Everyone has an anecdote about García Márquez

March 18, 2024 2:30 AM

I decided, last year, to turn on my recorder again and ask about these past ten years since Gabo died. As I’ve continued to follow his story, Gabo, always a prankster, continues to surprise. from Ten Years without Gabriel García Márquez: An Oral History [The Paris Review; ungated]
posted by chavenet (3 comments total)

As a matter of fact, I have an anecdote about García Márquez. Years ago (2003 or whereabouts), I was at a large stationery store in Mexico City, in Pedregal, buying paper, as one does, and I suddenly realized that the sturdy, smiling, elderly mustachioed gentleman in the tweed suit next to me was none other than Nobel prize winner Gabriel García Márquez. He was with a girl I surmised was his niece, buying an Apple computer. A lot of people were watching, slightly in awe, from a respectful distance. He radiated an air of complete confidence and bemusement, and looked completely out of place in that modern store, like an ancient marble statue momentarily positioned in the middle of a McDonald's.
posted by Omon Ra at 8:37 AM on March 18 [5 favorites]

I'll always remember Márquez for Memories of my Melancholy Whores. In it, a famous writer repeatedly hires an underage prostitute and is inspired by the fact that she has fallen asleep and ends up not having sex with her. This leads to him somehow writing better than he has in a while. Meanwhile he's been raping his housekeeper for years. I can't say I've approached any writing of his with pleasure since reading it. This was unfortunate for me as I still had to read more of his works for a class.
posted by ockmockbock at 9:58 AM on March 18 [1 favorite]

Is it accurate that Memories was written after he started descending into dementia? If so, I think it's one of the shitty effects of having relative power (or being a cash cow) in the publishing world that no editor would tell him to fuck off and keep that one in the drawer.
posted by latkes at 10:48 AM on March 18 [2 favorites]