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A review by dnae
No One Writes to the Colonel by Gabriel García Márquez
4.0
“But October granted a truce on Friday afternoon.”
Forgive the many, many references to October, as that is my birth month and I am sentimental. I've read a lot of Márquez's shortform writing, and I'm usually not that impressed with the plot. Regardless, I keep reading, because I'm loyal to Marquez's prose. No One Writes to the Colonel, however, packs a fucking punch. I had to stop reading this at points because it was unexpectedly gutting me. The plot is simplistic, which only serves to sharpen the emotions it elicits.
In summary, the Colonel in his youth fought alongside Colonel Aureliano Buendia's revolutionary army. When Buendia eventually concedes at the Treaty of Neerlandia, the army members are promised pensions. After decades, our unnamed Colonel has still not received a single penny. He lives in stark poverty with his wife and their dead son's rooster, in a perpetual state of waiting. They know it's hopeless, and their need to survive gets increasingly desperate, but somehow the Colonel cannot let go of this futile hopeful waiting. Selfish at turns, it merges with his grief for his son, the best days of his life (gone, meaningless), and the fascism that does not even penetrate into his consciousness anymore. Still the Colonel cannot bear to part with his rooster, stuck in this cycle of grief and desperation. Marquez, you know, always gets the last tragicomic word in. He ends the book as such: when the Colonel's angry wife asks him what he plans they eat for the next few months, the Colonel tells her: "shit".
I find this a great follow-up to One Hundred Years of Solitude. It grounds Macondo's fanciful nature into the dust-stricken tropical wasteland that it, in reality, is. Marquez's use of the rooster as the Colonel's singular foothold for grief fucking crushed me. The rooster intertwines the hope for a tomorrow, and even if it never comes he cannot bring himself to step out from this grief loop. The selfish and destructive behavior that result further entomb him, in an inward sort-of reverse One Hundred Years of Solitude collapse. Perhaps I just find myself reflected in that too much, or perhaps this book simply has that much capability to move, regardless, my heart clenches whenever I even think about No One Writes to the Colonel.
Quotes:
“What’s the matter, friend?’ Sabas asked.
The colonel sighed. ‘It’s October”
“Now, what you should do is enjoy the mush.’
‘It’s very good,’ the colonel said. ‘Where’d it come from?’
‘From the rooster,’ the woman answered. ‘The boys brought him so much corn that he decided to share it with us. That’s life.’
‘That’s right.’ The colonel sighed. ‘Life is the best thing that’s ever been invented.”
“You can’t eat hope,’ the woman said.
‘You can’t eat it, but it sustains you,”
“And you, how are you, doctor?’
The doctor shrugged.
‘As usual,’ he said. ‘I think I need a doctor.”
“He felt pure, explicit, invincible at the moment when he replied:
‘Shit.”
“For nearly sixty years – since the end of the last civil war – the colonel had done nothing else but wait. October was one of the few things which arrived.”
“the colonel experienced the feeling that fungus and poisonous lilies were taking root in his gut. It was October”
“He opened the window. October had moved in on the patio.”
“Look what’s left of our circus clown’s umbrella,’ said the colonel with one of his old phrases. Above his head a mysterious system of little metal rods opened. ‘The only thing it’s good for now is to count the stars”
“The first thing he perceived was the odor of many different flowers. Then the heat rose”
“The trouble is that in October I feel as if I had animals in my gut”
“His head was still spinning in concentric circles”
“But he wasn’t afraid. He was about to survive another October. ”
“I’m ready to give up affectation and pretense in this house,’ she said. Her voice began to darken with rage. ‘I’m fed up with resignation and dignity.”
“The thunder exploded in the street, entered the bedroom, and went rolling under the bed like a heap of stones. ”
“The river was a sheet of steel. ”
“Don’t worry, colonel. Trust to love”
“It’s the same story as always,’ she began a moment later. ‘We put up with hunger so others can eat. It’s been the same story for forty years.”
