The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez
"The General in His Labyrinth" is a novel by Gabriel García Márquez that explores the final days of Simón Bolívar, the iconic leader known for his role in Latin America's liberation from Spanish rule. The narrative unfolds with Bolívar at the twilight of his life, reflecting on his past as he travels along the Magdalena River, which serves as a metaphor for his emotional and psychological decline. The story presents a rich tapestry of Bolívar's achievements and failures, depicting him as a frail figure who is a shadow of his former self, yet still embodies the grandeur of his legendary status.
García Márquez intertwines fantastical elements with historical context, drawing on the cultural lore of Colombia and the tales passed down through generations. Although Bolívar is revered in Latin American culture, the novel offers a nuanced portrayal that includes unflattering aspects of his character and decline. This complexity invites readers to consider the evolution of heroism and the human experience, while grounded in the realities of Colombian history. The work exemplifies García Márquez's literary style, blending historical accuracy with imaginative storytelling, ultimately reflecting the intricate relationship between culture, memory, and myth.
The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published:El general en su laberinto, 1989 (English translation, 1990)
Type of work: Novel
The Work
In keeping with the narrative structure of some of his other works of fiction—One Hundred Years of Solitude in particular—the text of The General in His Labyrinth begins with the story’s ending, when General Simón Bolívar is facing the end of his career and life. The reader is introduced to an aging, frail Bolívar, who is a mere shadow of the legendary figure he once was. Against the backdrop of his own native land, García Márquez weaves the fantastic and grotesque into a fictionalized tale of the hero’s last days, bringing to life a very human portrait of this legendary figure and the culture he helped create.
The story takes place as Bolívar travels along the Magdalena River, his journey along which acts as a metaphor for the hero’s psychological and emotional journey. As he follows the river’s winding path, he reflects—sometimes lucidly, sometimes not—on the events of his life and the achievements and failures he has met. Following his resignation as president, the real-life Bolívar had set out along the Magdalena River to travel to the coast and eventually make his way to Europe. García Márquez’s fictionalized version of the hero follows the same path and with the same results: He never makes it to the end of this journey, dying before he reaches the coast and relieving himself of the impossible decision to leave the land of which he is so much a part.
The story speaks to the cultural lore and legends passed down to García Márquez by his grandfather and others around whom he grew up. Though by the time of García Márquez’s youth Bolívar was no longer the predominant contemporary heroic figure, the legendary status of El Libertador (The Liberator) lives on to this day and helps to shape Colombian and Latin American culture. It is therefore with a certain degree of risk that García Márquez takes on this subject, especially given the novel’s sometimes unflattering portrayals of Bolívar and his decline at the end of his life, as well as the highly fictionalized and fantastic accounts of this poorly recorded and little-known final journey.
The historical setting in which the story takes place is a very real part of the Colombian cultural landscape, and García Márquez largely consigns his narrative to historical accuracy in that respect. Nevertheless, his imaginative flair is as alive in this novel as in his others, and it helps to color the historical elements of the story with the same fantastical flair apparent in his other works. The General in the novel is a largely beloved historical figure who, even in his aging, decrepit body, retains the grandeur of the larger-than-life hero of previous times. His mental journey allows the story to transcend the bounds of time and place and to venture even into the imagined or fantasized. The historical setting of the novel places far more rigid bounds on García Márquez’s narrative than those found in his works of Magical Realism. However, the work as a whole is representative of the evolving nature of García Márquez’s body of literature, which increasingly finds itself situated in the very real culture and history of the author’s homeland.
Sources for Further Study
Chicago Tribune. September 9, 1990, XIV, p.1.
Hispanic American Historical Review. LXX, February, 1990, p.200.
Los Angeles Times Book Review. September 16, 1990, p.3.
New Statesman and Society. II, December 15, 1989, p.33.
The New York Review of Books. XXXVII, October 11, 1990, p.17.
The New York Times Book Review. XCV, September 16, 1990, p.1.
Newsweek. CXVI, October 8, 1990, p.70.
Publishers Weekly. CCXXXVII, July 6, 1990, p.58.
Time. CXXXVI, September 17, 1990, p.78.
The Times Literary Supplement. July 14, 1990, p.781.
The Washington Post Book World. XX, September 9, 1990, p.3.