literary little thing

[rushthatspeaks]

So there's a thing about a book, which I noticed when I read the book, and assumed was a generally known fact, and now have mentioned to four separate intelligent and well-read sf fans who didn't know it, so that now I think it may not be a generally known fact--

anyway, were people aware that Ian McDonald's Desolation Road is a scene-for-scene, character-for-character, no-portions-of-the-plot-different occasional-lines-quoted sfnal retelling of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude?

Or is this a thing that I actually noticed? and should therefore, I don't know, write an essay on or something?

I like the McDonald much better, because, as a rule, if you set things on Mars I am going to like them better; also he fixed some of the gender problems. I suspect the Marquez of being a better book.

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

As I have not read the Marquez I did not know that, and would be interested to read an essay on the subject.

I suppose I also now want to read the Marquez.

[kate_nepveu]

Ditto.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Tritto.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I may well write an essay. The Marquez-- well, I mean, it's brilliant. It's also sexist, purposefully aggravating, and intentionally, pointlessly depressing. It is one of the type forms of Unpleasant Masterpiece, at least for me. (Which makes it odd that the other book besides Desolation Road that I have considered writing a comparative essay about it with (although the similarities are much, much smaller) is Little, Big.)

But I read all of it in a very short span of time, think about it fairly frequently, and remember quite small details from a single read.

Also I know people who actively enjoyed it.

So I can't bring myself to recommend it, but I can't bring myself to not.

[daharyn.livejournal.com]

Hi, long-time lurker, first-time commenter.

Yes, absolutely, and so extremely pleased someone else noticed. At the time I briefly talked it over with a member of my diss committee who I know reads genre fiction, because I was wondering if he'd read the McDonald (one can generally presume knowledge of the Marquez), but he hadn't.

I would be ever so happy if someone wrote that up.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Hi! I have seen you about.

I think I am going to write it up-- if I can bring myself to reread the Marquez, which may well be the sticking point.

Did you make your committee member read the McDonald?

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I did not know that! But I too have not read Marquez. (I keep meaning to!)

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I have only read One Hundred Years of Solitude. I honestly have no idea whether I'm going to read any other Marquez.

(When I heard they were filming Love in the Time of Cholera I laughed until I hurt myself, because one Marquez was enough to convince me that nothing of his could possibly be a filmable book. Time seems to have borne me out on this.)

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

nooooo. (Though have not read the Marquez.) Does ianmcdonald say anything about it anywhere?

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I do not know. Upon Googling, which is of course not the best or only way to check these things but took five minutes, I discover that the Marquez similarity turns up in the Wikipedia article on McDonald and in Paul McAuley's introduction to Cyberabad Days; both mention the existence of the similarity but do not go into analysis. McDonald does not appear to have said anything about it that turns up in an immediately findable online interview.

[eredien]

I feel like a bad English major for never having read any Marquez; now I will have to remedy that.

[rax.livejournal.com]

There's some in our library. :)

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I don't know if Marquez has made it enough into Ye Edifice Of Ye Western Canon for him to be a standard English-majors assignment yet. I rather hope he has, annoyed as I am with Ye Entire Edifice, because I think a lot of people could use some more exposure to post-colonial lit.

Now what amazes me is that Gary didn't make us read any. I know that it is technically not his department, but Gary causes many things in students which theoretically have nothing to do with his department.

It will tell you just about everything I can say about One Hundred Years of Solitude far, far better than any other description to tell you that it is exactly the sort of thing Gary would always assign right after midterms when he assumed everyone needed to be bitch-slapped into paying attention again, between the Wong Kar-Wai and the untranslated Hong Kong soap operas.

[larryhammer]

It has been assigned reading in some high school English classes, at least in my high school, back when. Not by my teacher, but another.

---L.

[larryhammer]

I knew Desolation Road was deeply indebted to Marquez, as similarities are indeed stamped all OVER the book, but I hadn't realized it maps down to the scene-by-scene level. I read them, um, about five years apart, I think, and Marquez would have been early-to-mid teens, when my critical facilities were, and let us be kind here, still being built. I've never seen anyone discuss this.

I also preferred the McDonald story. Or more correctly, I adored it, when I first read it. A later reread revealed that McDonald had much growth as a writer ahead of him. I've had no desire to reread One Hundred Years of Solitude.

---L.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

It's pretty much scene-by-scene-- McDonald has a few here-is-information-about-tech things that aren't analogous. I'd need to go back over it.

The problem is that this would require rereading the Marquez.

[shahnasa.livejournal.com]

I suspect the Marquez of being a better book.

How come?

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

McDonald fixes many of the problems (especially with gender, though he doesn't fix all of that) and adds a lot of cool things to a book whose utter brilliance in deep structure is because of Marquez.

Improving One Hundred Years of Solitude is something I suspect I could do myself, though I think McDonald is probably better at it, and I certainly wouldn't take it in the same directions he did.

Writing One Hundred Years of Solitude is something I could not do, something that, the first time, no one could do but Marquez.

[sovay]

I suspect the Marquez of being a better book.

On what grounds? I have not read Ian McDonald; I have read Marquez.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

The small strangled "eep" noise that I made here translates into words as "you are among the people whose reactions to reading the good McDonald I should be most interested in seeing", fwiw.

(My personal take on what is "the good McDonald" is King of Morning, Queen of Day; Desolation Road; Necroville aka Terminal Cafe if "nanotech zombies as the new underclass" is not too dark for you; and Sacrifice of Fools.)

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

See my response to shahnasa above.

[tanatoes.livejournal.com]

Cool. That's like when I first realized that Stephen Brust's Phoenix Guard was the Three Musketeers.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Very like, although the Brust and Dumas are less similar than these two books.

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

Cool. I haven't read either, but I'm always amused to hear about this sort of thing. It's especially more amusing when it appears to be an accident, of course...

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Believe me, nothing can be that similar to One Hundred Years of Solitude without very specific intentionality.

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

Sure, of course, I meant in the general case.

[cristalia.livejournal.com]

...huh.

I have to go read me some McDonald now.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Desolation Road is quite good. I haven't read anything else by him yet, after bouncing off King of Morning, Queen of Day so hard I saw stars, and then realizing that most of the people I talked to about the book had seen the element that made me bounce off it that hard as the book's saving grace.

[cristalia.livejournal.com]

*adds to to-read list*

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I'm informed by someone who should know that the effect of Marquez does depend on who translated him, and Solitude was done by the-- not 'bad' translator, but the WTF one. I wonder how true that can be- to me Spanish seems to map onto English almost 1 to 1- but I offer it for what it's worth.

Supposing you read in translation...