Stuck on a Desert Island

When I am stuck for something to read, I go back to the classics. In the airport (en route to either Turin or Madrid - I can't remember which) stuck for something to read, I spotted Wuthering Heights and thought “YES!” Beside it was Jane Eyre which I had never read and thought “Perfect, not only can I go back to an old faithful but I can still read something sort of new!”    


I was quite pleased.

There is something to be said for going back and re-reading favourite books from time to time. I firmly believe that as you read them, at different ages and different times of your life, they take on new meanings. With Wuthering Heights I had always romanticized Heathcliff and Cathy as having one of the truly great love affairs. Clearly I had a romance filter firmly in place in my teenage years to think that their dark, insane and completely dysfunctional relationship was anything remotely close to a classic romance. That doesn’t make the story any less of a masterpiece; it just made me think it over again.   I love that experience. Jane Eyre - nothing short of brilliant. I have read critical opinion that it is a perfect novel. I think I have to agree: character development, plot construction, description...all exquisite. I could read it over and over again. 

I then started to think about all of the other books I could read over and over again. Which then led me to think about a game my husband and I play “If you were stuck on a desert island” – best played over a bottle of wine and nice dinner after the children go to bed. We usually play this about music (“If you could only have 5 albums on a desert island – what would they be – no greatest hits”). So I started thinking about books. If I was stuck on a desert island today and could only have 10 books, here is what they would be (in no particular order):

Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen
Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruis Zafon
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
The World According to Garp, John Irvin

I suspect this list will be pretty fluid although I bet at least half will remain the same as time goes by.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I am an English major and I have read a lot of the classic great novelists. My favourite novelist from the time I was in high school was Thomas Hardy and Tess of the D’Urbervilles is my favourite book. I even have a first edition of the US printing; a generous gift from my friend Pat.

In my last post, I talked about my Harry Potter addiction. That was really about a continuing story. It’s something different to be addicted to writers (there seems to be a theme developing). In the summer of 2004, I read Love in the Time of Cholera and discovered the sheer wonder of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I came across the book in an admittedly cheesy fashion: it features in the movie Serendipity with John Cusak and Kate Beckinsale. Enough said on that.

Love in the Time of Cholera is one of the most heartbreaking and beautiful love stories I have ever read. During a session of the Ladies of Lark Street (side bar: The Ladies of Lark Street is a gathering of the ladies who live or have lived on my street, Lark Street. We rotate hosting duties and proceed to eat great food, drink a lot of wine and basically dish), the conversation inevitably turned to books and I was mentioning how much I loved Love in the time of Cholera. A few of the other ladies had read it and agreed.

The next day my friend and neighbor Michelle dropped The General in his Labyrinth in my mailbox. This book was a bit more challenging as it delves more into political and military history. Marquez, however, has this talent for building richly complex characters who are so deeply flawed and tortured and yet so vibrant and interesting. His love of his homeland oozes from the pages. My aunt Sharon gave me Strange Pilgrims and One Hundred Years of Solitude which many believe is his greatest work and one of the greatest pieces of literature in history. I started Strange Pilgrims and my husband Doug started One Hundred Years of Solitude. Strange Pilgrims is a collection of exquisite short stories. They are all so different which is another thing that is so wonderful about Marquez: there is no formula or predictability in the body of his work (my humble opinion).

I then decided to tackle One Hundred Years of Solitude. Everybody I talk to either loves it or hates it. Sharon hated it. Doug loved it. My verdict: LOVED IT. After reading this book, I have seriously considered ranking him above Hardy as my favourite writer with One Hundred Years as my number two favourite book. This book is steeped in biblical allegory (there's the English major!) and the family tree that Marquez describes is very intricate and covers love, family, war, betrayal, indulgence: the works. The key to reading this is to try not to keep really close track of who everybody is and how they are related and just read it. Read the words and visualize the village, embrace the fantasy and feel the depth of emotion that Marquez portrays. Let it go.

If you haven’t read Marquez before, here is how I recommend getting started:

1. Strange Pilgrims
2. Love in the Time of Cholera
3. One Hundred Years of Solitude

About a month ago, I picked up his most recent book: Memoirs of My Melancholy Whore. I would suggest it’s more of a novella. I read it on a flight from Frankfurt to Lisbon and finished it in a couple of hours. Don’t let the title fool you. This is not a tawdry, vulgar story. It is a story of love: a love that is intense and passionate and that can come at any time of life, even at the end.

I'm leaving Sunday night for a whirlwind tour: Arrive Delhi Monday night, meetings Tuesday, go to Singapore on Tuesday night, fly home on Friday. I have now finished all of my backlog and I would love to pick up a Marquez. Any suggestions?