Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
medium-paced
As humans we seem pretty fascinated with stories of human survival. The idea of the endurance of the human spirit has been explored in numerous films, books and television programmes. So it makes sense that Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s first work would be one that explores this very issue. The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor is a journalistic re-telling of the true story of 20-year-old Luis Alejandro Velasco who was washed overboard and then survived floating on a raft without food or drink for ten days.
The novella is just over one hundred pages long, and Marquez’s writing style combined with Velasco’s harrowing tale keeps you truly hooked all the way though; I finished the book in an evening because I was totally unable to put it down. Velasco’s tale is really one of almost stunning bravery; although at times during his ordeal his in convinced he’s going to die and almost welcomes it; there remains a drive to survive within him. Whilst the main story is fascinating (with headings like ‘Watching Four of My Ship Mates Drown’); the last part deals with Velasco’s strange fame and almost heroic status; which he acknowledges is down to the fact her survived on a life raft ill-equipped for such an eventuality.
This is only a short book, but I really was totally fascinated by Velasco’s tale. Reading Marquez’s shorter works is only making me more excited about reading Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude in the future.
The novella is just over one hundred pages long, and Marquez’s writing style combined with Velasco’s harrowing tale keeps you truly hooked all the way though; I finished the book in an evening because I was totally unable to put it down. Velasco’s tale is really one of almost stunning bravery; although at times during his ordeal his in convinced he’s going to die and almost welcomes it; there remains a drive to survive within him. Whilst the main story is fascinating (with headings like ‘Watching Four of My Ship Mates Drown’); the last part deals with Velasco’s strange fame and almost heroic status; which he acknowledges is down to the fact her survived on a life raft ill-equipped for such an eventuality.
This is only a short book, but I really was totally fascinated by Velasco’s tale. Reading Marquez’s shorter works is only making me more excited about reading Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude in the future.
Me encanta el hecho de que el autor solo tenía un escenario y un personaje para desarrollar la historia. Me gustó mucho la trama y el personaje en sí, un libro corto y captivador
Esta historia no fue escrita por García Márquez, sino por su protagonista. Este es un increíble redactor, y la recomiendo sabiendo que es una historia real!
The Story of A Shipwreck Sailor review: a hero born only to see its death (5/5 *****)
The Story Of
A Shipwreck Sailor
By “Gabriel Marquez”
February 28, 1995, brought news that eight crew members of the destroyer (a ship) Caldas, of the Colombian Navy, had fallen overboard and disappeared during a storm in the Caribbean Sea. After four days, the search was abandoned and the lost sailors were officially declared dead. A week later, however, one of them turned up half dead on a deserted beach in Northern Colombia, having survived ten days without food or water on a drifting life raft. This book is a journalistic story of the survivor, Luis Alejandaro Velasco.
I had been meaning to read Marquez for quite a while. I have his two most renowned books, Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the time of Cholera. But I also have a habit of collecting books, and then not reading them for a long time; however, when I found this book, in the spontaneity of the moment, I issued it from the library and started reading it right away. Being a survival book, I was fascinated by it because I hadn’t read any book in this genre before, and it was also a small book. Since I was not reading any other book at that time, it perfectly fitted into the queue. Now that I am done reading this amazing story, it can claim that it was a really good read.
First of all, it is not fiction. It is a retelling of a true event that occurred in 1995. Although reading it might, at times, seem like a fictional story, the fact that it really did happen, makes it very interesting and awe-aspiring. Secondly, the telling of this story with such detail of both the physical and emotional journey of Velasco in the ten days he miraculously lived in a raft, without food or water, is really mesmerizing. In its gripping storytelling, you will imaginatively find yourself there with Velasco, and at times, may even get close to feeling the sufferings he had gone through in that short, yet punishing course.
But here is what makes this book so notable and worthy of praise: while the story in itself is a really powerful journey of a man who suffered through everything, yet managed to cling onto life, even though life was very much ready to leave him, on the other hand, it also presents a viewpoint of what happens when a survivor does not die – in other words, how do people treat a man who have just fought death, and haven’t died. Towards the last two chapters in this book, Marquez and Velasco shift your attention to the aftermath of a survival, where an ordinary man, who somehow managed to live, is a made a hero by some, and being taken a fake, by others, and everything in between.
If it wasn’t for Marquez, Velasco’s story might not have reached the readers, or people in general, in its truest essence. People have a habit of personalizing everything to their interest and viewpoint, which makes the survival of any extraordinary event’s essence very difficult. We start hearing politicized, advertised, and personalized versions of the same story being told for different purposes, to the point where the event itself with all its might, gets lost into the thin air. Velasco’s story is one of them. He was not a hero, he was made one, and people thought he was faking his story for it. People, not Velasco, told his story to make him a hero for their ads, and then snatched it back when the excitement about it had died. Velasco’s unwillingly heroic story lived long enough to see its own death.
