{"id":20403,"date":"2014-04-28T09:11:20","date_gmt":"2014-04-28T14:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thisblogrules.com\/?p=20403"},"modified":"2014-04-22T15:42:14","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T20:42:14","slug":"farewell-gabriel-garcia-marquez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/farewell-gabriel-garcia-marquez\/","title":{"rendered":"Farewell, Gabriel Garcia Marquez"},"content":{"rendered":"

The much-loved writer and journalist Gabriel Garcia Marquez passed away a bit over a week ago, on the 17th<\/sup> of April, after struggling for a long time with the ravages of a degenerative disease. I must confess that I was rather disappointed with the media coverage of this story: a few minutes after his passing, and major news hubs such as Times and BBC were already publishing very lengthy articles about his life and activity. That can only mean one thing: they had the story already prepared and waiting for a go, since they knew he was in the hospital battling his illness. I have nothing against the immediate release of news such as this, but I would expect them to come in the form of a headline or just a few sentences announcing his passing. Therefore, I was a bit conflicted at first about publishing this piece, since I really didn\u2019t want to add up to the long trail of people somehow profiting from his death or finding a good story in it. But since 10 days have passed from his departure, and since I genuinely was \u2013 and am \u2013 a huge admirer of Gabriel Garcia Marquez\u2019s works, I decided to proceed with this tribute piece. Hat\u2019s off to you, father of magic realism.<\/p>\n

\"Gabriel-Garcia-Marquez-580\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This photograph of Gabriel Garcia Marquez was taken by Richard Avedon. He already had a chance to take a portrait of the writer in 1976, on a rainy day, but he was dissatisfied with the result. He waited for another opportunity and in 2004 it was presented to him again. This is the second photograph he took of Marquez, in Mexico City, the early spring of 2004. This one was deemed good enough by its author, and while I couldn\u2019t find the one resulting from the first try, I think we can all agree that it\u2019s indeed a fine portrait.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t waste space with brief introductions of who Gabriel Garcia Marquez was or what he is most known for; if you\u2019re here reading this article you probably know already. I will merely name a few of the reasons I enjoyed his works or point out a few less known-facts about him. For example, I always found it heart-warmingly nice of him to be a Shakira fan. I hate the often large gap between high culture and the so-called \u201clow culture\u201d (which is basically low culture) that comes along with elitist tendencies. Therefore, I loved how a Nobel prize-awarded writer advocates as a sincere fan of a commercially successful pop music star. It\u2019s refreshing and puts a new light on Shakira\u2019s music as well. Since it has come up, did you notice how delicate and airy her voice was on the soundtrack of Love in the Time of the Cholera<\/i> movie adaptation? Perhaps their friendship and mutual respect played a part in how well Shakira sang for that movie.<\/p>\n

Another lovely fact about Gabriel Garcia Marquez is <\/i>that he said all inspiration for his literature\u2019s stories came from real life and cases, and that if he hadn\u2019t been a journalist first and foremost, he wouldn\u2019t have been able to find the right stories to write about. In this respect, he reminds me of Dostoyevsky, who also took the inspiration for his novels from the papers and the news of the day \u2013 he studied the obituaries, the scandals, the trials, and made beautiful things out of that which others saw only as plain dirt.<\/p>\n

And last, but not least, what really stuck with me permanently after reading Marquez was a sense of tender nostalgia for all things passed, even before they pass, as if you can see it in places you love even before they disappear. Some critics claimed the main theme of his writings was solitude, I\u2019d say that Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote first and foremost about nostalgia. He lived a relatively long life, but I refuse to believe that he was ever old. \u201cIt is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams\u201d (Gabriel Garcia Marquez).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The much-loved writer and journalist Gabriel Garcia Marquez passed away a bit over a week ago, on the 17th of April, after struggling for a long time with the ravages of a degenerative disease. I must confess that I was rather disappointed with the media coverage of this story: a few minutes after his passing, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[5401,906,4232],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","yoast_head":"\nFarewell, Gabriel Garcia Marquez 2023 | This Blog Rules<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The much-loved writer and journalist Gabriel Garcia Marquez passed away a bit over a week ago, on the 17th of April, after struggling for a long time with\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/farewell-gabriel-garcia-marquez\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/\",\"name\":\"This Blog Rules | Why go elsewhere?\",\"description\":\"Leading Entertainment Blog and Daily Source for Fun\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/farewell-gabriel-garcia-marquez\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.thisblogrules.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Gabriel-Garcia-Marquez-580.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/farewell-gabriel-garcia-marquez\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/farewell-gabriel-garcia-marquez\/\",\"name\":\"Farewell, Gabriel Garcia Marquez 2023 | This Blog Rules\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/farewell-gabriel-garcia-marquez\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-04-28T14:11:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-04-22T20:42:14+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/#\/schema\/person\/fe40cb4813507d110553dbeb0307a088\"},\"description\":\"The much-loved writer and journalist Gabriel Garcia Marquez passed away a bit over a week ago, on the 17th of April, after struggling for a long time with\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/farewell-gabriel-garcia-marquez\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/farewell-gabriel-garcia-marquez\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/farewell-gabriel-garcia-marquez\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"item\":{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/\",\"name\":\"Home\"}},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"item\":{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/farewell-gabriel-garcia-marquez\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/farewell-gabriel-garcia-marquez\/\",\"name\":\"Farewell, Gabriel Garcia Marquez\"}}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/#\/schema\/person\/fe40cb4813507d110553dbeb0307a088\",\"name\":\"Fred Mitchell\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thisblogrules.com\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/896f9f4ccaf999c629bf756051876228?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Fred Mitchell\"},\"description\":\"I like midnight surfing and going for jogs at sunrise with my my golden retriever, Charlie. When I'm not studying Russian literature or reading Dostoievski, you can find me playing video games like Witcher 3 or Battlefield Hardline, or hanging out in Starbucks sipping an Americano. 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