Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Wed Dec 6 08:15:18 CST 2000

A friend was kind enough to translate it for me as follows:

"They Denounce the Apocryhpa of Gabo" 
Local newspapers and radio broadcasts fall into the trap of an anonymous
author transmitting a poem attributed to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 
City of Mexico: This past January, Gabriel Garcia Marquez laughed on reading
a poem that circulated on the Internet in his name "The Marionette." "It is
so bad that it isn't worth it to refute it." sad the Colombian Nobel Prize
winner to his friend Jaime Abello, director of the Foundation for a New
Spanish American Journalism. 
Yesterday, various newspapers and radio stations from Mexico City fell into
the trap of an anonymous author that wanted to attribute to the write verses
of evident common place extreme bad taste. (That last sentence may have some
idioms that I didn't get.) The source that cited it was the column by Mirko
Lauer published on Monday in the Peruvian newspaper "La Republica" where it
was affirmed that Gabo (apparently "Gabo" is a nickname for Garcia Marquez)
had sent the poems to his friends the past weekend on finding out that the
cancer he was suffering from was grave. 
"I am one of his friends and he hasn't sent me anything" said Argentine
writer Tomas Eloy Martinez over the phone. "I think that this is the same
guy that appeared a few months ago in 'Librusa' (an agency of literary news
on the Internet) and that the same Gabo refused to bother with what was not
worth the effort to say that it wasn't his writing." 
Librusa recanted the publication of the text through its editor Maritza
Henriquez. "We were sent this poem through e-mail and went the director Jose
Carbajal saw it he said it was so bad, that it was impossible that it was
written by Garcia Marquez, thus we never published it." he assured. (Don't
think I got this part quite right either.) 
Abello, head of the Foundation sponsored by Garcia Marquez. affirmed
categorically "It is totally apocryphal and it circulated on the Net about a
year ago. I am remindied of a poem that was then falsely attributed to
Borges." 
They refer to Instantes, a composition also of set literary quality that was
distributed in photocopies during the 80's and whose author in reality was
American caricaturist Don Herold, who published it in September 1953 in
Readers Digest. 
His first verses: "If I could live my life again/ in the next try to commit
more errors" has the same tone as those of The Marionette "If for one
instant God had forgotten my being/a trapped marionette/and regulated a
piece of life..." 
"It is a shame there are such good counterfeiters of paintings and those of
literature are dreadful" commented Eloy Martinez. 
About the state of health of the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude who
had considered himself a few months ago cured of cancer, Abello assured that
he was doing well. 
In Barcelona, Gloria Gutierrez, head of the literary agency of Carmen
Balcells, after her retirement continues to legally represent Garcia
Marquez. Balcells indicated that in the short run, no plans are in the works
for a new work from Garcia Marquez. 
"We don't have information of him writing his memoirs, and even if we did we
wouldn't be interested in divulging that information. Still, nothing is
certain." she said. 
However, sources close to the author assure us that he can be found outside
of Mexico "immersed in the happiness of writing" and completely dedicated to
his memoirs. 
Thus, the editorial label Debolsillo, a project that groups a series of
first rate Spanish publishing houses such as Mondadori, Planeta, Plaza &
Janes and Seix Barral put News of a Kidnapped Person (? Not quite sure what
that is Noticia de un Secuestrado....maybe it could also be news of a
sequestered person.) in the window of bookstores in the Iberian peninsula
last May 4th. Under the same concept of a book bag, some other works of Gabo
could be published and distributed in the Spanish market, although at the
moment they haven't leaked the titles. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Grant [mailto:Steve.Grant at thinkinc.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 4:47 PM
To: Pynchlist
Subject: RE: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I think I catch the article's drift, but an executive summary might be
useful for those of us who are monolingual (that being myself, who flunked
college Spanish for 3 years running).

SG/

_________________________________
Steve Grant
Director of Technology Services
120 advertising and branding
Los Angeles, CA 

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Calaman, William [mailto:Calaman at co.dane.wi.us] 
Sent:	Tuesday, December 05, 2000 9:53 AM
To:	's~Z'; Pynchlist
Subject:	RE: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

You may want to check this out.
 http://www.reforma.com/cultura/articulo/011321/

-----Original Message-----
From: s~Z [mailto:keith at pfmentum.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 9:17 AM
To: Pynchlist
Subject: Fw: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

>Gabriel Garcia Marquez* has retired from public life due to
> > health reasons: cancer of the lymph nodes. It seems that it is
> > getting worse. He has sent this farewell letter to his friends,
> > which has been translated and posted on the Internet. Please
> > read and forward to any who might enjoy it. This is possibly,
> > sadly, one of the last gifts to humanity from a true master.
> > This short text, written by one of the most brilliant Latin
> > Americans in recent times, is truly moving.
> > _______________
> > If for an instant God were to forget that I am rag doll and gifted
> > me with a piece of life, possibly I wouldn't say all that I think, but
> > rather I would think of all that I say. I would value things, not
> > for their worth but for what they mean. I would sleep little, dream
> > more, understanding that for each minute we close our eyes we lose
> > sixty seconds of light.
> >
> > I would walk when others hold back, I would wake when others
> > sleep. I would listen when others talk, and how I would enjoy a
> > good chocolate ice cream! If God were to give me a piece of life,
> > I would dress simply, throw myself face first into the sun, baring
> > not only my body but also my soul. My God, if I had a heart, I
> > would write my hate on ice, and wait for the sun to show. Over
> > the stars I would paint with a Van Gogh dream a Benedetti poem,
> > and a Serrat song would be the serenade I'd offer to the moon.
> > With my tears I would water roses, to feel the pain of their thorns,
> > and the red kiss of their petals...
> >
> > My god, if I had a piece of life... I wouldn't let a single day pass
> > without telling the people I love that I love them. I would convince
> > each woman and each man that they are my favorites, and I would
> > live in love with love. I would show men how very wrong they are
> > to think that they cease to be in love when they grow old, not
> > knowing that they grow old when they cease to be in love! To a
> > child I shall give wings, but I shall let him learn to fly on his own.
> > I would teach the old that death does not come with old age, but
> > with forgetting. So much have I learned from you, oh men...
> >
> > I have learned that everyone wants to live on the peak of the
> > mountain, without knowing that real happiness is in how it is
> > scaled. I have learned that when a newborn child squeezes for the
> > first time with his tiny fist his father's finger, he has him trapped
> > forever. I have learned that a man has the right to look down on
> > another only when he has to help the other get to his feet. From
> > you I have learned so many things, but in truth they won't be of
> > much use, for when I keep them within this suitcase, unhappily
> > shall I be dying.
> >
> > GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ
> >
>
>

____________________________________________________________________________
_________
Get more from the Web.  FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com

-