Great writer! 
Let me first thank Mile-O for sending me the link to the Macondo site It's a great site with lots of information about him and his works. I urge anybody to check it out! Macondo
Anyway, point of my posting. Yes. there is a point! Amazing, huh? I was reading about his life. What an amazing life this guy has lived. I got to one part and thought WOW such a passion, that's great! I wanted to share it with you. here is what it says:
"And then it happened: his epiphany. On January 1965 he and his family were driving to Acapulco for a vacation, when inspiration suddenly struck him: he had found his tone. For the first time in twenty years, a stroke of lightning clearly revealed the voice of Macondo. He would later write:
"All of a sudden -- I don't know why -- I had this illumination on how to write the book.... I had it so completely formed, that right there I could have dictated the first chapter word by word to a typist."
And later, regarding that illumination:
"The tone that I eventually used in One Hundred Years of Solitude was based on the way my grandmother used to tell stories. She told things that sounded supernatural and fantastic, but she told them with complete naturalness.... What was most important was the expression she had on her face. She did not change her expression at all when telling her stories and everyone was surprised. In previous attempts to write, I tried to tell the story without believing in it. I discovered that what I had to do was believe in them myself and write them with the same expression with which my grandmother told them: with a brick face."
He turned the car immediately around and headed home. There, he put Mercedes in charge of the family, and he retired to his room to write.
And write he did. He wrote every day for eighteen months, consuming up to six packs of cigarettes a day. To provide for the family, the car was sold, and almost every household appliance was pawned so Mercedes could feed the family and keep him supplied with a constant river of paper and cigarettes. His friends started to call his smoke-filled room "the Cave of the Mafia," and after a while the whole community began helping out, as if they collectively understood that he was creating something remarkable. Credit was extended, appliances loaned, debts forgiven. After nearly a year of work, García Márquez sent the first three chapters to Carlos Fuentes, who publicly declared: "I have just read eighty pages from a master." Towards the end of the novel, as yet unnamed, anticipation grew, and the buzz of success was in the air. As finishing touches, he placed himself, his wife, and his friends in the novel, and then discovered a name on the last page: Cien años de soledad. Finally he emerged from the Cave, grasping thirteen hundred pages in his hands, exhausted and almost poisoned from nicotine, over ten thousand dollars in debt, and perhaps only a few pages shy of a mental and physical breakdown. And yet, he was happy -- indeed, euphoric. In need of postage, he pawned a few more household implements and sent it off to the publisher in Buenos Aires.
One Hundred Years of Solitude was published in June 1967, and within a week all 8000 copies were gone. From that point on, success was assured, and the novel sold out a new printing each week, going on to sell half a million copies within three years. It was translated into over two dozen languages, and it won four international prizes. Success had come at last. Gabriel García Márquez was 39 years old when the world first learned his name."
WOW.
You can read the rest of the ( long ) article if you wish on the main site. He is really a great writer and can't recommend 100 years enough!
Regards
SillyWabbit
Let me first thank Mile-O for sending me the link to the Macondo site
It's a great site with lots of information about him and his works. I urge anybody to check it out! Macondo Anyway, point of my posting. Yes. there is a point! Amazing, huh? I was reading about his life. What an amazing life this guy has lived. I got to one part and thought WOW
such a passion, that's great! I wanted to share it with you. here is what it says:"And then it happened: his epiphany. On January 1965 he and his family were driving to Acapulco for a vacation, when inspiration suddenly struck him: he had found his tone. For the first time in twenty years, a stroke of lightning clearly revealed the voice of Macondo. He would later write:
"All of a sudden -- I don't know why -- I had this illumination on how to write the book.... I had it so completely formed, that right there I could have dictated the first chapter word by word to a typist."
And later, regarding that illumination:
"The tone that I eventually used in One Hundred Years of Solitude was based on the way my grandmother used to tell stories. She told things that sounded supernatural and fantastic, but she told them with complete naturalness.... What was most important was the expression she had on her face. She did not change her expression at all when telling her stories and everyone was surprised. In previous attempts to write, I tried to tell the story without believing in it. I discovered that what I had to do was believe in them myself and write them with the same expression with which my grandmother told them: with a brick face."
He turned the car immediately around and headed home. There, he put Mercedes in charge of the family, and he retired to his room to write.
And write he did. He wrote every day for eighteen months, consuming up to six packs of cigarettes a day. To provide for the family, the car was sold, and almost every household appliance was pawned so Mercedes could feed the family and keep him supplied with a constant river of paper and cigarettes. His friends started to call his smoke-filled room "the Cave of the Mafia," and after a while the whole community began helping out, as if they collectively understood that he was creating something remarkable. Credit was extended, appliances loaned, debts forgiven. After nearly a year of work, García Márquez sent the first three chapters to Carlos Fuentes, who publicly declared: "I have just read eighty pages from a master." Towards the end of the novel, as yet unnamed, anticipation grew, and the buzz of success was in the air. As finishing touches, he placed himself, his wife, and his friends in the novel, and then discovered a name on the last page: Cien años de soledad. Finally he emerged from the Cave, grasping thirteen hundred pages in his hands, exhausted and almost poisoned from nicotine, over ten thousand dollars in debt, and perhaps only a few pages shy of a mental and physical breakdown. And yet, he was happy -- indeed, euphoric. In need of postage, he pawned a few more household implements and sent it off to the publisher in Buenos Aires.
One Hundred Years of Solitude was published in June 1967, and within a week all 8000 copies were gone. From that point on, success was assured, and the novel sold out a new printing each week, going on to sell half a million copies within three years. It was translated into over two dozen languages, and it won four international prizes. Success had come at last. Gabriel García Márquez was 39 years old when the world first learned his name."
WOW.
You can read the rest of the ( long ) article if you wish on the main site. He is really a great writer and can't recommend 100 years enough!
Regards
SillyWabbit