An excerpt:
I am Luis Alejandro Velasco again, and that's enough for me. It's the other people who have changed.
For me, Velasco was a hero – but so are other people who manage to live in a world that is just as unforgivable and cruel as a sea could be when you are not on a ship. But this book also shows that how grotesquely one’s earned tale of heroism could be turned into a publicity stunt – how, even, our survival from death, a journey so intimate and heavy, could be sold merely for money. Humans, indeed, are tricky animals.
My praise for the book:
It is a story of how one becomes a hero, and then, how their heroism dies.
An intimate, fascinating and gripping survival story.
Ratings: 5/5 *****
A review by: Ejaz Hussain
November 20, 2019.
The Story Of
A Shipwreck Sailor
By “Gabriel Marquez”
February 28, 1995, brought news that eight crew members of the destroyer (a ship) Caldas, of the Colombian Navy, had fallen overboard and disappeared during a storm in the Caribbean Sea. After four days, the search was abandoned and the lost sailors were officially declared dead. A week later, however, one of them turned up half dead on a deserted beach in Northern Colombia, having survived ten days without food or water on a drifting life raft. This book is a journalistic story of the survivor, Luis Alejandaro Velasco.
I had been meaning to read Marquez for quite a while. I have his two most renowned books, Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the time of Cholera. But I also have a habit of collecting books, and then not reading them for a long time; however, when I found this book, in the spontaneity of the moment, I issued it from the library and started reading it right away. Being a survival book, I was fascinated by it because I hadn’t read any book in this genre before, and it was also a small book. Since I was not reading any other book at that time, it perfectly fitted into the queue. Now that I am done reading this amazing story, it can claim that it was a really good read.
First of all, it is not fiction. It is a retelling of a true event that occurred in 1995. Although reading it might, at times, seem like a fictional story, the fact that it really did happen, makes it very interesting and awe-aspiring. Secondly, the telling of this story with such detail of both the physical and emotional journey of Velasco in the ten days he miraculously lived in a raft, without food or water, is really mesmerizing. In its gripping storytelling, you will imaginatively find yourself there with Velasco, and at times, may even get close to feeling the sufferings he had gone through in that short, yet punishing course.
But here is what makes this book so notable and worthy of praise: while the story in itself is a really powerful journey of a man who suffered through everything, yet managed to cling onto life, even though life was very much ready to leave him, on the other hand, it also presents a viewpoint of what happens when a survivor does not die – in other words, how do people treat a man who have just fought death, and haven’t died. Towards the last two chapters in this book, Marquez and Velasco shift your attention to the aftermath of a survival, where an ordinary man, who somehow managed to live, is a made a hero by some, and being taken a fake, by others, and everything in between.
If it wasn’t for Marquez, Velasco’s story might not have reached the readers, or people in general, in its truest essence. People have a habit of personalizing everything to their interest and viewpoint, which makes the survival of any extraordinary event’s essence very difficult. We start hearing politicized, advertised, and personalized versions of the same story being told for different purposes, to the point where the event itself with all its might, gets lost into the thin air. Velasco’s story is one of them. He was not a hero, he was made one, and people thought he was faking his story for it. People, not Velasco, told his story to make him a hero for their ads, and then snatched it back when the excitement about it had died. Velasco’s unwillingly heroic story lived long enough to see its own death.
An excerpt:
I am Luis Alejandro Velasco again, and that's enough for me. It's the other people who have changed.
For me, Velasco was a hero – but so are other people who manage to live in a world that is just as unforgivable and cruel as a sea could be when you are not on a ship. But this book also shows that how grotesquely one’s earned tale of heroism could be turned into a publicity stunt – how, even, our survival from death, a journey so intimate and heavy, could be sold merely for money. Humans, indeed, are tricky animals.
My praise for the book:
It is a story of how one becomes a hero, and then, how their heroism dies.
An intimate, fascinating and gripping survival story.
Ratings: 5/5 *****
A review by: Ejaz Hussain
November 20, 2019.
3'5. No está mal. Las descripciones de animales muertos no me gustaron un pelo pero el resto es agradable.
I don’t know if the introduction in English is the same as in Spanish, but it’s hilarious. Gabo basically says that they are only publishing this book ‘cause his a trendy author and due to his own idiocy of not thinking about the proposal carefully. It’s funny and bitter but like in all matters Gabo, it has an undertone of social justice and critique of the establishment. He’s saying it is not his story to tell. And it shows. It’s an amazing, riveting, mesmerizing story of a Colombian sailor lost at sea that managed to survive for 10 days. It has a Life-of-Pi feel to it, but it lacks all of Gabo’s trademarks; no magical realism and no prostitutes or under-age seductresses. Still, it’s a must read. Much better than I ever imagined and the story that probably made him.
