Our instant verdict on Garcia Marques back in 1970: A classic

Only got to read a few pa"ges last night but started Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "The General in his Labyrinth. No sure what it is that makes Garcia Marquez's work so compelling, but will try to figure it out. Seems archetypal Garcia Marquez from the outset - a ruined, remote Colombian village or outpost, mid-19th century, an old patriarch, his body in ruins like his surroundings, has to make one last heroic stand or journey, slowly brings himself to be awake and alert, his mind culling through his past triumphs and glories, all gone, a beautiful woman is devoted to him, but the sex all seems to be a memory - a paradigm of fallen greatness, ruined empire - but wait! - this dying patriarch seems to be the hero Simon Bolivar, so he should be triumphant and heroic, not some last gasp of a dying aristocracy (cf, The Leopard) but a new man for a new age - it's not what we'd have expected if we'd expected anything, because who (in n.america) even knows a thing about Bolivar other than his name? And maybe this treatment isn't accurate, it could be Garcia Marquez making the hero into his kind of hero - or maybe he found in history a perfect and suitable subject for his style and talents. I remember back in grad school, ca 1970, before any one in the U.S. had heard of Garcia Marquez, a friend in romance languages read it in spanish (100 Years of Solitude), gave it to another friend (english grad student) and said read it - she wondered if it was as great as she thought, or was it just that she felt a personal pride because she'd read it in spanish. The verdict: this book will be a classic and will be read forever, and that was right.