Viata nu e ce ai trait, ci ceea ce iti amintesti ca ai trait si cum ti-o amintesti sa o povestesti. Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Saptamina asta toata lumea a aflat ca Gabriel Garcia Marquez (85 ani) sufera de dementa senila. Gata. Nu mai scrie.

Vestea a venit de la fratele lui, Jaime, cel care e administratorul fundatiei pentru jurnalism pe care a creat-o Marquez.

N-ar fi vrut sa o spuna asa public in vazul tuturor , pentru ca voia sa oamenii sa-l aminteasca pe Gabriel Garcia asa cum il stiu din scrieri sau conferinte, din articolele politice. Erau insa prea multe zvonuri despre starea sa, detalii morbide despre cum traieste ca o leguma.

“Dementia runs in our family and he’s now suffering the ravages prematurely due to the cancer that put him almost on the verge of death,” said Jaime. “Chemotherapy saved his life, but it also destroyed many neurons, many defences and cells, and accelerated the process. But he still has the humour, joy and enthusiasm that he has always had.” (via Guardian)

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Cei mai multi isi amintesc de Gabriel Garcia Marquez via  Un veac de singuratate, dar mie mi-ar placea ca macar cei care fac jurnalism – sau scriu (cartie, esseuri etc) – sa citeasca macar o data interviul lui din Paris Review .

(…)

INTERVIEWER

How do you feel about using the tape recorder?

GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

The problem is that the moment you know the interview is being taped, your attitude changes. In my case I immediately take a defensive attitude. As a journalist, I feel that we still haven’t learned how to use a tape recorder to do an interview. The best way, I feel, is to have a long conversation without the journalist taking any notes. Then afterward he should reminisce about the conversation and write it down as an impression of what he felt, not necessarily using the exact words expressed. Another useful method is to take notes and then interpret them with a certain loyalty to the person interviewed. What ticks you off about the tape recording everything is that it is not loyal to the person who is being interviewed, because it even records and remembers when you make an ass of yourself. That’s why when there is a tape recorder, I am conscious that I’m being interviewed; when there isn’t a tape recorder, I talk in an unconscious and completely natural way.

INTERVIEWER

Well, you make me feel a little guilty using it, but I think for this kind of an interview we probably need it.

GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

Anyway, the whole purpose of what I just said was to put you on the defensive.

INTERVIEWER

So you have never used a tape recorder yourself for an interview?

GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

As a journalist, I never use it. I have a very good tape recorder, but I just use it to listen to music. But then as a journalist I’ve never done an interview. I’ve done reports, but never an interview with questions and answers.

INTERVIEWER

I heard about one famous interview with a sailor who had been shipwrecked.

GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

It wasn’t questions and answers. The sailor would just tell me his adventures and I would rewrite them trying to use his own words and in the first person, as if he were the one who was writing. When the work was published as a serial in a newspaper, one part each day for two weeks, it was signed by the sailor, not by me. It wasn’t until twenty years later that it was re-published and people found out I had written it. No editor realized that it was good until after I had written One Hundred Years of Solitude.

INTERVIEWER

Since we’ve started talking about journalism, how does it feel being a journalist again, after having written novels for so long? Do you do it with a different feel or a different eye?

GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

I’ve always been convinced that my true profession is that of a journalist. What I didn’t like about journalism before were the working conditions. Besides, I had to condition my thoughts and ideas to the interests of the newspaper. Now, after having worked as a novelist, and having achieved financial independence as a novelist, I can really choose the themes that interest me and correspond to my ideas. In any case, I always very much enjoy the chance of doing a great piece of journalism.

INTERVIEWER

What is a great piece of journalism for you?

GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

Hiroshima by John Hersey was an exceptional piece.

INTERVIEWER

Is there a story today that you would especially like to do?

GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

There are many, and several I have in fact written. I have written about Portugal, Cuba, Angola, and Vietnam. I would very much like to write on Poland. I think if I could describe exactly what is now going on, it would be a very important story. But it’s too cold now in Poland; I’m a journalist who likes his comforts.

INTERVIEWER

Do you think the novel can do certain things that journalism can’t?

GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

Nothing. I don’t think there is any difference. The sources are the same, the material is the same, the resources and the language are the same. The Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe is a great novel and Hiroshima is a great work of journalism.

INTERVIEWER

Do the journalist and the novelist have different responsibilities in balancing truth versus the imagination?

GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

In journalism just one fact that is false prejudices the entire work. In contrast, in fiction one single fact that is true gives legitimacy to the entire work. That’s the only difference, and it lies in the commitment of the writer. A novelist can do anything he wants so long as he makes people believe in it.

(…)

GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

I do find it harder to write now than before, both novels and journalism. When I worked for newspapers, I wasn’t very conscious of every word I wrote, whereas now I am. When I was working for El Espectador in Bogotá, I used to do at least three stories a week, two or three editorial notes every day, and I did movie reviews. Then at night, after everyone had gone home, I would stay behind writing my novels. I liked the noise of the Linotype machines, which sounded like rain. If they stopped, and I was left in silence, I wouldn’t be able to work. Now, the output is comparatively small. On a good working day, working from nine o’clock in the morning to two or three in the afternoon, the most I can write is a short paragraph of four or five lines, which I usually tear up the next day.

(…)

INTERVIEWER

Did you anticipate the extraordinary success of One Hundred Years of Solitude?

GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

I knew that it would be a book that would please my friends more than my others had. But when my Spanish publisher told me he was going to print eight thousand copies I was stunned, because my other books had never sold more than seven hundred. I asked him why not start slowly, but he said he was convinced that it was a good book and that all eight thousand copies would be sold between May and December. Actually they were all sold within one week in Buenos Aires.

Intregul interviu aici.