The General in His Labyrinth
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4.4 • 23 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN eBOOK!
General Simon Bolivar, “the Liberator” of five South American countries, takes a last melancholy journey down the Magdalena River, revisiting cities along its shores, and reliving the triumphs, passions, and betrayals of his life. Infinitely charming, prodigiously successful in love, war and politics, he still dances with such enthusiasm and skill that his witnesses cannot believe he is ill. Aflame with memories of the power that he commanded and the dream of continental unity that eluded him, he is a moving exemplar of how much can be won—and lost—in a life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Written in cogent, measured prose, moving to a somber internal rhythm, this short, historically based novel depicts the last days of Simon Bolivar, aka the Liberator of South America. Aged 46 in 1830, prematurely aged, weary and moribund, the General (as he is referred to throughout), once the hero and president of the republic of nations he freed from Spanish domination, is now past his glory. He is wandering destitute, having renounced the presidency and announced his imminent exile--an act he keeps postponing in the hopes that he will be returned to power. Widely reviled, the object of assassination attempts, suffering from chronic insomnia and daily fevers, the General is cynical, bitter and mercurial, frustrated by his failing powers but unable to face his impending death (``How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!'' he cries). In flashbacks that integrate capsule portraits of other historical figures important in Bolivar's life, Garcia Marquez invests the narrative with substance and veracity, but finds little opportunity to unleash his remarkable imagination; thus the novel lacks the incandescent quality of One Hundred Years of Solitude and other of his works of magical realism. The author himself regrets the lack of humor in what he refers to as ``the horror of this book.'' Readers will be impressed, but not beguiled. 150,000 first printing; first serial to the New Yorker; BOMC main selection.
Customer Reviews
Gabo the journalist
Phenomenal book. You get the literary prose with some historical journalism. The novel leads you searching for more historical evidence from an epoch that has no written objective evidence
His most tedious work
The title of the review says it all. Garcia Marquez still has a magical way of stringing together sentences and paragraphs with such beauty, but this novel is bogged down by sprawling, criss-crossing recollections and side-stories, including a list of generals, marshals, and aides-de-camp that is much too large to make sense of without drawing a map. It was truly a slog for me to finish, though GGM deftly handles the closing moments of the story, when death is finally the certain conclusion, with the grace and excellence of his best writing.