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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 168 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 168, October 1993.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Strange Pilgrims
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Jonathan Cape
One of the great joys of travelling is the sharpening of the senses. We are flung into a strange environment, full of new smells, sounds and colours of which we become intensely aware.
This challenging of the perceptions is captured magnificently by Marquez in these 12 short stories about Latin Americans in Europe.
The stories were written, discarded, lost and rewritten over an 18 year period. They finally came together as a book after he revisited some of the European cities in which they are based. They provoke questions about the distinction between reality and imagination and, more particularly, memory.
He explains in the prologue:
‘None of [the cities] had any connection to my memories. Through an astonishing inversion ... true memories seemed like phantoms, while false memories were so convincing that they replaced reality. This meant I could not detect the dividing line between disillusionment and nostalgia ... At last I had found what I needed most to complete the book ... a perspective in time.’
All the stories are flavoured by the touches of mystery and magic familiar to all Marquez lovers. The weightless body of a young girl, dead for 11 years, still smells of freshly cut roses. A woman makes a living selling her dreams.
Another woman’s car breaks down. She hitches a lift on a bus full of strangely quiet women. On arrival, she joins them as they file into an imposing building. It is a mental institution, from which she never escapes. She only wanted to use the phone.
Marquez’ fascination with dictators leaves its mark in the first and longest story, Bon Voyage, Mister President. It is a good enough tale, although it lacks the political bite of his earlier works such as No One Writes to the Colonel and The Autumn of the Patriarch which in my view are by far his best.
Perhaps age has mellowed him. Or fame. Or perhaps it is just that the political climate in which he is writing has changed.
For those who have read Marquez’ previous books, Strange Pilgrims will probably not offer many surprises and may well even be disappointing. But for his admirers, and for those new to his style, all 12 stories will be a delight.
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