Pure Writerly Moments 2 (Short Stories, Essays, Book Reviews, and More)

Review - Living to Tell the Tale

I will finish this book in a week's time, but I am inspired to write the review now. Perhaps it is only fitting that my future ties in with my present...though I fail to see for the moment how my past is involved with this book, perhaps melancholy dreams with instruct me.

There is a moment in this book where Gabito meets the "insatiable reader". It is on a boat trip to Bogota to apply for a government scholarship for college. He sees the man at a seat, reading book after book on all kinds of erudite topics. The scene left a deep impression on me. Perhaps because I was sitting at a bench in front of Omura castle as the late-day sun was casting a yellowish glow on Omura bay. Suddenly, miraculous things occurred to me. The most obvious was that I had become the "insatiable reader"! I was living a romantic's dream of living by the water, free time there to be had, at least for now, and a good book to be read. The other was that my life was no less romantic than Gabito's. After all, things were as strange as in his imagination. Gabito writes of Love in the Time of Cholera.

I am the insatiable reader in the time or Corona.

I sit alone, in a kind of empty landscape, with the few scattered people wearing medical masks on their faces. I think about the clear water of Gabito's hometown that washed over polished stones as I look up to the high tower of Omura castle, where a modern light of purple begins to shine on it so that tourists (who cannot come because of the disease) can take pictures at night. Thirty minutes before the sun sets for good, I will read three more pages and then depart early because a sunset seems too sentimental for this old soul to bear at the moment.

It is the boat trip to Gabito's university that most captures my imagination. "Each voyage taught great lessons about life that connect us in an ephemeral but unforgettable way to the life of the towns we passed through, and many of us became forever caught up in their destinies." Here, once again, we see Marquez at his best, as he uses exaggeration, embellishment, truth, and the weaving of past, present, and future to make the world as real as fiction will allow. I read this passage in between my walks along Omura bay. What struck me was how marvelous some structures were -- the city hospital with its helicopters, and yet how simple other establishments were -- the old sandwich shop that was not too far from the hospital. It seemed impossible to me that the little shop could make any money. And right next to the modern hospital were two buildings of apartments that seemed condemned, overgrown with weeds. I saw the train pass along the coast as I walked, its cars mostly empty because of the virus that was keeping us mostly at home and I thought, 'We live in time no stranger than any other.'

And yet, if I can tie the past, present, and future together with an insatiable love for humans, language, and self, then perhaps I can pay homage to everything Gabito stood for. The randomness that defines our existence, the insatiableness of human curiosity and spirit, the deep beauty in even the most absurd tragedies...that is the legacy of a life, any life, a proliferation of stories that make a moment on a voyage on a great river...or a walk along Omura Bay...

And I hope I will live to tell the tale!