Globalization has its costs

As technology advances and the future seems likely to be heading towards the globalized society in Gioconda Belli’s  of “Waslala,” I really wonder if this future is closer than what it seems.

I remember a month ago when many Colombians considered it their duty to vote, if they could, for John McCain because they thought he would support the free trade agreement with Colombia. I still think that this is deranged for my fellow Colombians to actually think that McCain really cared about Colombia, but lately I’ve been thinking if the free trade agreement will actually be a good thing for Colombia.

In the past, trade between Colombia and the United States helped the Colombian economy, but as with everything else where the United States gets involved it involves a cost. What really comes to my mind is the hinting of the massacre of the United Fruit Company in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

In the long run, I don’t think it is in the best interest of Colombia to be part of the free trade agreement because of the bad record of American companies in Latin America– and the rest of the world. Moreover, this agreement will really further the presence of the United States in Colombia, making it more Americanized and closer to Faguas as it is described in “Waslala.”

He already lived to tell the tale

Almost five years after Gabriel García Márquez wrote his autobiography in “Living to Tell the Tale,”  another biography of the Colombian Nobel Prize winner went on sale in London.

Written by Gerald Martin, this is the first “comprehensive” biography of Garcia Marquez. According to the AFP, it took 15 years of research and interviews for the biography to be completed. The work is entitled “Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A life,” and it includes interviews with the author’s wife, children, friends, Fidel Castro, Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa.

According to the AFP,

“Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A life” will focus on the “tension” in the 81-year-old writer’s life “between celebrity and literary quality, between politics and writing, and between power, solitude and love.”

I really look forward to reading this book, especially because I don’t think that anybody is completely capable of writing an autobiography without it being biased.

The only other biography I read of Garcia Marquez, was written by himself.

Also, I think that there are many stories of Garcia Marquez that haven’t been told in-depth. The one that I am most curious of is about his involvement with Fidel Castro. After all, in “Living to Tell the Tale,” he talks about his life as a journalist and his childhood in Aracataca, Colombia, and not so much about his political views, which always manage to pique my curiosity.

Leisure afternoon from my balcony

Today I spent my afternoon doing the only thing I knew would take me out of my misery– reading.

I grabbed Mario Vargas Llosa’s “The Time of the Hero” and moved my most comfortable chair into the balcony, forgetting about all of my responsibilities. Just a date with my book.

When I was younger, reading was a great part of my development. I was one of those kids who would sneak a book into biology class and read it while the teacher was explaining photosynthesis. I remember smiling to myself when I read “Living to Tell the Tale” by Gabriel García Márquez, and he said that he used to do the same thing when he was a teenager.

It really makes me sad to think of the new generations and how good reading habits are getting lost.

I found an article about the reading habits of young people from the BBC Web site. I was very surprised by how the new generations are choosing online sites as reading materials, and I was very sad to see that this is a trend among young people. This is just wrong.

I think that parents should take action because reading is essential to the development of their children. Plus, it is a very good way to spend time with their children because it is a more interactive alternative to television. Parents should read to their children.

Here is a list of tips I found of how to teach your children good reading habits. I find steps one, four and six especially useful because it is very important to pick a good spot, a time frame and read something while your child is reading. I remember my mother used to make me read for 20 minutes every afternoon before doing my homework. She would let me pick the book, and she designated a place in our house so that I could read without being interrupted. Now that I am about to graduate from college, I thank her everyday for the great reading habits I developed.

After all, it doesn’t matter what language you prefer to read in; the only thing that truly matters is that you do it. So go ahead, get off the computer screen and grab a book. I assure you that it will enrich your life.

Film fails to capture magical realism

When “Love in the Time of Cholera” made its way into film, my best friend called me immediately to tell me how badly the producers had ruined my favorite book. I haven’t seen it, but I think I never will after what she told me. I wasn’t even curious about the movie because every time I have read a book and later watched the movie adaptation I’ve been very disappointed.

