Shared Solitude

When Aureliano is actually facing the firing squad (128)  his rage turns into a bitter substance that puts his tongue to sleep and makes him close his eyes. Marquez writes that “the aluminum glow of dawn disappeared” and Aureliano saw himself as a child when his father led “him into the tent on a splendid afternoon” when he saw the ice (128). Then, after Aureliano hears what he thinks is the command to fire, he opens his eyes “with a shudder of curiosity, expecting to meet the incandescent trajectory of the bullets. . . .” Words like “incandescent,” “splendid,” and even “ice” make this passage shimmer with light, but my favorite part is “aluminum glow of light.” Aluminum would produce a soft glow, not a harsh glare, and it seems to be the perfect word choice in this passage.

I am wondering what the words are in Spanish. What did Marquez really write?

People of a certain age may imagine what their funeral would be like and even express their wishes regarding the event. But Jose Aracadio Buendia who lives the last years of his life tied to the chestnut tree communicating with his best friend Prudencio Aguilar, the man he once killed who has returned from the solitude of death, is insensible to reality, so it is improbable that he thought much about a funeral. He may have, however, considered death in his conversations with Prudencio.

These last years of Jose Arcadio Buendia’s life are enigmatic. It is hard to imagine that a person can even survive, much less have some quality of life tied to a chestnut tree. And when Aureliano’s premonition of his father’s death forces the family to bring the old man back in the house, the “habit of his body” compels him back to the chestnut tree. So insane as he may be, it may also be true that he is happy out there, in the yard in the company of Prudencio Aguilar who cares for him.

Even if he is not happy in the sense that most of us understand happiness, the aura of his death is certainly happy and a great example of magical realism. Upon Jose  Arcadio’s Buendia’s death, Marquez writes, a “light rain of tiny yellow flowers [begins] falling” and continues to fall, so many flowers that “in the morning the streets were carpeted with the compact cushion and they had to clear them away with shovels and rakes so that the funeral procession could pass by” (140).

This amazing image of so many tiny yellow flowers evokes a quiet peacefulness, much like a snowfall carpets the earth and muffles every sound. I also imagine a light, soft scent in the air of Macondo. And the color–soft as well, but the yellow I see is also filled with light, like a kind of gentle energy.

To be remembered, to be missed, to think that our passing matters is what we all want when we die. But how many of us could imagine that our passing from life would engender a rain of yellow flowers? Jose Arcadio Buendia never got his daguerrotype of God, but maybe the flowers are some proof that a life such as his, a vigorous, driven life, is worthy of special notice at its end.

I am reading One Hundred Years of Solitude now for at least the sixth time, and I am on my third version of the book. My first copy was a mass market paperback whose pages have now yellowed. I read that book before I felt really comfortable writing in my books, so its pages are also mostly plain. I rarely refer to it now. And in fact, I had lent that copy to a friend who misplaced it for a number of years before finding it.  As I had considered it was lost for good, I bought my second copy (a nice trade paperback with wide margins and acid free pages). And it is this book I have become most familiar and comfortable with.

I’ve told my students that writing in books makes them into different books. I completely believe this. My books are not the same books they were when their margins were clean, their sentences free from underlines, circles, or exclamation points. My books become more alive. I know my books better than ordinary copies. To prove it, whenever students bring their books to me and ask”what chapter is it where . . . ,” I have to get my own copy to find what they’re looking for. I can’t find anything in an unmarked book.

So now I find myself reading a clean copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude. I had to switch because this new edition (also a trade paperback, the Oprah version) has different pagination than my other one. It’s really frustrating to participate in discussions when pages don’t match up. I hated to give up my notes, though, so I thought about going back and forth between the two and maybe even transposing my old notes into the new book. But then I realized that approach would be far too complicated. And besides, once I started reading, I discovered that the blank pages presented a new opportunity I hadn’t had in awhile, which was to think “cleanly” or as much as is possible. Successive readings are never with the new eyes that gave us our first impressions. But, successive readings are generally more revelatory in that we see things we never saw before, understand things we missed the first or second time (or even fifth). So successive readings give us, or should give us, a deeper understanding.

