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22850 At the beginning of the novel , the General is 46 years old and slowly dying on his last journey to the port of Cartagena de Indias , where he plans to set sail for Europe . As Palencia @-@ Roth notes , " Bolívar is cast here not only as a victim but as an agent of Latin America 's tragic political flaws " . The... |
45.021324157714844 197 WikiText2 |
22851 In an interview with María Elvira Samper , García Márquez has admitted that his portrayal of Bolívar is partly a self @-@ portrait . He identifies with Bolívar in many ways , since their method of controlling their anger is the same and their philosophical views are similar : neither " pays much attention to dea... |
54.527992248535156 76 WikiText2 |
22852 = = = José Palacios = = = |
161.5944366455078 8 WikiText2 |
22853 The novel begins with the name of José Palacios , who , here as with the historical figure of the same name , is Bolívar 's " long @-@ serving mayordomo " . As literary critic Seymour Menton observes , Palacios 's " total identification with Bolívar constitutes the novel 's frame " . Palacios constantly waits on... |
34.595096588134766 189 WikiText2 |
22854 = = = Manuela Sáenz = = = |
174.6888427734375 8 WikiText2 |
22855 Manuela Sáenz is the General 's long @-@ time lover , his last since the death of his wife , 27 years earlier . Her character is based on Simón Bolívar 's historical mistress Doña Manuela Sáenz de Thorne , whom Bolívar dubbed " the liberator of the liberator " after she helped save him from an assassination atte... |
36.115455627441406 258 WikiText2 |
22856 = = = General Francisco de Paula Santander = = = |
385.5544128417969 11 WikiText2 |
22857 As he reflects on the past , the General often thinks and dreams about his former friend Francisco de Paula Santander . The historical Francisco de Paula Santander was a friend of Simón Bolívar , but was later accused of complicity in a plot to assassinate him and sent into exile . In the novel , the General rem... |
25.193647384643555 183 WikiText2 |
22858 = = = Field Marshal Antonio José de Sucre = = = |
521.2699584960938 12 WikiText2 |
22859 Field Marshal Antonio José de Sucre is portrayed as an intimate friend of the General . The historical Antonio José de Sucre , the Field Marshal of Ayacucho , had been the most trusted general of Simón Bolívar . García Márquez describes him as " intelligent , methodical , shy , and superstitious " . The Field Ma... |
26.612686157226562 172 WikiText2 |
22860 = = = Minor characters = = = |
261.5757141113281 8 WikiText2 |
22861 The novel revolves around the fictionalized figure of Bolívar and includes many minor characters who are part of the General 's travelling party , whom he meets on his journey or who come to him in his memories and dreams of his past . Sometimes they are identified by particular quirks or tied to small but signi... |
46.03163146972656 299 WikiText2 |
22862 = = Major themes = = |
604.9602661132812 6 WikiText2 |
22863 = = = Politics = = = |
173.0379638671875 7 WikiText2 |
22864 In The General in His Labyrinth , García Márquez voices his political views through the character of the General . For example , Alvarez Borland points out that in the scene where the General responds to the French diplomat , his words closely reflect García Márquez 's 1982 Nobel Address . The diplomat is critic... |
48.60186767578125 153 WikiText2 |
22865 The novel was published in 1989 , when the Soviet Union was disintegrating and the political map was being radically redrawn . Reviewing The General in His Labyrinth in 1990 , the novelist Margaret Atwood pointed to another instance of García Márquez raising political issues through the character of the General ... |
36.41164779663086 178 WikiText2 |
22866 = = = Figural labyrinth = = = |
316.13031005859375 8 WikiText2 |
22867 According to literary critic David Danow , the labyrinth of the novel 's title refers to " a series of labyrinths that are contingent upon matters of history , geography , and biography ... that consistently and conclusively result in a dead end " — in this case , the General 's own death . His final voyage alon... |
39.72374725341797 180 WikiText2 |
22868 García Márquez depicts the General 's body itself as a labyrinth . His doctor observes that " everything that enters the body , adds weight , and everything that leaves it is debased . " The General 's body is described as a " labyrinth coming to a literal dead end " . The labyrinth is also expressed in geograph... |
