dudemanflab's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The General in His Labyrinth I have been reading a fair amount of novels lately, whisking from one to the next. Not having to write an eight page essay on each one is certainly a relief, but at the same time I haven't given any response to the books. I'm going to try that here. Today I finished The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Marquez sets himself to the "extravagant work" novelizing the life of Simon Bolivar, the Spanish Revolutionary, known alternately as a Liberator and a Dictator. For me, it was a crash course in historical events I had never known or synchronized-- the South American revolution against Spain, which occurred less than fifty years after the American and less than thirty after the French revolution, the brief but bold unification of South American countries (including Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and Peru), and the personalities of some of the revolutionaries, men who I had seen sculptures and street names of in Ecuador but who did much more than I was capable of imagining. Marquez' task was inherently difficult, as Bolivar is a difficult figure. Initially I was struck by how he might be relayed as a S.A. George Washington, since both were fierce and inspiring generals of the New World. Bolivar, however, seems to have held on to power much longer than Washington. The weakness of a new people is their dependance on a charismatic leader, and perhaps the US would have taken a markedly different course had Washington accepted the Presidency for a third term. As it happened in New Granada, the colonial Spanish for what was is now Colombia, Simon Bolivar stayed in power too long, and the resulting public approval rating was much lower than anything Bush could muster. Why? Not everyone, particularly the old land owners, were happy with Bolivar's unification project, as it distributed the wealth in unpredictable ways. Further, like most politicians, Bolivar made more promises than he could keep, a fact illustrated by his more than thirty loves, but also in his inability to stimulate jobs after the revolutionaries had ejected the Spanish. Enough history, now to the novel What worked Where his whimsical tendencies to come forth, however, is in his descriptions of animals and his relaying of the General's capricious escapades of passion and love, and the eccentricities of the General's party, full of war-scarred generals and obliging aide-de-camps. The General has a tender heart for dogs and horses. He has a pair of blood hounds that guard his party and a favorite horse named Palomo Blanco. On seeing a stray, he assimilates it into his company, naming a particularly mangy mutt after himself. He even rebukes the mayor of one town for putting strays to death. Later, we meet the General's lover, Manuela Saenz, who "[travels] in a caravan worthy of Gypsies, with her trunks on the backs of a dozen mules, her immortal slavewomen, and eleven cats, six dogs, three monkeys educated in the art of palace obscenities, a bear trained to thread needles, and nine cages of parrots and macaws that railed against Santander [Bolivar's rival] in three languages" (153). She is a wonderful woman, smokes after sex, wears a soldier's uniform, and wins the General's heart. Other women are not so lucky, although their amours do not go unmentioned in the novel. On seeing the soft fur of one mulatto girl he has spent most of the night with, the General decides to shave her hair, all of it, including her eyebrows. Another lover is distinguished by the thirty pound gold cuirass (or chained breastplate) she wears to bed. Bolivar can barely lift her into the hammock! That said, the General's soldiers are not prevented from indulging in their love-making whims, a habit that results in most of the final troops acquiring gonorrhea. My favorite moment in the novel was when the General and his military company are traveling up the Magdalena River to the coast. One night the General and his servant, Jose Palacios, are awakened by the counting of another general, Jose Maria Carreno . They look down from the cabin to see him lying naked on the deck, with his two dozen battle scars visible under a full moon, counting stars with the arm that was reduced to a stump. Here is the scene: "On the last night of the voyage, while Jose Palacios watched beside the General's hammock, he heard Carreno speaking in the bow of the barge: "The General opened his eyes, convinced that Carreno was talking in his sleep, and sat up in the hammock to look through the window at the night. It was immense and radiant, and the bright stars filled the sky. "'There must be ten tiems that number,' said the General. So, what works in the novel is Garcia Marquez endowing the journey and the details of the General's life with details of the moment and places around the events. His characterization of the other generals and his evocation of the simple towns along the river are truly memorable. Too often, however, the book reads like history-lite. With so many dates, facts, names, and faces, the chronology found in the back of the book is indispensable, an unfortunate fact, as it makes the reading process less fluid. Garcia Marquez also could be charged with painting the General in too favorable of a light, much like his portraitists were wont to do. While the existence and health of Simon Bolivar is laid bare, Garcia Marquez is sometimes too quick to overlook and even rationalize the more dictatorial aspects of the General's political life. I found myself sympathizing with Bolivar and his war for unification, but without really understanding what prompted the political actions of his enemies.
9:27 p.m. - February 22, 2008 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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