I can think of no better day to begin this blog than today the 25th Anniversary of the Birth of my best former student friend, and one of my best friends ever, Francisco "Paco" Brito.
Now that I've irreparably embarrassed him, let's move on, shall we?
I've read 10 pages of 100 Years of Solitude. Note the use of the numeral "100" where in formal academic writing the words "one hundred" would normally appear.
Shocking! Shameful! Seamy! Tawdry!
But that's the way it is, and likely the way it will be. It's just faster.
A couple suggestions are coming to mind as I begin this noble quest to read one of the great pieces of world literature ever, which I've been mesmerized by the very thought of since 30 years ago in 5 weeks, August 25, 1979.
It was a Saturday.
It was a Saturday night, actually.
The aftereffects of Disco Demolition Night--an event I once heartily endorsed, but have since come to see as the racially tinged putdown it was--were still being felt at Old Comiskey Park in Chicago, MidWest, USA. Coupled with a night and day of storms and rain, the Orioles game scheduled for that evening had been canceled.
And so, good friend Jay W trucked off to a soiree with gf of the summer, ???, and left me back at le apartment, with fetching young U of Chicago undergrads, Linda W and Suzee P.
There, in the 5300 block of Kimbark, after dancing to various hits of the day-- "Let's Go!" by the Cars ("I like the night life, baby!"/She says, "I like the night life, baby!"/She says: "Let's Go!")--first and foremost among them, we settled into a repetitious playing of Side 1 of Led Zeppelin's just released final studio album, In Through the Out Door.
It was soon after this that Suzee and Linda began to spin this fantastic yarn.
They began by telling of this novel they'd recently read, the eponymous of this blog, One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. They wove this fantastic tale of heaven and earth, jungle and city, lust and purity, intrigue and clarity, never and now. They kept seeming to diverge onto new paths, somehow related literarily, but not of the same 100 Years world.
And so, I'd ask, "What book is this one?"
But no! No new book!
"That's still 100 Years of Solitude!" they'd proclaim simultaneously, earnestly.
And on and on the tale told went. Over mountain and across desert, from West to East, above sky and under sea, this marvelous story continued, to encompass all history and knowledge, Blake's "world in a grain of sand," one masterpiece of literature telling every story ever told all at once, and again.
I was mesmerized.
But somehow, it seemed too daunting a task to undertake, as if I'd need a whole lifetime to read and retain its wonders, its wisdom, its spiritual force.
Anyway, I actually bought the book twenty years later, 10 ago, on 10/13/99. Not that I remember the date, but that I kept the receipt, as a bookmark.
I can tell you it was a Wednesday.
Bought it at Barnes and Noble, Rio, and began reading it that weekend, the annual October NSTA conference day off, reduced from the two we enjoyed back in the day, aka when I went to MCPS, '65-'74, and slightly beyond. Can't tell you when they cut days off back from two to one...
NEWay, . . .
Started to read the novel soon after buying, but as a new teacher, had far too many papers to grade and lessons to plan, so soon abandoned the idea.
'Cause it wasn't like it was a straightforward read, or anything. . .
One of the difficult things about reading a novel, any novel I think but particularly one as complicated and convoluted as 100 Years, with its numerous Jose Arcadio Buendias and its umpteen (17, actually, according to genealogy on p. -1) Aureliano Buendias, is that one immerses oneself in a world entirely of someone else's creation. Chapters in 100 Years have no titles, nor numbers. And in the first 10 pages alone, out of 448, there is enough mystery and magic to confuse the purely concrete literal thinker into oblivion.
Well, maybe not oblivion, but into another choice of reading.
But stick with it--and here come those suggestions mentioned oh, so long ago, long before 1979--great song by Smashing Pumpkins, don't you know?
Let the whole wash over you. Get the gestalt (vocab word, hint, hint). Feel the story, the enchantment, the wonder. Don't take it literally, but do. Don't take it symbolically, but do.
Number your chapters, if you've purchased the book and can write in it with impunity (vocab word!).
Take copious notes, in order to keep this meandering, indirect, non-linear story line as straight as you can. Mostly, just to help find where certain events take place. The hardest thing about reading fiction in general, exacerbated in novels with neither chapter titles nor numbers, is there's no index. Unlike in a history or science book, in which you can take to your trusty index or TOC (there's a mystery for you!), in a novel, you've simply got to remember when who said what to whom, and how that foreshadows what happens on page 369, and makes it all make sense, just that one look she gave him on page 19.
Fiction's like that, and therein lies much of its challenge. So, do take notes, copious (vocab word!) notes, notes as long as the Amazon and as eternal as its source.
Or at least long-lasting enough to help you ask smart questions here in this forum, make cogent comments, and get the most out of the nuances of meaning and myth encompassed in this epic history, and just to be able to retell the story to your kids at bedtime 30, or maybe only 20 years from now.
Or maybe just to tell your friends.
NEWay, get ready to have fun reading one of the greatest stories ever told, not by an idiot, but full of sound and fury nonetheless, and signifying something.
Just what, we'll find out, I'm sure.
Above all, read and enjoy this magnificent literary masterpiece that I've wanted to read for 30 years now, and am finally taking the opportunity to, and to share with you, because it's time, and because I have time.
And so do you.
And so, to quote another great (North) American: Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch.
Hep
