Living to Tell the Tale: An Autobiography

One advantage of writing an autobiography is that you obviously control what the reader finds out about you. I suspect that Mr. Marquez omits many things about himself in this wonderful, rambling memoir of nearly 500 pages; but he gives us story after story on practically every page; and we do get a myriad of fascinating details about both the man, his family and friends and his thoughts on writers and writing. Marquez comes from a large Colombian family, both in and outside marriage, and says that he owes his nature and "way of thinking" to the women in his family who had "strong characters and tender hearts." His mother obviously fits this description. Although intensely jealous of her husband's infidelities, she brings home one of her husband's children born outside their marriage because "'the same blood that's in my children's veins just can't go wandering around out there.'" In addition to Marguez's parents, whom we recognize in LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA, there are countless other fascinating people and stories seen and told through the eyes of this great writer. Who else, for example, would know a blind accordian repairman? Or whose family would dig up the remains of Marquez's grandmother Tranquilina and transport her in a sack when they make one of their many moves? It is any wonder that Marquez loved Faulkner's AS I LAY DYING?On writers and writing-- Marquez has always loved poetry and believes that the short story is superior to the novel, this from a man who has given the world ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE and LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA. It is not surprising that he prefers the feature story to an interview or straight reporting. Marquez readily admits that dialogue is not his forte. (We'll gladly settle for his magical tales, however.) He would agree that good readers make good writers as he has read everyone. Writers in English include D. H Lawrence, Graham Greene, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck, Erskine Caldwell, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne et al. Hawthorne's THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES "marked" him for life. Upon discovering that a wooden crate that arrived one morning was filled with books, he writes: "My heart leaded up before I did. . . The first thing I did was to display the books on the table in the dining room while my mother finished clearing away the breakfast dishes." He goes on to "smell" them as he says he always does with new books.Of course this volume is chockfull of sparse, wondrous descriptions. Drugs create an "artificial paradise." A man at an "all-night haunt" is "an Adonois-like man in his sixties." The moon is a "cold plate in the sky." Someone wears a "merinque-white uniform." Another person's hair was so unruly, that it "looked borrowed." An old man has a "maternal belly."This volume is the first of a trilogy. We certainly hope that Mr. Marquez lives to finish his marvelous tale.

"Living to tell the Tale" is an autobiography of the first 25-30 years of the life of the Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I was impressed just several pages into the book with the realization that this is not like any other autobiography (or regular biography) that I have read. This is a gifted author trying in words to make sense out of his life. That's not to imply that the author is finding out who he is right along with the rest of us. Rather, it is the author reliving those years with the ability to diagram the important events of his life no matter how meaningless they may have seemed at the time. One of the aspects that makes this book so impressive is that the author has led, from the beginning, a very interesting life. He was born into a poverty that had just enough of an income to give him the educational opportunities to discover his talents. Easily distracted by the here and now, Garcia Marquez had many chances to go irretrievibly astry. Yet these chances also introduced him to many people and places that would be the subjects of his writings. Clearly though, the most influencial people were his family; especially his mother and grandfather. Along the way we see the seeds (and, in some cases, fruition) of virtually every one of his books with the exception of "Clandestine in Chile" and "News of a Kidnapping". We watch the young man grow and mature into a socially and politically conscious reporter. Every step of the way is brought to us so intimately by the author that we feel as if we are sitting silently at the same table as he. All of this is more impressive when considering that the author's previous works of non-fiction are, in my opinion, of a lesser quality than his fiction. In the others, he was writing as a reporter. In "Living to Tell the Tale" he comes across as a tour guide of his life. The book actually loses some of its' impact once he does become a reporter (about 2/3's of the way into the book). We switch from the interpersonal to the events of the day. However, the positive side is that Garcia Marquez was often an eye-witness to the major events in the Columbia of his youth. All in all this is a tremendous work by a very gifted author. My favorite book of his is "Love in the Time of Cholera". This one is a close second.

The best thing about this book is discovering the story behind the stories in his other work. Stories involving his family, specially his mother, are the most interesting, but you will learn about his siblings and papa also. Chapters about his student days are also interesting but his life as a reporter and editorial writer lack the intimate details much of the time. He moves back and forth between Bogata and several other Colombian towns and is sometimes confusing. The ongoing civil wars make up much of the background. My feeling is that the biography of Marquez by another author will provide a more organized account of his life. He says very little about his future wife and it is not explained when they married. The story ends somewhat abruptly when he leaves Columbia for Switzerland.

No one writes like him and no one could tell his story better. The times he grew to manhood come alive and the history of his country does too. I anticipated this book so very much because I love the rhythm of his writing, the words he uses, I like it all. Some of the stories you've perhaps heard before because his books are so much about his life, but now you will know from where the tale came.

He leído otros libros en inglés, pero en este caso se me ha hecho algo pesado y largo.Quizás puede ser por el idioma, pero con otros libros como digo no me ha pasado.

I like this book.

As with all Marquez books, this one does not disappoint. This famous writer sets out in great detail his early experiences and those in particular that contributed to his desire to create works of fiction. What he writes of his life resonates with his fictional subjects and subject matter. If you are a GGM fan, this is unmissable.

Awesome! With a very careful translation. I understand where the ideas came from for One Hundred Years of Solitude and other books from the Master

Tells the story of GGM's formidable years in his classic style. His descriptions make me want to go visit the region he grew up in. Great read!