{"id":520,"date":"2010-03-02T20:23:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T04:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8182002200449700033.post-8124109070068199790"},"modified":"2010-03-02T21:08:43","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T05:08:43","slug":"why-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/2010\/03\/02\/why-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Why not?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After watching an Oprah episode while I was in middle school which featured Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez and his masterpiece <span >One Hundred Years of Solitude<\/span>, my mother and I rushed out to buy it.  After all, it was the Oprah Book Club featured novel \ud83d\ude09  I remember enjoying it even at that young age.  In fact, I enjoyed it so much that to this day I still recommend it to people.  But I&#8217;ve gotta say that this second time around it has gotten even better. <\/p>\n<p>Maybe it&#8217;s because I&#8217;m a little older now and can pick out literary symbolism, or maybe it&#8217;s because I&#8217;ve lived in Colombia and feel a familial connection to anything which relates to that wonderful country; but truthfully it&#8217;s probably like it always is: you catch a little bit more every time you experience a piece of art again. <\/p>\n<p>M\u00e1rquez truly is a master of magical realism.  For me, reading <span >Cien a\u00f1os de soledad<\/span> is kind of like reading a Harry Potter book: there&#8217;s a magic to it that invites your imagination, but when you put the book down you can&#8217;t quite put your finger on what made it so special.  The actual act of reading his tale is like an enchantment.  And so, I&#8217;ve come to the conclusion that Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez is, like J.K. Rowlings, a sorcerer (or sorceress for the latter).  There&#8217;s no other way to explain it. <\/p>\n<p>So far, for this second reading, I&#8217;m at page 154, and the memories are flying back at me.  I enjoy how M\u00e1rquez sets the timeline of the story: jumping back and forth, reminding the reader of events past and characters almost forgotten.  And, of course, the magical realism.  Whether it&#8217;s a plague of insomnia sweeping the town of Macondo causing a wave of forgetfulness, or Jos\u00e9 Arcadia Buend\u00eda coming across a Spanish ship filled with flowers in the middle of the dense jungle, or the gypsies coming to town with fabulous inventions and curiousities, or a lonely ghost haunting the dreams of his killer; the magic invades the pages seamlessly.  The reader begins questioning what they think of as possible.  The story isn&#8217;t just in the imagination of M\u00e1rquez, but now it&#8217;s in my mind as well; and, ultimately, I simply shrug my shoulders, raise my eyebrows and say, &#8220;Why not?&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img width='1' height='1' src='https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/8182002200449700033-8124109070068199790?l=themuse365.blogspot.com' alt='' \/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After watching an Oprah episode while I was in middle school which featured Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez and his masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude, my mother and I rushed out to buy it.  After all, it was the Oprah Book Club featured novel \ud83d\ude09  I re&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1342,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520\/revisions\/1342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}