neverbeencool

My Starbucks receipt from my second-to-last hot-as-Hell morning in Texas. Go ahead and make your own joke about that one.

And that’s all I’m going to say about Texas today. Nothing exciting on that front, just a normal day of work (aside from the longer than usual commute).

By the time I hit the rack tonight, I’ll have wrapped up Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.

When I started reading books on The Amazing Justin-o-Tron Book List 3000*, one of the things that really surprised me the most was just how God damn good the books that made the cut actually turned out.** I mean, sure, there’s a “no shit” factor in that statement, but I’m often one of those people who ends up turned off by the kind of books/movies/music/food/porn/etc. that get the most buzz. I’m pleasantly surprised when it turns out that all the talk was spot on.

So One Hundred Years of Solitude… Just before I started reading it, the name seemed to pop up all over the place. First, Oprah threw it on her list***, then a friend’s wife mentioned it****. And I found out (thanks to his autobio on tape) that Billy Clinton calls it his favorite book. Three good reasons for someone who’s instantly turned off by Popular***** to avoid the book.

My wife, though, changed my mind. We picked it up on a whim and added it to the ever growing List of Books We Own and Will One Day Read. Unlike Our Hero, however, she actually tends to make some progress on that front. And after she read a few pages, she told me I needed to bump it up the queue. Being the dutiful husband (and knowing that I can trust her taste), I did.

And I haven’t been disappointed. It’s a beautiful book, well worth the praise.

But I’m not book critic. I couldn’t review my last shit, so I’m not going to bother trying to break down a wonderful piece of fiction like this.

How good was it, though? Well, let’s put it this way: I hate long paragraphs. They make my eyes itch. When I read a book and find page after page with only one or two paragraphs on each I feel like tracking down and shanking the author. It makes me very cranky.

Usually.

Marquez does it on every page. Every single one. Paragraphs that last for pages, with no little white space breaks to help my poor old eyes and satisfy my minuscule American attenti…

Think I’m exaggerating? Here’s a single sentence from the book:

Nor had they asked her, even out of courtesy, why she was so pale or why she awoke with purple rings under her eyes in spite of the fact that she expected it, of course, from a family that had always considered her a nuisance, an old rag, a booby painted on the wall, and who were always going around saying things against her behind her back, calling her churchmouse, calling her Pharisee, calling her crafty, and even Amaranta, may she rest in peace, had said aloud that she was one of those people who could not tell their rectums from their ashes, God have mercy, such words, and she had tolerated everything with resignation because of the Holy Father, but she had not been able to tolerate it any more when that evil Jose Arcadio Segundo said that the damnation of the family had come when it opened its doors to a stuck-up highlander, just imagine a bossy highlander, Lord save us, a highland daughter of evil spit of the same stripe as the highlanders the government sent to kill workers, you tell me, and he was referring to no one but her, the godchild of the Duke of Alba, a lady of such lineage that she made the liver of presidents’ wives quiver, a noble dame of fine blood like her, who had the right to sign eleven peninsular names and who was the only mortal creature in that town full of bastards who did not feel all confused at the sight of sixteen pieces of silverware, so that her adulterous husband could die of laughter afterward and say that so many knives and forks and spoons were not meant for a human being but for a centipede, and the only one who could tell with her eyes closed when the white wine was served and on what side and in which glass, and not like that peasant of an Amaranta, may she rest in peace who thought that white wine was served in the daytime and red wine at night, and the only one on the whole coast who could take pride in the fact that she took care of her bodily needs only in golden chamberpots, so that Colonel Aureliano Buendia, may he rest in peace, could have the effrontery to ask her with his Masonic ill humor where she had received that privilege and whether she did not shit shit but shat sweet basil, just imagine, with those very words, and so that Renata, her own daughter, who through an oversight had seen her stool in the bedroom, had answered that even if the pot was all gold and with a coat of arms, what was inside was pure shit, physical shit, and worse even than any other kind because it was stuck-up highland shit, just imagine, her own daughter, so that she never had any illusions about the rest of the family, but in any case she had the right to expect a little more consideration from her husband because, for better or for worse, he was her consecrated spouse, her helpmate, her legal despoiler, who took upon himself of his own free and sovereign will the grave responsibility of taking her away from her paternal home, where she never wanted for or suffered from anything, where she wove funeral wreaths as a pastime, since her godfather had sent a letter with his signature and the stamp of his ring on the sealing wax simply to say that the hands of his goddaughter were not meant for tasks of this world except to play the clavichord, and, nevertheless, her insane husband had taken her from her home with all manner of admonitions and warnings and had brought her to the frying pan of hell where a person could not breathe because of the heat, and before she had completed her Pentecostal fast he had gone off with his wandering trunks and his wastrel’s accordion to loaf in adultery with a wretch of whom it was only enough to see her behind, well, that’s been said, to see her wiggle her mare’s behind in order to guess that she was a, that she was a, just the opposite of her, who was a lady in a palace or a pigsty, at the table or in bed, a lady of breeding, God-fearing, obeying His laws and submissive to His wishes, and with whom he could not perform, naturally, the acrobatics and trampish antics that he did with the other one, who, of course, was ready for anything, like the French matrons, and even worse, if one considers well, because they at least had the honesty to put a red light at their door, swinishness like that, just imagine, and that was all that was needed by the only and beloved daughter of Dona Renata Argote and Don Fernando del Carpio, and especially the latter, an upright man, a fine Christian, a Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher, those who received direct from God the privilege of remaining intact in their graves with their skin smooth like the cheeks of a bride and their eyes alive and clear like emeralds.

But the story and the writing are so fucking good that it just doesn’t matter. If you do pick it up, which I’d highly recommend you do, don’t make the mistake a certain someone I know made and put the book down for more than a few days. With no fewer than 22 characters having the name “Aureliano” and several others with various combinations of “Jose” and “Arcadio,” you quickly forget who the fuck is who if you don’t keep reading.

Now I just have to put up with that let down that comes with finishing a book I really liked… and picking out another one at the airport tomorrow, one that will no doubt be a big fat disappointment compared to this one.

*Working on the full version, slowly but surely. It’s just tedious work, typing it out and formatting it, etc. Will post another ten tomorrow.

In fact, I think that’s probably how I’ll share it. I’ll just push out bunches of ten or so every week until it’s all out there.

**Except Ulysses. Fuck that book. People who tell you they looooooved Ulysses are fucking liars, pure and simple. They just like to tell people they liked Ulysses because they think it’ll instill a sense of awe in the people who hear it. Like, “whoa, shit, that muthafucka read Ulysses and dug it. He could obviously destroy me and my inferior intellect with the power of his kick-ass mind alone! All hail!”

That person is, of course, a douche. Frankly, I doubt there are 3 people alive today who’ve finished the whole thing, much less genuinely liked it. It pains me that it ended up so high up on The Amazing Justin-o-Tron Book List 3000.

***I have no problem with Oprah or her list. She’s a powerful woman encouraging people to read. And it’s not like she’s pushing the latest Dean Cunts or something. We’re talking about real books. How can that be a bad thing?

****Biggest reason I almost didn’t read it. Only my wife’s recommendation has the power to fight my automatic gag reflex whenever I come face-to-face with one of Friend’s Wife’s opinions. I bet she thinks she liked Ulysses.

*****Feeling’s mutual. Popular crosses the street when he sees me coming.