Marking the death of Gabriel García Márquez yesterday at age
eighty-seven. Monique gave me his One
Hundred Years of Solitude long ago as a birthday gift, and I was caught up in
its mysterious web like millions of others. It is one of those great classics
that refuses to be pinned down, not least by its author. Wikipedia, in its
article on Márquez, quotes him about it: “Most critics don’t realize that a
novel like One Hundred Years of Solitude is a bit of a joke, full of signals to
close friends; and so, with some pre-ordained right to pontificate, they take
on the responsibility of decoding the book and risk making terrible fools of
themselves.” Sometimes great books simply happen, for whatever reason. Some
books are wonderful mirrors in which the invisible reflects back something of
reality yet no one’s able to say how. Of complications with pneumonia—the old
man’s friend.
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