June 10, 2009
The mystical realm
Speaking of One Hundred Years of Solitude, it took Gerald Martin 19 years to finish his biography of “Gabo” Márquez:
When asked to muse about Márquez the man himself, Martin looked toward us and answered, “This is a very intuitive man. This is a man with a very large ego. This is a man, who no matter what was going on in his life, would sit himself down, and write his books. He always had a strong sense of what he was going to do. As for why it took me so long to finish, why would I ever want to stop writing it?”
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Thank you for this, Kelsey. I want to read that biography.
Some years ago, Daryl and I were seated next to Edith Grossman at a dinner party (Grossman is the English translator of 6 or 7 of Marquez’s books). She is a lovely woman, and her stories of working with Marquez on the translations were fascinating. What I remember most, though, was her telling (in response to something we said about our then-goth daughter) of her disappointment when her son came home one day to announce that he was a druid, when she has raised him to be an atheist!
I sympathize with the feeling “why would I ever want to stop writing about it?”
Which, I mean, heavy. Something to shoot for in a life well lived. Reminds me of how I feel about Beryl Markham. There aren’t enough biographies, enough out of print books about the woman. I own them all and want more.