From the interview with Gabriel Garcia Marques, I learned a great deal of information regarding Marquez’ profession, political views and superstitions.
Marquez possessed very liberal political beliefs which stem from his grandfather, who had rebellious beliefs and didn’t believe in upholding the order. His grandfather told him real gory war stories instead of fictional fantasy stories (The Paris Review). I now can see how and why Marquez implements this belief in Chronicle of a Death Foretold, his best selling novel. The plot of the story was deemed rebellious to the time period because in the 1950s honor killings were part of the culture in Colombia and men had to want to restore this honor. However, in the book, the Vicario brothers rebel against this traditional belief by telling people in the town so as to stop them from killing Santiago Nasar.
Additionally, Marquez is an advocate of civil rights and sympathizes with the impoverished and views the rich as unlucky (The Paris Review). This is evident in the book through the way he characterizes Bayardo San Roman and Santiago Nasar. Both characters were unlucky in the story because Bayardo was humiliated by marrying a non virgin and Santiago was accused of a crime that he didn’t commit and then killed because of it. Marquez implements his perspective of wealthy people through Santiago and Bayardo in order to set the plot of the story. Marquez’s political view is somewhat ironic because surprisingly he was good friends with Fidel Castro. In fact, Castro would sometimes call for advice from Marquez. Nevertheless, Marquez did not agree completely with Castro’s political agenda (The Paris Review).
I also learned that reading Metamorphosis by Kafka ultimately made Marquez want to pursue a profession in writing (The Paris Review). In addition, I thought it was interesting that Marquez waited 30 years to write Chronicle of a Death Foretold and that it was through writing this in first person point of view that he discovered the best type of writing is the truth. As a journalist, Marquez was inspired to write his book, Chronicle of A Death Foretold, using a journalist approach. The way he decided to write and structure his book is very much so based on the style of journalistic writing. He believes journalism helps convey truth and depicts the facts as accurately as possible. He believes that imagination is a tool utilized to convey reality or else it is just a lie. He also loathes fantasy like “Walt Disney fantasy” because children don’t like fantasy, they like imagination (The Paris Review).
Marquez possesses many curious superstitions as well. He believes it is bad luck or “pava”,as he calls it, to have bad tasting items in the house such as plastic flowers or fruit (The Paris Review). In a way I agree with this but it is unique and portrays his personality and beliefs. Another interesting fact from the Marquez interview that I strongly admire is that he is very humble and modest. Marquez despises being a public speaker, famous and glorified. This dictates to me that Marquez knows that wealth and popularity do not bring happiness for he elaborates this theme very much so in Chronicle of a Death Foretold. The interview of Marquez has allowed me to further appreciate the story because I better understand the views and beliefs of the author and where he is coming from.
Works Cited:
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Art of Fiction No. 69 . Paris Review . Web. 25 Mar. 2012. .
García, Márquez Gabriel. Chronicle of a Death Foretold . New York: Knopf, 1983. Print.
