Gabriel García Márquez, Literary Pioneer, Dies at 87 • Hacker News Board

Re: Gabriel García Márquez, Literary Pioneer, Dies at 87

#91

Post by monjaro » Fri, Apr 18, 2014, 4:12 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #86

paul_f wrote: post #2

Can someone provide a quick summary of what was it that made Marquez so prominent? I had not know much about him at all. FYI, if like me, you have trouble accessing the article, and using Chrome, right-click and open in an incognito window.

I think he was, in no small part, popular for the same reason that Sean Penn got his second Oscar for Milk : politics. Marquez thumbed the eye of colonialism. And he wrote a bunch of rolling sentences with colourful imagery. But I don't see why he deserves the Nobel Prize over, to take a glaring example, Borges. Except that Borges didn't really write anything politically fashionable, as opposed to possessing any othe…

This is utter nonsense. García Márquez wrote some of the most compelling and beautiful stories of the 20th century. Borges wrote the literary equivalent of late night stoner conversations, covering up a lack of substance with erudition.

I don't deny that the Nobel Prize can be political, but García Márquez was one of the most deserving recipients.

Re: Gabriel García Márquez, Literary Pioneer, Dies at 87

#92

Post by Uhhrrr » Fri, Apr 18, 2014, 4:38 AM UTC

miked wrote: post #84

simonsarris wrote: post #15

Oh my. A paragon of magical realism and my second favorite author. Rest in peace. Liking storytelling alone is sometimes not enough to like Marquez, you have to love language too. He uses (some might say abuses) language to impact his storytelling, often using incredibly long, convoluted sentences to weave his narrative. It can be hard to follow, sometimes intentionally, but I find it enormously satisfying to read an…

> Rest in peace. I, on the other hand, hope that the three men that Marquez's close friend Castro had executed for trying to get to the US on a boat will rest in peace. Not to mention all the dissidents who died in his prisons. Marquez lived in Cuba and for decades witnessed the daily suffering and poverty of the Cuban people. The endless monitoring of Castro's secret police. The constant rationing of basic necessiti…

I have no love for Castro (maybe some contempt), but I think Marquez here is approximately as culpable as Shostakovich, which is to say not. He was a writer, not a reporter, and if we try to pull an artist down to the level of politics it's a lose-lose if we're successful.

Re: Gabriel García Márquez, Literary Pioneer, Dies at 87

#93

Post by jseip » Fri, Apr 18, 2014, 4:38 AM UTC

100 years of solitude will stand as one of the world's greatest literary works for the next ~1000 years. RIP GGM

Re: Gabriel García Márquez, Literary Pioneer, Dies at 87

#94

Post by Uhhrrr » Fri, Apr 18, 2014, 4:39 AM UTC

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #75

selimthegrim wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"had cause to remember" and "introduce him to ice"?

Potentially to "experience ice for the first time", but that lacks the romantic-ness of the Spanish original. The problem is that English's "meet" or "know" would cause the reader to double-take, and potentially still not understand the meaning, whereas in Spanish it feels normal.

"grok"? Not in common enough usage though, and not sounding nearly as pretty.

Re: Gabriel García Márquez, Literary Pioneer, Dies at 87

#95

Post by CamperBob2 » Fri, Apr 18, 2014, 4:45 AM UTC

monjaro wrote: post #91

jacques_chester wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he was, in no small part, popular for the same reason that Sean Penn got his second Oscar for Milk : politics. Marquez thumbed the eye of colonialism. And he wrote a bunch of rolling sentences with colourful imagery. But I don't see why he deserves the Nobel Prize over, to take a glaring example, Borges. Except that Borges didn't really write anything politically fashionable, as opposed to possessing any othe…

This is utter nonsense. García Márquez wrote some of the most compelling and beautiful stories of the 20th century. Borges wrote the literary equivalent of late night stoner conversations, covering up a lack of substance with erudition. I don't deny that the Nobel Prize can be political, but García Márquez was one of the most deserving recipients.

Yeah, that must be why entire philosophy courses are based on Borges. Stoner lit.

Re: Gabriel García Márquez, Literary Pioneer, Dies at 87

#96

Post by rimantas » Fri, Apr 18, 2014, 4:47 AM UTC

noname123 wrote: post #20

OT but tangential any magical realism authors to read? So far, I got Marquez, Jorge Louis Borges and Murakami. And preferably recommendation should be good to provide philosophical consolation to a code monkey worker-bee in the capitalist society.

Master and Margarita by Bulgakov? Not sure if it is considered a work of magic realism, but elements are there for sure.

Re: Gabriel García Márquez, Literary Pioneer, Dies at 87

#97

Post by monjaro » Fri, Apr 18, 2014, 5:10 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #95

monjaro wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is utter nonsense. García Márquez wrote some of the most compelling and beautiful stories of the 20th century. Borges wrote the literary equivalent of late night stoner conversations, covering up a lack of substance with erudition. I don't deny that the Nobel Prize can be political, but García Márquez was one of the most deserving recipients.

Yeah, that must be why entire philosophy courses are based on Borges. Stoner lit.

I was considering phrasing my comment as "conversations between stoned philosophy students", so yes, that sounds about right.

Not to mention the fact that a philosophy course about Borges will likely be examining the work of the philosophers Borges was referencing. I've yet to see anyone make the claim that Borges originated any of the important philosophical ideas in his stories.

Edit: Just to back this up a little more, here is a quote from the man himself: "But I wonder if they are my ideas. Because really I am not a thinker. I have used the philosophers’ ideas for my own private literary purposes, but I don’t think that I’m a thinker. I suppose that my thinking has been done for me by Berkeley, by Hume, by Schopenhauer, by Mauthner perhaps."

http://denisdutton.com/jorge_luis_borges_interview.htm

Re: Gabriel García Márquez, Literary Pioneer, Dies at 87

#98

Post by ScottBurson » Fri, Apr 18, 2014, 5:15 AM UTC

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #75

selimthegrim wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"had cause to remember" and "introduce him to ice"?

Potentially to "experience ice for the first time", but that lacks the romantic-ness of the Spanish original. The problem is that English's "meet" or "know" would cause the reader to double-take, and potentially still not understand the meaning, whereas in Spanish it feels normal.

I think "learn about ice" would have worked.

Re: Gabriel García Márquez, Literary Pioneer, Dies at 87

#99

Post by interpares » Fri, Apr 18, 2014, 5:15 AM UTC

Here is a great interview with him in The Paris Review [1]. I love when he says,

"It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination, while the truth is that there’s not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination."

I know the Caribbean very well and could not agree more.

[1] http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3196/the-art-of-fic...

Re: Gabriel García Márquez, Literary Pioneer, Dies at 87

#100

Post by ScottBurson » Fri, Apr 18, 2014, 5:38 AM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #15

Oh my. A paragon of magical realism and my second favorite author. Rest in peace. Liking storytelling alone is sometimes not enough to like Marquez, you have to love language too. He uses (some might say abuses) language to impact his storytelling, often using incredibly long, convoluted sentences to weave his narrative. It can be hard to follow, sometimes intentionally, but I find it enormously satisfying to read an…

Lovely story! I'm guessing you hand-transcribed it because I noticed some typos:

"took away and sense of grandeur"

"as if weren’t a supernatural creature"

"determining the different"

"a poor woman who since childhood has been counting her heartbeats" ["has" might be intentional, but it also might have been "had"]

"a her taking his ease" ["hero"???]

"finding out in the prisoner had a navel"

"rent the sky in tow" ["two", I'd guess]

"have up his job"

"he’d be duplicated" ["been", probably]