Gabriel Garcia-Marquez (B. 1928) "Death Constant Beyond Love

One of the pioneers in the mixture of fantasy and realism labeled “magical realism.”
Most well-known work is One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), the saga of several generations Buendía family.
Nobel prize for literature in 1982.

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Purpose of the story—the distinction between the real and artifice.
The purpose of artifice: In the political arena—to fool the people.
In “real life”? To fool oneself?

Like Ilyich and Aschenbach, a man in his twilight years who, facing the relentless approach of death, has some light shed on his life. Like A., he seeks some solace in youthful, absolute beauty.
Is there any sympathy, empathy developed for Onesimo Sanchez?
Has he also been validated by success for the way that he lived his life?
What is the currency upon which he bases his success? Bribes, manipulation, exploitation of the powerless by the moneyed.

Prevalent symbol in the story—the surface level of the image (the promise).
Paper Birds
Cardboard façade
Prop trees with felt leaves
Ocean liner of painted paper
Nelson Farina’s false identity card
Paper butterfly from the sheet of the calendar
Flying bank notes
Even the heart on the chest of Sanchez is a tattoo—one dimensional image in ink.

Here Mr. Sanchez gets no consolation from the way he chooses to die.