I have a complicated relationship with Gabriel García Márquez. Complicated as in I always hated the man because my high school teachers thought it was acceptable to make me put down books that I actually wanted to read to read his bibliography instead. And then they would test us on it, as if the reading part wasn’t torture enough!
I remember buying Of Love and Other Demons in 10th grade. I remember we had to pair up for the test. I remember the brilliant idea that my friend and I had to tackle that monster of a novel that wasn’t even 200 pages long: we would each read half! I’d read the first half, she’d read the rest and we’d both ace that test! Easy.
It didn’t quite work. My hatred deepened.
Fast forward a long (long, long… I am old) time and here I am, bemoaning the fact that I never gave Latin American authors a chance. I really haven’t been kind to my people and it’s a shame because if I don’t, how could I expect others to do it? So I decided to start with the bane of my teenage existence, and you know what? Teenage me was an idiot. Gabriel García Márquez is magical and I am so here for it!
I remember buying Of Love and Other Demons in 10th grade. I remember we had to pair up for the test. I remember the brilliant idea that my friend and I had to tackle that monster of a novel that wasn’t even 200 pages long: we would each read half! I’d read the first half, she’d read the rest and we’d both ace that test! Easy.
It didn’t quite work. My hatred deepened.
Fast forward a long (long, long… I am old) time and here I am, bemoaning the fact that I never gave Latin American authors a chance. I really haven’t been kind to my people and it’s a shame because if I don’t, how could I expect others to do it? So I decided to start with the bane of my teenage existence, and you know what? Teenage me was an idiot. Gabriel García Márquez is magical and I am so here for it!