42.73594665527344 204 WikiText2 |
22869 = = = Fate and love = = = |
227.4571533203125 9 WikiText2 |
22870 Bolívar 's fate is known from the beginning , and García Márquez constantly uses images which foreshadow this ending . For instance , a clock stuck at seven minutes past one , the exact time of the General 's death , appears repeatedly in the novel . This sense of fate is introduced in the epigraph , which comes... |
48.77629852294922 149 WikiText2 |
22871 The theme of love is central to the novel . Bolívar had a reputation as a womanizer , and books have been written on his philandering ; but as depicted in this novel , during the last seven months of his life , the General could no longer engage in the activities that had fueled that reputation . García Márquez ... |
33.26401901245117 210 WikiText2 |
22872 = = = Numbers and religious symbols = = = |
224.6280517578125 10 WikiText2 |
22873 Numbers are an important symbolic aspect of the novel . The book is divided into eight chapters , almost all of equal length , which represent the eight @-@ year love affair between the General and Manuela Sáenz . The General 's last hours are marked by an octagonal clock . Allusions to the number three are even... |
53.585060119628906 135 WikiText2 |
22874 Rodríguez Vergara observes that the General is like a supernatural being , simultaneously dying and being surrounded by symbolic circumstances such as rain , fiestas , and the plague . The novel begins with Bolívar immersed in purifying waters , in a state of ecstasy and meditation that suggests a priestly ritua... |
41.662864685058594 151 WikiText2 |
22875 René Girard has interpreted the recurrence of rain in the novel as one of the purifying rituals the community must undergo in order to wash away the contagion of violence . The fiestas may represent another ritual of purification and also symbolize war . Fiestas are held to honour the General when he arrives at ... |
50.412227630615234 100 WikiText2 |
22876 = = = Melancholy and mourning = = = |
127.50541687011719 9 WikiText2 |
22877 Latin American cultural theorist Carlos J. Alonso , drawing on Freudian theory , argues that the novel is essentially a therapeutic device , designed to help move Latin America past its problematic experience of modernity . He compares this to the way the healing state of mourning replaces grief in the process o... |
66.32903289794922 141 WikiText2 |
22878 Latin America 's history and culture , Alonso suggests , began with the loss of Bolívar 's dream of a united continent and as a result has developed under a melancholy shadow ever since . Thus , by forcing the reader to return to the origin of modernity in Latin America and confront its death in the most horrifi... |
56.69334030151367 101 WikiText2 |
22879 = = = Challenging history = = = |
133.52484130859375 8 WikiText2 |
22880 García Márquez comments on the nature of historical fact by drawing attention to the way history is written . The novel recreates a time in Bolívar 's life that has no historical precedent , as there is no record of the last 14 days of his life . In García Márquez 's account readers observe Bolívar intimately , ... |
26.90068817138672 198 WikiText2 |
22881 The General in His Labyrinth also confronts the methods of official historians by using an oral style of narration . The narration can be considered an oral account in that it is woven from the verbal interactions of everyday people . Alvarez Borland explains that the advantage of this technique , as discussed b... |
63.5317497253418 141 WikiText2 |
22882 The historian Ben Hughes commented on the novel : " The Liberator 's British confidants , including Daniel O 'Leary , were amongst the closest figures to the general in this period . Nevertheless , they are ignored in the novel . Instead , Márquez uses the character of a fictional Colombian servant , José Palaci... |
78.3531494140625 100 WikiText2 |
22883 = = Comparisons with other García Márquez novels = = |
148.2014923095703 10 WikiText2 |
22884 In an interview published in the Colombian weekly Revista Semana on March 20 , 1989 , García Márquez told María Elvira Samper , " At bottom , I have written only one book , the same one that circles round and round , and continues on . " Palencia @-@ Roth suggests that this novel is a " labyrinthine summation ..... |
