It was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or images) (Macondo) would
be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the
precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the
parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable
since time immemorial and forevermore because races condemned to one
hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.
'One Hundred Years of Solitude'
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Gabo)
In Colombia I am always being reminded of Gabo's magically realistic
universe which is best and most completely described in his
novel, 'One Hundred Years of Solitude.'
There is a continuum between the mythic (the most true) reality of
the city of Macundo and the family Buendias, and life its own self
here in Colombia.
The history of the city of Macondo is the mythic history of
Colombia. The Buendia family in fleeing the Carribbean
Coast and the murderous attacks of the English Pirate Drake are
thrust into, an arduous land of conflict, uncertainty, of hope, utter
despair, wild joy, anguish, disaster, obstinate reconstructions, and
stubborn resurrections.
They settle in a remote place surrounded by high mountains and jungles
where the magically, fantastic is an accepted, almost expected part
of life.
The first people from the outside who find Macondo are the
Gypsy/Jewish/Kabbalistic people of the Alchemist Melquidas.
Melquides is described 'as a fugitive from all the plaques and
catastrophes that had ever lashed mankind.' Melquides discovery, his
knowing of the reality of Macondo is about becoming fugitive from the
plaque and ultimate catastrophe of 100 years of solitude.
An American corporation establishes massive banana plantations in
Macondo. When 20,000 people, men women, children, gather in Macondo's
main plaza to protest working conditions they are all slaughtered,
their bodies put on a train, and then dumped into the ocean. There is
then the loss of historical consciousness, an epidemic of amnesia in
which all identity and culture is forgotten.
Magic Realism is nothing more, but nothing less than the attempt to
integrate the most mundane human circumstances with the magical,
fantastic quantum physical reality that is always happening - but
perhaps more so here in Colombia. It is nothing more, but nothing
less than the integration of the mystery of eternity in the static,
repetitious, human circumstances.
The accepted historians' version of reality is that this part of
Colombia, Antioquia, was settled by Crypto-Jews fleeing the
Inquisition. The history of Antioquia is the history of the loss of
historical consciousness, an epidemic of amnesia in which identity
and culture is forgotten.
On December 5, 1928 in the city of Cienaga at least hundreds of
workers were massacred when they protested against the United Fruit
Company of Boston. On November 13, 1985 at least 25,000 people are
killed when the volcano, Nevado del Ruiz, erupts, melting the snow on
its summit and sending a massive mud slide into the sleeping city of
Armero.
Magic Realism is the recognition that in each moment there is
something of the creation something of the apocalypse. It is the
recognition that in each moment there is something of mortality,
something of eternity. In the magically realistic moment there is the
further possibilities of the human.
In 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' there is Jose Arcadio Buenia, the
patriarch who founds Macondo, who goes insane, comes to believe that
time has stopped, as he searchs for the Philosophers' Stone.
There is his son Colonel Aureliano Buendia who is born with his eyes
open after having wept in the womb, and because of this is incapable
of love. But everything he says happens, becomes true. He starts 32
civil wars in which he commands the liberal party's army. There is
Remedios the Beauty who is the most beautiful woman in the world. She
causes the death of at least several men who die because of their
love or lust for her. She rejects all things of personal vanity,
including clothes and nakedly ascends into the sky one morning while
folding laundry.
There is the mundane, static repetitious Colombian reality. And then
there are the magically, realistic moments which are unrepeatable
since time immemorial and forevermore which are the circumstances of
humanity-to-be.