Reading Again
Having recently made the decision to enter seminary rather than pursue a life as a literary critic and English professor, I find that my exodus from that insular world I had been engulfed in for so long has left me in a precarious state: wrestling with the role of literature in my life and society at large. Will my insatiable appetite for consuming “secular” narratives somehow hinder my ability to be an effective rabbi? What is the correlation, if any, between reading and morality?
Yet I think this impulse, in which I am compelled to determine a precise function for what I read, or rather constantly read with an eye toward a possible essay or sermon, suggests that my formal English education, for which I remain thankful and wouldn’t give up for the world, has left me a mighty poor reader. I feel as though I’ve finally returned to the ground after so long floating in clouds, looking down upon the books I read through the filter of theory. I’m relearning how to live within the novel.
In a 2011 interview with Harper’s Magazine, Zadie Smith discusses what it means to be a “critic” versus a “reviewer.” For her, reviewers are “doing a much more everyday job,” meeting each book as a self-contained unit rather than a specimen to be dissected and theorized. That’s opposed to critics, who she feels suffer “all kinds of personal dangers of the ego” as they “need an overarching theory” to frame their textual analysis. Smith adds that “to approach [a novel] with an argument, with a decision, about what kind of prose you’re looking for, what kind of prose you believe in, is already disastrous.”
Despite no longer studying literature in a formal academic setting, my desire to write about what I read has not dissipated in the slightest; I simply now want to prioritize the experience of reading before approaching literature as an object of interpretation. In Smith’s words, I want to embody the reviewer rather than the critic. Instead of being some sort of omnipotent judge, I want to be in a relationship with the authors whose works I read. I believe accomplishing this requires one to live and be firmly planted within the narrative rather than have one foot in and one foot out, constantly trying to bring in a whole host of outside material to mold the novel to one’s own liking. The danger isn’t in interpreting what one reads, which is natural and, at times, immensely valuable. It’s in arriving at a text already knowing what one is looking for.
Therefore, having just finished Gabriel García Márquez’s The General in His Labyrinth, a novel that stirred in me a great urgency to write, I would love to dedicate the rest of this blog post to developing into this new kind of reader.
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Having read One Hundred Years of Solitude and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, two novels I enjoyed yet found quite frustrating, perhaps because I was overly focused on trying to generate meaning, I was surprised to find The General in His Labyrinth, one of Márquez’s less popular titles, to be among the most soul-stirring and evocative novels I have read in recent memory. The narrative offers a fictionalized retelling of the 19th-century Venezuelan revolutionary and general Simón Bolívar during the tragic final months of his life, as he travels down the Magdalena River on his way to self-imposed exile in Europe, his dream of a unified South America having been thwarted by infighting among the independent nations he recently helped liberate from Spanish colonial rule.
The Bolívar that Márquez paints is not the grandiose, larger-than-life “El Libertador” often remembered by history, but a physically decrepit, compulsive womanizer, mortally ill and yet still driven by an almost supernatural pride. Yet to view the novel as some sort of hit piece would be a mistake. Yes, Márquez strips Bolívar bare, both literally and metaphorically, but in doing so, he offers one of the most realistic and thus beautiful portrayals of greatness I have encountered in literature. The grand narratives of Bolívar as either a godlike hero or a dictatorial tyrant are both proven true and false, for Márquez presents us with a human being who, over the course of his life, fails and succeeds, acts nobly and selfishly, and ultimately remains deeply flawed without ceasing to be great.
I don’t believe that the act of reading, in itself, makes someone more moral or intelligent. At times, I think it can even do the opposite, allowing us to retreat into ourselves and hide behind the narratives we buy into. But this novel represents literature at its best: it induces empathy, forces the reader to grapple with otherness, and peels away the inherited myths imposed on us. It is for that reason that I think reading fiction is one of the most important tools we have for coming as close as possible to truth.
As I read back over the last few paragraphs I’ve written, I can’t help but feel as though I have done exactly what I set out not to do: interpret and generate meaning before inhabiting the story. And yet, looking closer, the interpretations I’ve offered came almost involuntarily, not from a theory I arrived with, but simply from being inside the story. Perhaps that’s the real distinction: not whether one interprets, but where the interpretation comes from. But since this essay is itself an attempt to represent the distinction between criticism (interpretation) and reviewing (experiencing), and the need for interpretation to follow from experience rather than precede it, I would like to leave what I have written intact, and now turn to discuss how the book actually affected me.
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Part of why I found this novel so remarkable is that the opening paragraph is a masterclass in how to draw a reader in. Rather than tell you why, I think it would be better to insert the passage in full so that you can dwell in the writing alongside me. Read slowly, and imagine yourself in the room.
José Palacios, his oldest servant, found him floating naked with his eyes open in the purifying waters of his bath and thought he had drowned. He knew this was one of the many ways the General meditated, but the ecstasy in which he lay drifting seemed that of a man no longer of this world. He did not dare come closer but called to him in a hushed voice, complying with the order to awaken him before five so they could leave at dawn. The General came out of his trance and saw in the half-light the clear blue eyes, the curly squirrel-colored hair, the impassive dignity of the steward who attended him every day and who held in his hand a cup of the curative infusion of poppies and gum arabic. The General’s hands lacked strength when he grasped the handles on the tub, but he rose up from the medicinal waters in a dolphin-like rush that was surprising in so wasted a body.
