Márquez recommends, niche but classic, novels of universal significance
"One day in the future, a woman will no longer love with her weakness, but with her strength"
This Diamond Plaza is a novel recommended by García Márquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Melsay Rodore, who is Spanish, and is a novel written in Catalan.
The novel mainly shows two themes, one is love and the other is war.
Although the author has always emphasized that this is a novel written about love, what touches me is the second half of the novel, the part where the war goes on to a high ~/ tide.
The book does not write about the war head-on, but shows the cruelty of war through the changes in the lives of the inhabitants of the city. The heroine Natalia marries Joe, who repairs furniture, and Joe goes to the battlefield because of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (thirties of the twentieth century). Natalia struggled to survive alone with her two children, because there was no food, Natalia sent her eldest son Anthony (later renamed Tony) to the refugee camp, the child begged her heartbroken not to send him away, Natalia had to ruthlessly abandon him that was really heart-wrenching, and later after Anthony was sent back, he was hungry and bone-grim, and the state of not speaking was sad.
Let's talk about love.
Natalia's mother died early, her father soon married a new one, and she married Joe when she was not sure what she wanted, wanting to get rid of her native family and anxious to have a new home. Joe is a little clever, but lazy, and likes the CPU (maybe a common problem of the era, women have a relatively low status), and there is a moment when Joe wants to raise pigeons, but painting the cages, cleaning the cages, feeding the pigeons, etc. are all done by Natalia. The marriage relationship is very depressing, Natalia has no dominance, she is very silent, taking care of children, taking care of pigeons, doing housework, and later working as a maid, constantly busy. Later, the civil war broke out, Joe went to the battlefield and died on the battlefield, and the hungry Natalia met Anthony, the owner of the bird food shop, and the two came together. There are two obvious points in the contrast between the two marriages, one is about X, and Joe, after getting married, stayed at home for seven days, and Anthony was physically damaged because of the war ~ fight, and the two did not live with X. The second is about love, although Anthony is physically disabled, but careful and delicate, not only regards Natalia's child as her own, but also cares about her emotions, body and everything. Of course, there is another point, regarding money, Anthony can give Natalia good material conditions, she moved from a small apartment to a large house, achieving a class leap, from maid to can hire maid. The love of two people is more spiritual love.
Written from a first-person perspective, the author shows the diversity of love and the brutality of war through a delicate female perspective. The text as a whole is repressive, even if he gained love and care after marrying Anthony, and gained the initiative. On the whole, this "Diamond Square" shows readers a full female character, naïve and stubborn in the early stage, silent and strong in the middle, and from melancholy, trepidation to relief in the later stage, the love shown in the book is also of universal significance, is a niche but classic novel, no wonder Márquez would recommend it.
#Foreign Literature##Classic Literary Masterpieces##Headline Creation Challenge##Márquez##Marriage##爱情#
