Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The history of the Latin American region over the last one century or more has been that of one military dictatorship leading to another, of one turbulent period succeeded by another. This desolation, however, extends far back to the period of the ruthless Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors who destroyed the old village communities and uprooted the native cultures so much so that the language of the people was taken away. Today, all the countries inhabiting Latin America speak Spanish, Portuguese or French.
In this maze of unending tyranny and suppression, it is the Latin American writer who has voiced the search for a new life and identity. Over the last few decades a whole galaxy of writers- novelists, poets, playwrights and other literary writers have illumined the dark skies of the tortured land.
In the celebration of blossoming literature, Gabriel Garcia stands out as one of most luminous stars. Indeed, he can be regarded as one of the greatest living writers.
Like his compatriots, Garcia too has articulated both the rejuvenation of the local culture against the wholesale destruction wrought by the European conquerors well as the protest against the scarred legacy left by them- the unending cycle of military dictatorships with brief interventions of peace and assertion by the masses. Born in 1928 in Colombia, Garcia is a journalist by profession and now lives in Mexico. In 1982, he won the Nobel Prize for his major work- One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Like many of his contemporaries, Garcia is a committed leftist- his famous one line on the United States sums up his opposition to imperialist dominance. He says:
Liberty in
America
Is a Statue.
His commitment to his chosen ideology, however, has not resulted in a dogmatic approach. Indeed, Latin America has been creative in developing its own version of Marxism in the shape of Liberation Theology. Garcia's writings have extensive shades of modernist expression. He has not fought shy of using the surrealist, the sense of the spatial or collage and fantasy for putting the idea across. He has avoided the dull form of traditional socialist realism, often employing cyclical and spatial forms. He has pioneered what has now become synonymous with Garcia- magical realism.
The narrative in One Hundred Years, for example, is not straight- forward but moves through a maze of subtle and often innocuous looking images and metaphors so that one finds the fantastical and mythical interacting with the live and the real. The transmission of ideas and inventions from the outside world to the small village of Macondo takes place through the wandering gypsies so that what reaches them is a bunch of scattered and seemingly unrelated ideas.
The formation of the world- view of the founder of the village Arcadio Buendia, and his successors evolves through this mixture of myth, fantasy and science through the corruption of the spoken word, mingled with songs and tales. Flying carpets and disappearing acts are a part of the hazards. The untiring and fruitless efforts of the alchemists and the dreams of the pioneers of flying transports one to the times of struggle, hope and ecstasy.
Garcia's works are, despite his impeccable roots as a writer of protest, not propagandist or message laden. His vision of his native land is expressed in his novel- Love in the Time of Cholera, which is the story of two separated lovers who rediscover each other in old age. At one level this is a case of old age romanticized, at another, it is the romanticization of Latin America's tryst with destiny and a conception of a new civilization for the continent. Suppressed for so long, separated from its historical role and the sheer brutality of life are sought to be reconciled in a future old age.
Neither has Garcia ignored the present. In the much acclaimed The General in his Labyrinth, he profiles the George Washington of South America- Simon Bolivar in the last ten of his life. These are days of retreat. With a careful eye for historical details and a grotesque sense of humor, it is the examination of a political leader who has forsaken his people - a character so familiar in Latin America because of repetition. It is a study and an indictment of a weak, indecisive and dithering leadership. It is their legacy that has played havoc with Latin America. It is also the legacy which, ironically, has produced a whole body of literature recognized the world over. And- as if to compound the irony, it has been produced in the language of the invaders themselves in a historical reversal of roles.
-Bhupinder
bhupi@bigfoot.com
19th November 1994
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