The power of this scene lies in Márquez’s ability to paint such a vivid portrait: the image of José Palacios looking down at a naked Bolívar, floating completely still, eyes open, became seared into my mind upon first reading it. However, I found the final sentence, in which Márquez describes Bolívar rousing from his trance, his hands too weak to grip the edge of the tub, before rising in a “dolphin-like rush that was surprising in so wasted a body,” to be the most striking. The stark contrast Márquez illuminates is confusing for the reader, as we are unsure what to make of this strange man. Our preconceived notions about the great Bolívar have been eviscerated in a few short sentences, and we find ourselves looking upon a walking contradiction, a seemingly lucid corpse.
Having read this passage numerous times now, I find that it affects me differently each reading. The first time through, I felt intrigued and unsettled, similar to what I described in the previous paragraph. Yet reading it again, after having finished the book and watched this man’s slow, at-times-humiliating unraveling, the scene’s profound absurdity comes through more clearly. In both readings, it is Bolívar’s naked and undignified state that is at the source of my confusion and what drew me in. Above all else, though, the prevailing feeling is a tragic one as the protagonist I’m entering a relationship with is in ruins. For a man who, as the novel progresses, reveals himself to be fiercely concerned with his public image, this is a devastating first impression, one that stayed with me throughout my reading.
Just as the opening of the novel was disarming and drew me into the narrative, the ending moved me to a kind of cathartic grief. After defying death for months, to the surprise of his entourage and readers alike, Bolívar finally reaches his deathbed. First, a priest, Bishop Estévez, is called to his bedside for his last rites. Curious about what Bolívar, who never addresses his faith throughout the novel, might say, I was surprised, and strangely comforted, to find that Márquez omits the scene entirely, leaving it to the reader’s imagination, simply stating, “No one ever learned a word they said.” Even after such an embarrassingly intimate view into Bolívar's life, there remain aspects of his being that readers can never know, perhaps should never know.
However, we are present for Bolívar’s final moments, which include his brief conversation with his trusted doctor Alejandro Próspero Révérend. His last two statements are internal thoughts spoken aloud. The first, “I never imagined this damn business was serious enough to even think about last rites,” is a comment I found frustratingly on brand, one that shows just how out of touch Bolívar is with himself and the world around him. From the beginning, everyone in the novel seems to recognize that his death is looming; he alone seems surprised by it, despite an unbearable and worsening physical decline that has lasted for months.
When Dr. Révérend offers a light-hearted response, Bolívar doesn’t answer directly, instead saying, “Damn it, how will I ever get out of this labyrinth?” Besides being a callback to the title, this line captures who Bolívar, at least as this novel portrays him, is: a man whose existence is tied to control. Even now, confronted with the certainty of his death, he is thinking about how to navigate his way out, imagining yet another miraculous comeback, as he has done so many times throughout his life. For Bolívar, even death is a labyrinth that must have some correct turn, some avenue of escape, if only he can find it. It is a tragically fitting line after knowing him so intimately, yet I also found it strangely resonant. If I were confronted with my own impending doom, would I not also be wholly consumed by it, desperately searching for every possible way out?
The catharsis I referred to arrives in the novel’s final paragraph. As before, I will reproduce the passage in full to encourage a more collaborative reading experience:
He examined the room with the clairvoyance of his last days, and for the first time he saw the truth: the final borrowed bed, the pitiful dressing table whose clouded, patient mirror would not reflect his image again, the chipped porcelain washbasin with the water and towel and soap meant for other hands, the heartless speed of the octagonal clock racing toward the ineluctable appointment at seven minutes past one on his final afternoon of December 17. Then he crossed his arms over his chest and began to listen to the radiant voices of the slaves singing the six o’clock Salve in the mills, and through the window he saw the diamond of Venus in the sky that was dying forever, the eternal snows, the new vine whose yellow bellflowers he would not see bloom on the following Saturday in the house closed in mourning, the final brilliance of life that would never, through all eternity, be repeated again.
It is that acknowledgment, that Bolívar “saw the truth,” that offers solace to us as readers. Even he, perhaps the most stubborn and prideful man one can encounter, is ultimately able to reach a state of acceptance and tranquility. I found myself imagining what it would feel like to look around a room, as he does, knowing with certainty that these were the last things I’d ever see. For Bolívar, it is not some grand or extraordinary scene that accompanies his final moments, but the mundane objects that fill an ordinary bedroom, the familiar things that, until then, seemed too insignificant to notice.
The last image Márquez leaves us with is of Bolívar finally experiencing some semblance of peace: lying relaxed, resigning himself to being a spectator rather than an actor, as he listens to “the radiant voices of the slaves singing the six o'clock Salve,” the traditional Catholic evening prayer he likely heard in the plantation world of his upbringing. His lucidity and vitality remain with him until the end, yet in his final moments, he seems to shed his ego and his concern with the world, left with nothing but what Márquez describes as “the brilliance of life,” not some grand revelation, but a flood of sights, sounds, memories, and sensations. I’m left in a state of mourning, yet also relieved and satisfied, thinking to myself, “My God, what a journey this was.”
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When I think about what it means to live inside the narratives we read, I’m reminded of a line the literary critic Harold Bloom once wrote: “I am naive enough to read incessantly because I cannot, on my own, get to know enough people profoundly enough.” Ever since I first came across it years ago, this line has stayed with me, and I believe it connects deeply with what I'm trying to say here: that reading should be, first and foremost, an encounter, and that interpretation should follow from and be grounded in it, rather than in a theory brought in from outside. I know I get the most out of novels when I think of myself as being in dialogue with the author and with the characters who populate the worlds I read. Doing so is, to me, a humanizing act, one that I believe will help me become a better, more tolerant rabbi and human being. What else, after all, offers such an accessible way to gain the full breadth of the human experience?