“He fell to the bottom of a substance without time and without space, ”
words:
dentition
Forgive the many, many references to October, as that is my birth month and I am sentimental. I've read a lot of Márquez's shortform writing, and I'm usually not that impressed with the plot. Regardless, I keep reading, because I'm loyal to Marquez's prose. No One Writes to the Colonel, however, packs a fucking punch. I had to stop reading this at points because it was unexpectedly gutting me. The plot is simplistic, which only serves to sharpen the emotions it elicits.
In summary, the Colonel in his youth fought alongside Colonel Aureliano Buendia's revolutionary army. When Buendia eventually concedes at the Treaty of Neerlandia, the army members are promised pensions. After decades, our unnamed Colonel has still not received a single penny. He lives in stark poverty with his wife and their dead son's rooster, in a perpetual state of waiting. They know it's hopeless, and their need to survive gets increasingly desperate, but somehow the Colonel cannot let go of this futile hopeful waiting. Selfish at turns, it merges with his grief for his son, the best days of his life (gone, meaningless), and the fascism that does not even penetrate into his consciousness anymore. Still the Colonel cannot bear to part with his rooster, stuck in this cycle of grief and desperation. Marquez, you know, always gets the last tragicomic word in. He ends the book as such: when the Colonel's angry wife asks him what he plans they eat for the next few months, the Colonel tells her: "shit".
I find this a great follow-up to One Hundred Years of Solitude. It grounds Macondo's fanciful nature into the dust-stricken tropical wasteland that it, in reality, is. Marquez's use of the rooster as the Colonel's singular foothold for grief fucking crushed me. The rooster intertwines the hope for a tomorrow, and even if it never comes he cannot bring himself to step out from this grief loop. The selfish and destructive behavior that result further entomb him, in an inward sort-of reverse One Hundred Years of Solitude collapse. Perhaps I just find myself reflected in that too much, or perhaps this book simply has that much capability to move, regardless, my heart clenches whenever I even think about No One Writes to the Colonel.
Quotes:
“What’s the matter, friend?’ Sabas asked.
The colonel sighed. ‘It’s October”
“Now, what you should do is enjoy the mush.’
‘It’s very good,’ the colonel said. ‘Where’d it come from?’
‘From the rooster,’ the woman answered. ‘The boys brought him so much corn that he decided to share it with us. That’s life.’
‘That’s right.’ The colonel sighed. ‘Life is the best thing that’s ever been invented.”
“You can’t eat hope,’ the woman said.
‘You can’t eat it, but it sustains you,”
“And you, how are you, doctor?’
The doctor shrugged.
‘As usual,’ he said. ‘I think I need a doctor.”
“He felt pure, explicit, invincible at the moment when he replied:
‘Shit.”
“For nearly sixty years – since the end of the last civil war – the colonel had done nothing else but wait. October was one of the few things which arrived.”
“the colonel experienced the feeling that fungus and poisonous lilies were taking root in his gut. It was October”
“He opened the window. October had moved in on the patio.”
“Look what’s left of our circus clown’s umbrella,’ said the colonel with one of his old phrases. Above his head a mysterious system of little metal rods opened. ‘The only thing it’s good for now is to count the stars”
“The first thing he perceived was the odor of many different flowers. Then the heat rose”
“The trouble is that in October I feel as if I had animals in my gut”
“His head was still spinning in concentric circles”
“But he wasn’t afraid. He was about to survive another October. ”
“I’m ready to give up affectation and pretense in this house,’ she said. Her voice began to darken with rage. ‘I’m fed up with resignation and dignity.”
“The thunder exploded in the street, entered the bedroom, and went rolling under the bed like a heap of stones. ”
“The river was a sheet of steel. ”
“Don’t worry, colonel. Trust to love”
“It’s the same story as always,’ she began a moment later. ‘We put up with hunger so others can eat. It’s been the same story for forty years.”
“He fell to the bottom of a substance without time and without space, ”
words:
dentition