The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez

García Márquez wrestles with El Libertador's ghost in his historically-inspired fictional account of Simón Bolívar's final journey -- from Andean Bogotá down the Magdalena river to the Caribbean coast.

I have previously read One Hundred Years of Solitude and News of a Kidnapping -- one a magical realist fantasy, the other a journalistic account. This novel strikes an odd sort of middle ground: García Márquez researched the General's life, but filled in the blanks in the historical record as needed for dramatic effect. He hopes to achieve is a psychological portrait of a once-virile man who changed the face of a continent through his own will, but who is now consumed by the failure of his grand plan. At times the General seems unwilling to accept his defeat, at other times he is consumed by spite, and is possibly more prescient than those around him -- he can feel the weight of history crushing him, forsaking him, abandoning him. The character, while historically inspired, fits a certain García Márquez model, from what I can tell -- Pablo Escobar, though not a central figure to News of a Kidnapping, is similarly depicted as having a commanding presence who built an empire, but was unable to escape his ultimate fate, dying in the street and on the run. Similarly, the men of the Buendía family fit a dichotomy embodied in the General -- stubborn and masculine vs. sullen and contemplative. Like the Buendías, the General's amorous history is impressive.

There are no magical realist elements, but García Márquez describes the General's physical state as almost grotesque. As he nears death and becomes more like a walking cadaver, Bolívar sometimes summon a strength and resolve from his past that none of his entourage anticipate. One theme in common with One Hundred Years of Solitude is the connection to the past in explaining the present. When the General or one of his men reference an incident from a past campaign, García Márquez embarks on an investigation of the details surrounding that incident and what it reveals about the man's current state, at the same time illustrating how far he has fallen from his former glory. One impressive moment is a historical fact -- while hiding in a swamp from Spanish troops, the General and his men spent the night standing in water. At a low point in their campaign, the General predicted exactly how he would drive the Spaniards back and eventually unite the colonies. His aides were stunned by his diatribe, and worried that his voice would attract the enemy. In a method very similar to News of a Kidnapping, the book slowly chronicles in unadorned language these small, separate incidents that reveal some part of the larger picture without giving away the meaning. This detached, journalistic style builds its case fact by fact and detail by detail until the end, where García Márquez makes his presence felt and the meaning of the work rushes at you, fulling revealing the meaning, which is simultaneously terrifying and beautiful.

Some other Gabo touches: in dealing with incidental characters, he takes pains to reveal a few small but decisive incidents from their past which characterize their entire being. He especially loves depicting Caribbean culture; Bolívar was from the Venezuelan coast and maintained a certain rough quality despite his ability to adopt genteel European codes of conduct as needed. His outsider, Latin American character is also represented racially -- he is described as having some vaguely African features, despite his membership in the Venezuelan aristocracy. Other characters which capture the author's imagination are the eccentrics in the countryside; one doctor who provides unorthodox, counter-intuitive prescriptions, for example.

Though I don't necessarily think of García Márquez as an overtly political writer, he is aware of his position as a Latin American and a Colombian, and just as the village of Macondo represents the nation and the region, Bolívar in some way represents the spirit of Latin America as well. Seemingly doomed perpetually to a failed idealism, besieged by infighting, and unable to communicate his visions to those around him, the General is lost in the labyrinth of his own past, where the meaning of a life spent pursuing an elusive dream became the foundation myth for a continent. Being equal to the task of exploring a personage of such importance, García Márquez creates the General -- a fully realized creation which may capture some of the man, but Bolívar himself still remains obscured in the fog of history.