In February 1955, Gabriel Garcia Marquez was 27 years old. He had finished his first work of fiction, a novella, nearly seven years earlier, but he had not yet found a publisher. He was working as a film critic at the Colombian newspaper El Espectador. He also wrote the occasional news story. Perhaps for that reason, he was assigned the story of Luis Alejandro Velasco.
Late that month, the Colombian destroyer Caldas was swamped as it returned home from a repair mission to Mobile, Alabama. The ship survived, but eight sailors were washed overboard. The 20-year-old Velasco was among them. Rescue teams from Colombia and the U.S. combed the waters for the lost seamen, but found no one. After four days, the search was abandoned. Nearly a week later, an all-but-dead Velasco washed onto a beach in Northern Colombia.
What followed, naturally, was a Jessica Lynch-esque media frenzy. By the time Velasco arrived at the newspaper's office, "he had been decorated, he had made patriotic speeches on radio, he had been displayed on television as an example to future generations, and he had toured the country amid bouquets and fanfares, signing autographs and being kissed by beauty queens." He had even done advertisements: for watches ("his watch hadn't even slowed down" during his time at sea) and for shoes ("his were so sturdy that he hadn't been able to tear them apart to eat them").
This much we learn from the introduction to the "The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor," Marquez's 106-page account of the young seaman's ordeal. As it turned out, Velasco showed up at El Espectador not merely in search of another check. In the course of 20 six-hour interviews with Marquez, the sailor would reveal that there was no storm the night he and his shipmates were swept overboard. The problem was one of weight; the ship was overloaded with contraband television sets, refrigerators, and washing machines. The revelation, which following the solemn denials of the dictatorship of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla was accompanied by photos in which one could make out the labels on the illegal cargo, made the story a sensation.
The politics of a now-dead dictatorship may now be of little interest--except perhaps as a reminder of the Lynchian tendencies of all governments--but the story remains a sensational read. All the aching monotony of ten days adrift at sea is magically (although you'll find no magical realism here) packed into an often breathless narrative. Some critics have called it a nonfiction competitor to Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea. Marquez, however, seemingly would rather not have us read this story. The concluding paragraph of his introduction:
Late that month, the Colombian destroyer Caldas was swamped as it returned home from a repair mission to Mobile, Alabama. The ship survived, but eight sailors were washed overboard. The 20-year-old Velasco was among them. Rescue teams from Colombia and the U.S. combed the waters for the lost seamen, but found no one. After four days, the search was abandoned. Nearly a week later, an all-but-dead Velasco washed onto a beach in Northern Colombia.
What followed, naturally, was a Jessica Lynch-esque media frenzy. By the time Velasco arrived at the newspaper's office, "he had been decorated, he had made patriotic speeches on radio, he had been displayed on television as an example to future generations, and he had toured the country amid bouquets and fanfares, signing autographs and being kissed by beauty queens." He had even done advertisements: for watches ("his watch hadn't even slowed down" during his time at sea) and for shoes ("his were so sturdy that he hadn't been able to tear them apart to eat them").
This much we learn from the introduction to the "The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor," Marquez's 106-page account of the young seaman's ordeal. As it turned out, Velasco showed up at El Espectador not merely in search of another check. In the course of 20 six-hour interviews with Marquez, the sailor would reveal that there was no storm the night he and his shipmates were swept overboard. The problem was one of weight; the ship was overloaded with contraband television sets, refrigerators, and washing machines. The revelation, which following the solemn denials of the dictatorship of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla was accompanied by photos in which one could make out the labels on the illegal cargo, made the story a sensation.
The politics of a now-dead dictatorship may now be of little interest--except perhaps as a reminder of the Lynchian tendencies of all governments--but the story remains a sensational read. All the aching monotony of ten days adrift at sea is magically (although you'll find no magical realism here) packed into an often breathless narrative. Some critics have called it a nonfiction competitor to Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea. Marquez, however, seemingly would rather not have us read this story. The concluding paragraph of his introduction:
I have not reread this story in fifteen years. It seems worthy of publication, but I have never quite understood the usefulness of publishing it. I find it depressing that the publishers are not so much interested in the merit of the story as in the name of the author, which, much to my sorrow, is also that of a fashionable writer. If it is now published in the form of a book, that is because I agreed without thinking about it very much.
It should be noted that at the time of its publication in Spanish, Marquez had never before been credited with the story. It had originally ran under Velasco's name as a first-person account. Perhaps in a reflection of his unease about the publication, Marquez reportedly signed over the royalties to Velasco.
There are, true enough, very few signs of the baroque poetry of Marquez's later works. Marquez describes, earlier in the introduction, a photo he recently saw of a middle-aged Velasco: "He had grown older and heavier, and looked as if life had passed through him, leaving behind the serene aura of a hero who had had the courage to dynamite his own statue." Those are the words of an older, more adept writer. Yet much of that keen and easy observation is here, in its infancy. And measured against today, the tale stands tall. Marquez's deceptively spare sentences pack a punch that knocks flat most of today's journalism.
There are, true enough, very few signs of the baroque poetry of Marquez's later works. Marquez describes, earlier in the introduction, a photo he recently saw of a middle-aged Velasco: "He had grown older and heavier, and looked as if life had passed through him, leaving behind the serene aura of a hero who had had the courage to dynamite his own statue." Those are the words of an older, more adept writer. Yet much of that keen and easy observation is here, in its infancy. And measured against today, the tale stands tall. Marquez's deceptively spare sentences pack a punch that knocks flat most of today's journalism.
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