Plinio A. Mendoza

Se formalmente "O Aroma da Goiaba" é uma longa conversa do escritor e jornalista Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza com o seu velho amigo Gabriel García Márquez - o que dá a este ocasião para desfiar com vivacidade as suas lembranças, juízos, opiniões e convicções - o seu conteúdo vai para além disso: em "O Aroma da Goiaba" bem podem encontrar-se as chaves de um processo, criador e criativo de singular riqueza.

Pela mão de Plinio Apuleyo Mendonza, García Marquez revela o mundo que a sua obra reflecte até o transfigurar com a magia da palavra: o calor e o cheiro do caribe, o universo mítico dos seus povoadores, a estranha mentalidade dos seus homens célebres e caudilhos.
Uma obra na qual o compromisso com a emoção e o compromisso com a razão dão as mãos para oferecer a mais sugestiva aproximação a um grande criador que, de tão complexo, pode permitir-se o luxo de ser claro.… (mere)

35. The Fragrance of Guava : Conversations with Gabriel Garcia Márquez by Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza
published: 1982
format: 118 Page little paperback
acquired: March
read: Jun 14-18
rating: 4

Márquez won the Nobel Prize in 1982, but this interview took place before that. Márquez was a different person before and after [One Hundred Years of Solitude] (published 1967). Before he was world-traveling journalist from coastal Columbia who went through starving stretches where he was unemployed (including once when his publisher was shut down), had written numerous wonderful stories and four full books, none of which had sold more than a 1000 copies. He wrote at night after work, all night, and was constantly searching out connections and feedback about his writing, openly sharing passages with close writer friends. Afterward, fame entered and Márquez responded by becoming extremely private, focusing on his family and developing a writing routine he never broke - 9am to 3pm everyday. When he finished [Autumn of the Patriarch] early one day, he struggled with how to fill his time until 3:00.

Mendoza fills in a nice role as a writer who knew him in his younger hungry days, and has remained close to him, and, based on this book, is an elegant writer himself. This is a short book, stretched out to over a hundred pages by photos and line spacings. Márquez is both interesting and reticent, and Mendoza needs to pull things out of him. He comes across as very closely connected to Caribbean culture, as one obsessed with solitude (of course), and who claims his most personal and autobiographical (and technically best) work is the really disturbing [Autumn of the Patriarch], a book about the complete corruption of power which took almost 20 years to write. In the end he as little to nothing to say about his most famous work. He seems to have very mixed feeling about both the book and the impact it had on his life.

"I believe writers are always alone, like shipwrecked sailors in the middle of the ocean."

...

"I've never really been interested in any idea which can't stand many years of neglect."

2018
https://www.librarything.com/topic/288371#6511026… (mere)