living to tell the tale living to tell the tale

The past week or so I have been reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s autobiography “Living to Tell the Tale”.

His life story, written in Garcia’s unmistakeable, inimitable voice and style, is amusing, informative, and inspiring. From the very start, he defines himself by his all-consuming passion for books, stories, and writing.

Garcia Marquez’s achievement in literature and in history is the more notable because he is, for the most part, a self-taught writer. At one point, he narrates how he learned to hone his skills by studying other novels:

…”After I became aware of this, I began to read like a real working novelist, not only for pleasure but out of an insatiable curiosity to discover how books by wise people were written. I read them forward first, then backward, and subjected them to a kind of surgical disemboweling until I reached the most recondite mysteries of their structure.”

Mr. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, sir, thank you for sharing with us one of the secrets of your success as a writer, and an excellent technique for learning to write stories well.


Posted under Reading