Living To Tell The Tale
You don’t like to read biographies. It’s fine. You hate reading biographies, even better. If no one told you that ‘Living To Tell The Tale’ was an autobiography, you would probably pass it as another masterpiece from Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Maybe then you would change your attitude towards biographies and wish that every biography was written by him only.
Through this book, you not only come to know about him but also the upheavals and history-making events that have taken place in Columbia, since the time he has been observing that. At no point you feel that the book is trite or moving at a monotonous pace just describing his life. On the contrary, the book is no less than a fantasy ride through a literary extravaganza. For someone who always had the concrete conviction that one day he was going to be a writer and who did not leave any stone unturned in realizing that dream, he has come a full circle. From his wild and daring sexual encounters, his all-night literary discussions with his distinguished friends in disrespectful quarters of the city or in cafés, his stints as an editor and a journalist to his ingenious answers that he would write in exams that would somehow convince his teachers to pass him with good grades, he has lived an ordinary life in an extraordinary way.
When I read ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, I always thought that the book was the work of the author's pure imagination. Little did I realize then that the book was indeed a mirror of the author's life! The exceptional characters which make up his family are straight out of a fairy tale. In ‘Living to Tell the Tale’, he also tells about his ever-composed and courageous mother and his parents' prodigious love story.
Somehow I feel that the book has an air of solitariness about it, which I think has become a typical characteristic of his books. At no point the book takes on a pedagogic tone, like most biographies. It is a story told in as raw a fashion as it could be without any adornments or pretensions. It is a tale one can read and be proud of that he has read it.
One note of caution: Don’t attempt to read this book if you haven’t read ‘one hundred years of solitude’. You can read its review by clicking here.
Through this book, you not only come to know about him but also the upheavals and history-making events that have taken place in Columbia, since the time he has been observing that. At no point you feel that the book is trite or moving at a monotonous pace just describing his life. On the contrary, the book is no less than a fantasy ride through a literary extravaganza. For someone who always had the concrete conviction that one day he was going to be a writer and who did not leave any stone unturned in realizing that dream, he has come a full circle. From his wild and daring sexual encounters, his all-night literary discussions with his distinguished friends in disrespectful quarters of the city or in cafés, his stints as an editor and a journalist to his ingenious answers that he would write in exams that would somehow convince his teachers to pass him with good grades, he has lived an ordinary life in an extraordinary way.
When I read ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, I always thought that the book was the work of the author's pure imagination. Little did I realize then that the book was indeed a mirror of the author's life! The exceptional characters which make up his family are straight out of a fairy tale. In ‘Living to Tell the Tale’, he also tells about his ever-composed and courageous mother and his parents' prodigious love story.
Somehow I feel that the book has an air of solitariness about it, which I think has become a typical characteristic of his books. At no point the book takes on a pedagogic tone, like most biographies. It is a story told in as raw a fashion as it could be without any adornments or pretensions. It is a tale one can read and be proud of that he has read it.
One note of caution: Don’t attempt to read this book if you haven’t read ‘one hundred years of solitude’. You can read its review by clicking here.
Au revoir
posted by Ankur Shanker @ 11:05 PM
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