But, as I have discovered, having read a book many times can also be a detriment.  Because I write in all my novels, I reread them through the filter of my past understanding. And while I’m not saying I never see anything new, I am sure that I am not as open to new as I once was as a result.

So now I have this opportunity, forced out of need, to step away from the comfort of “my” book and read “from scratch.”

So far, it’s been a good experience.

There is a very cool movie called Pleasantville in which characters in a dystopian reality akin to the idealized family world of Leave it to Beaver discover, through various means, what it means to be truly alive. Until that moment of discovery, each one is seen in black and white, but upon the moment of their revelation, color spreads like a warm glow through them until they are, to use an old TV term, technicolor. For many in this repressed society, sex is the conduit of their revelation.

When Jose Arcadio discovers sex with Pilar Ternera, a similar revelation occurs. She had an invisible power that “taught him how to breathe from within and control his heartbeats, and that had permitted him to understand why men are afraid of death.” Jose Arcadio seems to be alive for the first time in his life, but he is also completely isolated as well. He now has become someone else, someone other than his former self. Even his relationship with Aureliano changes. And in this way, he appears to be experiencing his own solitude, which may be one reason, after his experience with the gypsy girl, that he vanishes from Macondo.

Something I hope to understand better as we interact with the university is Magical Realism. I have a few questions:

• What are we to make of the spectacular images?
• How does Magical Realism help us understand ordinary reality?
• Do we go beyond the amazing impressions for their own sake?
• Does Magical Realism have a special ability to reveal truth?

Novel begins with a flashback from Co. Aureliano Buendía where he is recalling the day that he saw ice.  He is the child of José Arcadio Buendía and úrsula Iguarán, founders of the small “aldea” Macondo.  The story of how this came to be is one of honor so typically of the culture and of course blamed on Ursula.

From the very beginning of the novel the magical realism of García Márquez is apparent.  The description of the gypsy Melquíades and his wonders of magnets, magnifying glasses and false teeth have the reader believing in the magnificence of these objects through the description of their perceived use by José Arcadio Buendía.

Imagery:

Water like torrents of frozen glass

laugh like broken glass

Questions:

How does Geography effect towns, the people in them and the ideas that are held? p.10

What will root people to land or an area?  Is it death/burial as José Arcadio Buendía suggests?  p. 13

What does gossip to do people?  How does it affect  Ursula, José Arcadio Buendía and Prudencio Aguilar in 100 Años de Soledad? p. 21  Esp.  Nos iremos de este pueblo, lo más lejos que podamos, y no regresaremos jamás.  esp. p. 35 

How was it her fault if it was his honor? p.22     esp.Tú serás responsable de lo que pase  - Si has de parir iguanas, criaremos iguanas pero no habrá más muertos en este pueblo por culpa tuya. esp. p.33

What is the signifcance of the esparto grass? p.22

What makes a woman provocative?  p.25

How do YOU see novelties?  Do  you look at them for their usefulness or as a curiousity?

 Does insomnia plague a whole house?  How does everyone else sleep when one is up?    p. 45

The “menciona” by Melquíades that “Science has eliminated distance” transcends time. This statement has never been more true than it is today. Students can chat with people on the other side of the world, read international newspapers, download music in any language they choose. This text will be valuable, not only as a literary teaching tool but one that holds life lessons to embrace.

I have read 100 Years of Solitude (OYS) about five times, but this time, I will read it with a different purpose in mind. After October 8, our first meeting with the people at UW Madison, I hope to have a clearer view of our role as teachers in this experience. To say that OYS is a difficult book to grasp, much less to teach, is an understatement. But as I page through my own two versions of the novel and reread all the underlined passages, I remember why I love it so much, why it is my favorite book of all time, and I look forward to sharing it with my students this year.