Autumn 2014 - 3

My AUTUMN album ... updated so far.

Third day in a row that I've gone here. It is a magical place but the weather is playing a large part in bringing out whatever magic there is there. Last Saturday there were too many people, yesterday the same, but today, because of it being a Monday, there was hardly anyone; no energetic kids or anxious parents, no over-excited dogs and hardly any cars (although honking has never been a tradition here, something I'm happy about); in short ... just right.

It is possible that I'll go tomorrow again, depending on the weather, as usual.

I have finished ALL 15 books by the great Gabriel Garcia Marquez, listed here as they have been arranged on my bookshelf:

One Hundred Years of Solitude
Love in the Time of Cholera
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Of Love and Other Demons
Memories of My Melancholy Whores
The Autumn of the Patriarch
No One Writes to the Colonel
In Evil Hour
The General in His Labyrinth
Strange Pilgrims
Collected Stories
Leaf Storm
The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor
News of a Kidnapping
Living to Tell the Tale

Began in May and finished late last night; and so the master class I wanted to give myself in connection with this author is ... not quite over. Am taking a break, though. I do intend to buy a good biography one of these days, but, actually, I'm not sure I want to do that. Living to Tell the Tale is the beginning of a very detailed and humorous and 'true' autobiography, one which he obviously enjoyed writing, in which he clarified how he developed his unique style of writing and how he collected the background material for many of his works. It was supposed to be the first of three parts but, unfortunately, I guess he had no more energy for Parts 2 and 3.

In fact, according to the maestro himself, there are 17 books. One, though, contains short stories that can also be found in the Collection and I'm guessing the other one is the same.

In case you're wondering, he was born in Colombia in 1927, won the Nobel Prize in 1982 and died in Mexico earlier this year. Am wondering if I can fly to Colombia one day and visit the places connected to him -- Aracataca, Baranquilla, Carthagena de Indias, Riohacha and, of course, Bogotá, the same way I (still) want to visit the places in Chile associated with my favourite poet Pablo Neruda. Something to look forward to when I'm retired, and I hope it's not 'too late' by then.

Tonight, I'll continue with a book I started reading about 4 years ago but during which I got distracted. I'll tell you the title another time.