The Reader Travels

From Chile, we travel north along the Pacific coast of South America to Colombia with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. From the first line of the book, we know that this will be an incredible adventure. “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

We have an image of isolation, one man alone at the end of his life, facing death. This image is paired with another, that as a child he lived in such an isolated place that he had never before seen ice. But in this sentence that speaks of isolation, we also see the word “father” and know that despite the solitude, there is family.

Marquez is a master of magical realism, and he magically creates this town of Macondo, deep in the belly of Colombia. Technology and spirituality meet to make magic in this isolated village.

The Spaniards first introduced the mystery of a world beyond the shores of South America and even shared their own spiritual mysteries, the magic of their Christ. Armed with a belief in miracles, the people in the isolated depths of the continent would enjoy centuries of mystery repeated as the outside world trickled in.

Our journeys have led us from fantasy to spirituality, heading straight toward magic. Ever since I read The House of the Spirits in college, I’ve had a thing for magical realism. So a visit with Isabel Allende in Chile will be the first stop on our magical realism tour of the world.

Although she never mentions her home country in the novel, we can still imagine the landscape of Chile and understand its political history through her story. We see beaches and country homes, mountains and gold mines, and a narrowing gap between the haves and the have nots.

Dogs emerge from the sea, a beauty with glowing green hair tempts men even after death, and our beloved Clara sees miraculous visions that we never think to question. The spirits are lively in the land of Chile.

One of my favorite books took place in New Mexico — Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya. Ultima is an old wise woman, a curandera, with magical secrets and an owl for a familiar.

One of the things that intrigues me about this book is the juxtaposition of Catholicism and the old beliefs that remain an important part of the culture. That’s where the fishes come in. The Golden Carp is a symbol of the old beliefs, this large, wise and beautiful fish.

So, of course that ties me into Halloween, because I wanted to be The Incredible Mr. Limpet in honor of Don Knotts. I’ve been searching the Internet and costume shops around town, trying to find a fish costume for Tuesday. If you search the online costume stores for “fish,” pretty much all you get is slutty costumes that feature a pair of black fishnet stockings. And the closest thing I found in town was a rubber fish head with an elastic band used to strap the fish to your nose. Not quite the look I was going for.

Anyway, I decided it would be much easier to dress up as Henry Limpet before he turns into the fish, so I bought some round glasses, which strangely make me look like an owl. See how I did that? Full circle, baby.