fiction, and hugely influential. When I first read it, suddenly a number of other books and films seemed to spring from this single point of inspiration.
- infinitebattery 13y ago
  That is correct! I read that novel about a month ago, in my IB English class.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

stplsd 13y ago

He's “a man terribly pleased to have hobnobbed with so many Presidents and Archbishops” He opened the flood gates of saccharine magic realism which haunts Latin America literature to this day.

ulisesrmzroche 13y ago
Oh chill out buddy, #1, you're being a jerk. #2, you're wrong, Borges had more to do with it, but really it was there long before them anyway.
slurry 13y ago
Disagree, but upvoted. Magical realism in general and Garcia Marquez in particular are more critically problematic than many realize. I don't think this thread should gloss over that entirely, even if the tone of objection is unlovely.
- ulisesrmzroche 13y ago
  Nah, you're both wrong, and what's worse, you're holding strawmans. Not the time and place for this, my dudes.
  - ballard 13y ago
    Yup. Speaking ill of the dead is awful.
- Myrmornis 13y ago
  Agree that this thread should not gloss over the gigabytes of rubbish written by undergrads in response to "magical realism", and what's worse, the person-years wasted by a devotion to the arts inspired by a combination of a childish attraction to this sort of stuff and the spurious academic credentials accorded to it.
frozenport 13y ago
He isn't responsible for his imitators!

diego_moita 13y ago

For me there a couple of things that stand out on him: * A builder of great narratives. His best books typically go through several little stories with a common unifying theme. * A sharp builder of catchy phrases. This works much better in Spanish, he was a master of rhythm, but you can get in English too. * A builder of great images. It is impossible to make a decent movie of the scenes he describes. It would be like dissecting an hummingbird.

jacques_chester 13y ago

I think he was, in no small part, popular for the same reason that Sean Penn got his second Oscar for Milk: politics. Marquez thumbed the eye of colonialism. And he wrote a bunch of rolling sentences with colourful imagery. But I don't see why he deserves the Nobel Prize over, to take a glaring example, Borges. Except that Borges didn't really write anything politically fashionable, as opposed to possessing any other literary virtue. So. Politics.

leephillips 13y ago
This is not a comment on Marquez, who probably deserved his Nobel, but: everyone knows that the literature Prize is thoroughly politicized, perhaps as much as that supreme expression of European political sentiment, the Nobel Peace Prize. Just reflect for a moment how it is that the writer of English sometimes described as the most important since Shakespeare never won: Nabokov's unwavering opposition to Communist tyranny and disdain for literature as a vehicle for political propaganda disqualified him.
monjaro 13y ago
This is utter nonsense. García Márquez wrote some of the most compelling and beautiful stories of the 20th century. Borges wrote the literary equivalent of late night stoner conversations, covering up a lack of substance with erudition. I don't deny that the Nobel Prize can be political, but García Márquez was one of the most deserving recipients.
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  Yeah, that must be why entire philosophy courses are based on Borges. Stoner lit.
  - monjaro 13y ago
    I was considering phrasing my comment as "conversations between stoned philosophy students", so yes, that sounds about right. Not to mention the fact that a philosophy course about Borges will likely be examining the work of the philosophers Borges was referencing. I've yet to see anyone make the claim that Borges originated any of the important philosophical ideas in his stories. Edit: Just to back this up a little more, here is a quote from the man himself: "But I wonder if they are my ideas. Because really I am not a thinker. I have used the philosophers’ ideas for my own private literary purposes, but I don’t think that I’m a thinker. I suppose that my thinking has been done for me by Berkeley, by Hume, by Schopenhauer, by Mauthner perhaps." http://denisdutton.com/jorge_luis_borges_interview.htm http://denisdutton.com/jorge_luis_borges_interview.htm

e3pi 13y ago

“By two o'clock in the morning they had each drunk three brandies, and he knew, in truth, that he was not the man she was looking for, and he was glad to know it. "Bravo, lionlady," he said when he left. "We have killed the tiger.” “To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.” “He is ugly and sad... but he is all love.” “[The captain] looked at Florentino Ariza, his invincible power, his intrepid love and was overwhelmed by the belated suspicion that it is life, more than death, that has no limits.” Fermina Daza: "No. Forget it."