Durante cincuenta y seis años – desde cuando terminó la última guerra civil – el coronel no había hecho nada distinto de esperar. Octubre era una de las pocas cosas que llegaban.
(Gabriel García Márquez: El coronel no tiene quien le escriba)
“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.”
(Gabriel García Márquez: No One Writes to the Colonel)
—Estás como para un acontecimiento —dijo.
—Este entierro es un acontecimiento —dijo el coronel—. Es el primer muerto de muerte natural que tenemos en muchos años.
(Gabriel García Márquez: El coronel no tiene quien le escriba)
‘You look as if you’re dressed for some special event,’ she said.
‘This burial is a special event,’ the colonel said. ‘It’s the first death from natural causes which we‘ve had in many years.’
(Gabriel García Márquez: No One Writes to the Colonel)
Image credit: José Lara [CC BY-SA 2.0] via Wikipedia
I bought the book El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (No One Writes to the Colonel) a few months ago for the unconvincing reason that the title put me in mind of my father (it’s lucky he doesn’t read English so he can’t take offence). That, and because I had liked Relato de un naufrágo (The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor) which I read the month before. So I bought El coronel and then kept on not reading it, thinking it was just the right size to take on holiday in October. In the end I couldn’t stand it any longer and took it with me for the train on the day when we went walking on the South Downs’ Way. Just as well, because I finished it that very night, so it would have left me rather short of reading material during the holiday.
Continue reading “Gabriel García Márquez, Minus Magical Realism”