Generally, the movie version lacks the power to entice me the way books do. And in the case of “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel García Márquez, I really doubt the the director managed to capture the essence of the book and the deep love that Florentino Ariza felt for Fermina Daza. There’s no way to translate important details like Fermina Daza’s doe-like walk and the “vallenato” for the crowned goddess. It is just to pure for film, and it’s better left for the readers imagination.

I think my best friend is right. After all, it is impossible for Mike Newell, a British director, to understand how significant is this novel for Colombians, and it is also very hard for Giovanna Mezzogiorno, an Italian actress, to capture the character of Fermina Daza. I am sure my friend is right about her poor performance.

Now, “News of a Kidnapping,” which is another one of García Márquez’s books, is going to be filmed and will probably be in theaters by in 2009. I completely agree with  the director of the project, Pedro Pablo Ibarra, when he said that it will be a great challenge for him, but that it will be easier to produce than other works by the same author because it is a journalistic chronicle unlike the other works, which are in the magical realism genre.

I really hope that this book translates better into film than the other ones. At least the producers of the film have García Márquez full support since he is supervising the script for the film.

Julio Cortázar’s lecture to Gabriel García Márquez and Carlos Fuentes.

I can’t believe that three of the greatest literary geniuses of Latin America have fear of flights as a common denominator. It is just so simple.  El Universal, a Mexican newspaper, published a story about how they were all at the same place and the same time, riding a train from Paris to Prague, and talking about life and their works. An “unrepeatable journey,” as Gabriel García Márquez describes it, was what he spent with  Julio Cortázar and Carlos Fuentes in 1968. The reason behind the unveiling of this journey, is the publishing of a book about Cortázar that includes letters, interviews and an introduction by García Márquez.

Picturing this three writers together for hours during a trip in Central Europe makes me really wonder how a lecture from Cortázar would play out. According to García Márquez, there was a point in which the three of them had talked about everything. This, to me, is simply inconceivable. How is it that this three fascinating people could run out of things to talk about?

A simple question was what triggered the conversation lasting the rest of the journey, breaking the silence of the previous lecture that Cortázar had given. Fuentes then asked him how the piano was introduced into the jazz orchestra and went in-depth with another lecture explaining it. To me that sounds just like Cortázar. When I read “Hopscotch,” it was really hard to follow the plot in between the lectures of Oliveira, the main character, and his destructive relationship with La Maga, his love interest.

La Jornada manages to summarize the book for me (this is a translation from the text in Spanish):

What is truly important about “Hopscotch” is that it reveals another reality, different from that serving as a scenario to what happens, which are revealed as the book advances and jumps in the chapters composing the book, making us share the certainty of the true life, the genuine reality, which is hidden underneath the one we live consciously.

I think this really summarizes “Hopscotch” to me. It wasn’t a story, but more of an account of true life and how it unfolds in front of our eyes without us really having control over me. The factor of inevitability is what really captured me from the book and thinking about destiny playing to bring García Márquez, Cortázar and Fuentes together, really makes me think that the disorderly life of Oliveira is not far from reality at all. Chance encounters are part of life in ways no one can control.

A literary outlet

Through this blog, my feelings about Latin American literature will finally find an outlet after years of entrapment inside my head. I have been reading the masterpieces of authors like Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende, Mario Vargas Llosa, Laura Esquivel and Julio Cortázar for years. They are masters developing characters and intricate stories in ways I have rarely seen mirrored in English literature. Latin American writers are unprecedented, for they are survivors of years of dictatorial regimes and civil conflicts tampering the images of their native countries. I believe that their art is based on the concept of finding beauty in the face of adversity, and I admire their literary works the most for this reason. Adversity seems to be the driving force behind my favorite authors. In the case of García Márquez, his literary approach signals pivotal events in the history of Colombia, sparking controversy among his fellow countrymen.

Through this blog I’ll let you see this magic that has smitten me for so long. Know the countries, know the authors, and learn where their inspiration comes from. Hey, who knows, maybe I’ll get you interested enough for you to pick up one of these books and be transported as well.