Bon Voyage, Mr. President!

Among the many books by Marquez that I read, "Strange Pilgrims", a collection of 12 of his short stories, is one of my favorites. The first and longest story in the book was entitled, "Bon Voyage, Mr. President". It was about a newspaper editor/owner in Colombia, who became the President of his country, only to be exiled later. It was a very beautiful story, and I loved it so much that I planned to translate it.

Anat A., a friend from Jerusalem I met in a Yahoo group, even provided me with Gabo's phone and FAX no.s, so that I could ask for his permission to translate and publish the story in my language. My mexican friend Lulu agreed to translate my letter into Spanish.

Of course, like many other othings in my life, I never wrote the latter, forget translating the story.

However, my intention was not to tell about myself, but about Camus and Gabo. Within a few months of reading "Strange Pilgrims", I read a series of books/essays by Camus. In one of them (I fail to remember the name....was it "Resistance, Rebellion and Death"?), I came across the address Camus prepapred for a then recently exiled President of Colombia who had once been a newspaper man.

Reading Camus led me to three conculsions: 2 of them significant and 1 insignificant.

The first: I realized that the greatness of an author lies in the way he presents his words. For an author such as Gabo, it was an easy task to make a real life story apprear like a make-believe story of the exile of a President (Of course, later I learned that Borges translated volumes of books that never existed!).

The second: I was awed by Camus's level of intellect. I understood that things he wrote at the age of 30 with the level of clarity that was his benchmark, only he could write. His level of intelelct was all his! Most of the rest would never reach that level.

And the insignificant effect: I realized that no matter what I did or how much I tried, I would never be able to reach the level of intellect that giants like Camus did, not even in a million births!

And my earlier decision not to try to write anything,taken after reading Gabo, Kundera and others, turned into a solid vow! (Forget this blog; someday I will delete this).
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Note: This posting was partly instigated by a reply I wrote to a question of DP, who wanted to know if I ever wrote anything.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus