我在2022年给自己立了一个flag：至少完整阅读10本英文原著。
今天读完了第10本：
Living to Tell the Tale
作者：Gabriel García Márquez （哥伦比亚）
我的阅读时间：2022.8.3-2022.8.31
Living to Tell the Tale is an autobiography by Gabriel García Márquez (also known affectionately as Gabito) about his major life path to becoming a writer.
The book features Gabito's family, schooling, and early career as a journalist and short story (and novel) writer and includes references to numerous real-life events that ended up in his novels in one form or another, including the Banana massacre that appears prominently in One Hundred Years of Solitude and the love story between his parents that appeared in Love in the Time of Cholera.
This was the third book I’ve read by Gabito, the first two being Love in the Time of Cholera and News of a Kidnapping. This is how I've been reading this year -- if I like a writer, I read more of his or her work, or, if I want to explore a region more, I select books by an array of authors from that sphere.
Shameful to admit that I wasn't too impressed by Love in the Time of Cholera, mostly because of the social morals presented in that book (or lack of them), which were totally divergent from my own background, and as well, they didn't seem to be able to support the story.
After reading Gabito's biography Living to Tell the Tale, however, I realized how unfair I had been towards his work due to my ignorance. It's largely based on the romance stories between his parents who constantly, consciously or unconsciously, became the source of inspiration for his works.
Though Gabito won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982, his early years weren't always smooth. Early childhood in his grandparent's house was the most carefree time of his life. His schooling days witnessed him consuming all the books he set his eyes on and in university he was prolific in writing, so much so that he quit the major that would have eventually led him to be a lawyer.
Throughout my reading journey of his life stories, I was constantly shocked by his ability to remember everything as if it happened the day before, down to the last detail. That's probably one of the essential qualities of a good writer: staying curious, observant, and an attention to detail at all levels, and who knows, perhaps at times a sprinkling of exaggeration.
The title of this book: Vivir para contarla (Spanish) or in English, Living to Tell the Tale is fascinating - it's exactly what a writer does. Turning from page to page indeed painted vivid pictures of Gabito's life as well as that of the society that nurtured him. He was born to 'Tell the Tale'.
I enjoyed this book and can't wait to lay my hands on another by Gabriel García Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Some thought-provoking quotes from Living to Tell the Tale:
I soon learned that telling stories parallel to the ones you are writing -- without revealing their essence -- is a valuable part of the conception and the writing.
The terror of writing can be as intolerable as the terror of not writing.
In any case, the story already belongs to the past, what matters now is the next one.
Whoever does not sing cannot imagine the pleasure of singing.
They say that if you put your mind to it, you could be a good writer.
