For the second half of The General in His Labyrinth, it was definitely a downer, and I feel compelled to ask, as did someone in our class (can’t remember who, sorry) said: “Do any of these books have a happy ending?” Although, I kind of had a feeling that the General wasn’t going to be the recipient of any kind of magical cure for his terminal illness, it was still very depressing to read of his gradual demise and eventual death throughout the book. Even so, I thought that Garcia Marquez did a very good job of making the General’s condition gradually deteriorate, especially when considering that the author started at the very end of Simon Bolivar’s life to begin with. And, I really got the sense of how strong the General really was – he wanted to hang on, he wanted to continue to help solve all the problems that were plaguing, and even threatening to destroy his vision of a free and united continent, and yet his very own body was betraying him, stopping him from accomplishing all the things that he felt he still needed to do.
I thought Garcia Marquez did an excellent job just describing death in general. One passage near the end of the book, on page 260, particularly stood out to me: “Then he had the room sprinkled with more cologne than ever, and he continued to take the illusory baths, to shave with his own hand, to clean his teeth with fierce savagery in a superhuman effort to defend himself against the obscene filth of death.” Just the entire aura of death in these last few pages and yet the General is still trying to live and to do things like brush his teeth and shave, even though there is no apparent purpose in the act, but to try and defy death.
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2 comments:
I have to agree that the end of the book is really sad, with the General's condition getting worse and worse. At the very end of the book there is a part where the General's condition improves and he regains some of his strength, only to die a few days later. That passage is so sad!
I agree with you Julie.. This novel is so sad, I felt this emptiness inside of me after I finished reading. Besides foreshadowing that Simon Bolivar is going to die, I think the passage that you mentioned also shows what a strong person Bolivar is. He realizes it won't be long until his death and he still struggles to live and to "repulse" death.
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