Gabriel García Márquez - overrated?

[cipherdecoy]

He is, admittedly, but I do enjoy his literature. What do you think?

[johann cruyff]

I'm not a big fan of Magic Realism,so I'm inclined to say he is.However,I've only read 100 Years of Solitude,and can't really talk about the quality of the author based on one book.I did like the book though,not exactly my cup of tea,but I liked it.

[waryan]

I am about halfway through a collected stories book, and have yet to check out 100 years- though I am a fan of magical realism I find some of his stories to be rather boring or "fluffly" while others shine. My own experiences with his work simply say he has mainly extremes.

but hey, if you like his stuff, it could be overrated over the moon, no worries either way really.

[Pecksie]

Yes, I think he definitely is overrated... and the problem is that he has obscured many good Latin American writers whose styles are completely different from his, so that many readers nowadays think of Latin American literature as magical realism, when in fact there are many other (in my opinion, better) things around.

Check out Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Juan Carlos Onetti, Horacio Quiroga, Felisberto Hernández, José Donoso, Sara Gallardo, Augusto Roa Bastos, Mario Vargas Llosa, José María Arguedas... the list goes on and on. All of these are great writers who can give you a better understanding of Latin America than García Márquez can provide.

[JBI]

How many of you have read him in the original? Either way, even if you don't like him, he is still a great writer by any standards, and quite important in the Latin American Boom.

[Pecksie]

How many of you have read him in the original? Either way, even if you don't like him, he is still a great writer by any standards, and quite important in the Latin American Boom.

I have. I am a native speaker of Spanish. No one denies his importance, but it is true that he has contributed to the creation of a stereotype of Latin American literature which is (in my opinion) damaging.

[JBI]

That isn't his fault.

[Pecksie]

That isn't his fault.

No one said it was. It isn't his fault that he's overrated, either. But there are so many other Latin American authors! Oh, and in my previous post, I forgot to mention Juan Rulfo. His spare prose is the opposite of García Márquez's flowery, baroque "magical realism". And yet, for all its starkness, it shines. "Pedro Páramo" must be one of the best short novels ever written.

[B-Mental]

I don't think he is overrated, rather underestimated in my opinion. He is one of my favorite authors, and I place him up there with Hemingway.