89.30358123779297 92 WikiText2 |
22885 Like the Patriarch in García Márquez 's The Autumn of the Patriarch , Bolívar was an absolute dictator . The Patriarch is never identified by name ; Bolívar , too , is identified chiefly by his title . Bolívar also invites comparison with Colonel Aureliano Buendía in One Hundred Years of Solitude : both characte... |
41.74929428100586 113 WikiText2 |
22886 Palencia @-@ Roth notes that critics have been struck by the humorless elegiac style of The General in His Labyrinth ; its dark mood and somber message is similar to that of The Autumn of the Patriarch . Love is a theme common to both Love in the Time of Cholera and The General in His Labyrinth , but the latter ... |
53.86659622192383 84 WikiText2 |
22887 Isabel Alvarez Borland , in her essay " The Task of the Historian in El general en su laberinto " , claims that " ... while El general en su laberinto is in many ways a continuation of García Márquez 's criticism of Latin America 's official history seen in his earlier works , the novel contrasts sharply with hi... |
52.6251220703125 123 WikiText2 |
22888 In a summary of Edward Hood 's book La ficcion de Gabriel García Márquez : Repetición e intertextualidad , García Márquez is characterized as an author who uses repetition and autointertextualidad ( intertextuality between the works of a single author ) extensively in his fiction , including in The General in Hi... |
33.652320861816406 143 WikiText2 |
22889 = = Genre = = |
721.9445190429688 5 WikiText2 |
22890 Critics consider García Márquez 's book in terms of the historical novel , but differ over whether the label is appropriate . In his review of The General in his Labyrinth , Selden Rodman hesitated to call it a novel , since it was so heavily researched , giving Bolívar 's views " on everything from life and lov... |
42.11813735961914 196 WikiText2 |
22891 David Bushnell , writing in The Hispanic American Historical Review , points out that the work is less a pure historical account than others suggest . García Márquez 's Bolívar is a man " who wanders naked through the house , suffers constipation , uses foul language , and much more besides . " He argues that do... |
33.659767150878906 118 WikiText2 |
22892 = = Reception = = |
513.3173828125 5 WikiText2 |
22893 The General in His Labyrinth was relatively poorly received by the general public in the United States , despite the praise of critics . Critic Ilan Stavans , who himself praised the book as " one of the writer 's most sophisticated and accomplished " , attributes this to the novel 's time period and to its prof... |
52.23765563964844 134 WikiText2 |
22894 The novel generated huge controversy in Latin America : some Venezuelan and Colombian politicians described its depiction of Bolívar as " profane " . According to Stavans , they accused García Márquez of " defaming the larger @-@ than @-@ life reputation of a historical figure who , during the nineteenth century... |
49.29551696777344 232 WikiText2 |
22895 More positively , Nelson Bocaranda , a Venezuelan TV commentator , considers the novel to be a tonic for Latin American culture : " people here saw a Bolívar who is a man of flesh and bones just like themselves " . Mexican author Carlos Fuentes agrees with Bocaranda saying : " What comes across beautifully and p... |
52.334144592285156 196 WikiText2 |
22896 Novelist and critic Barbara Mujica comments that the book 's English translator , Edith Grossman , fully captures the multiple levels of meaning of the text , as well as García Márquez 's modulations in tone . García Márquez himself has admitted that he prefers his novels in their English translations . |
42.75630187988281 52 WikiText2 |
22897 = = Publication history = = |
861.1456298828125 6 WikiText2 |
22898 The original Spanish version of The General in His Labyrinth was published simultaneously in Argentina , Colombia , Mexico , and Spain in 1989 . The first American edition was listed as a best seller in The New York Times the following year . |
38.346961975097656 44 WikiText2 |
22899 The novel has been translated into many languages since its first publication in Spanish , as detailed by Sfeir de González in 2003 . |
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