Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Montaigne and Marquez

posted by Tim Walters @ 10:23 PM

Reading Paul Graham's tasty and provocative essays reminded me that I'd been meaning to re-read the man himself, Michel de Montaigne, inventor of the form and the most startlingly modern writer of the Renaissance. I don't have anything to say that isn't said better here.

On the plane back from NAB, I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the story of a murder that nobody, including the killers, wants to happen. Unfortunately, the town is fatally passive, and fingers don't get lifted. The depiction of the same sort of passivity got to be a bit much in One Hundred Years Of Solitude, but in this much shorter work is quite effective. Possibly it's a metaphor for Colombian life in general.

1 Comments:

At 6:28 AM, Blogger Todd T said...

Sorry for my silence lately. I've been on the road all week and had meant to read the article about Montaigne before responding, but forgot to take it with me. I have long meant to read more Montaigne (of course, there are 500 ways to fill in the blank of the last word in that sentence, including Garcia Marquez. Whatever "well read" means, I will never get there.) My favorite critic, Michael Dirda, has many intriguing things to say about Montaigne.

I should ask Albert Schultz what he thinks of GGM. He lived in Colombia for quite a while and his wife is from there.

 

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