No One Writes to the Colonel - Gabriel García Márquez

 

A novella by the celebrated Columbian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez – jumped to grab this one hoping it might pave my way into reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, the world-renowned novel by the same author – my hunch got right, I am going to give One Hundred Years of Solitude a try soon.

No One Writes to the Colonel is about a veteran Colonel and his asthmatic wife creeping through a monotonous, poverty-ridden life. The Colonel being an active soldier in a civil war in Columbia is waiting for his rightful pension promised to him and fellow-soldiers around 15 years back.

The backdrop throughout the novella paints tragedy and misery, of that of the demised son, curfews and restrictions of martial law, poverty and hunger, but seeing all this from the optimistic Colonel’s view, we tend to overlook the grey part and focus on the ‘hope’ part which burns inside the Colonel throughout the book.

This ‘hope’ that the Colonel has, which drives him to follow the postmaster every Friday, is not shared by the majority, in fact we see a lot of snide remarks in the book wherein different characters try to bring down this positivity in the Colonel. For instance, when the Colonel insists that the letter was sure to be delivered that Friday, the postmaster replies, “The only thing that comes for sure is death”. The people of the town are not just without hope, rather, they have learnt to accept the fact that life is not fair. This is where the Colonel is an exception, his son was shot in front of him, his wife is dying due to deteriorating health, they seldom eat a whole meal, despite everything he breeds a rooster in the corner of his room, ‘hoping’ to win the cockfight.

The most positive phrase (purely personal opinion) repeatedly said by Colonel at even unimaginably tough times is “It is never too late”. For all those moments we sat still to let fate take over our lives, just because we thought “it’s too late”, this phrase could have been of use.

Overall, a short, small, beautiful book on life which has some excellent quotes and excerpts, one of which with which, I will be wrapping up this post:

One day, when Colonel and his wife, contrary to the usual, had a good meal, he asks her about the source of food to which she replies “When the neighbor boys bought corn for the rooster, there was extra, and the rooster shared it with us. That’s life”.

Colonels reply to this statement is something we would never expect from a man in his situation.

“That’s right, life is the best thing that’s ever been invented.”