"One winter night while the soup was boiling in the fireplace, he missed the heat of the back of his store, the buzzing of the sun on the dusty almond trees, the whistle of the train during the lethargy of siesta time, just as in Macondo he had missed the winter soup in the fireplace, the cries of the coffee vendor, and the fleeting larks of springtime. Upset by two nostalgias facing each other like two mirrors, he lost his marvelous sense of unreality and he ended up recommending to all of them that they leave Macondo, that they forget everything he had taught then about the world and the human heart, that they shit on Horace, and that wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end."
Let me give you a little background study before you dismiss the quote as too complicated. No spoilers from the book I promise: This paragraph is from the book 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'. It talks about a man who flees his motherland and comes to live in a village called Macondo. He opens a bookstore and kind of settles in but all the while missing things about home, reminiscing and wanting to go back. Then one fine day, he just packs up and leaves. When he's back at his own house sipping winter soup by the fire like he always wanted, he realizes something - he now misses Macondo. His two nostalgias come face to face and make a terrible mess of his heart. This quote struck home with me because I have experienced this feeling several times. It is a painful routine that every seafarer goes through- while we are onboard we are dying to come home to our lives, our families and friends; when we sign off and finally get home, we miss our jobs, our work friends and our routines. We don't get to do it in two parts on the same day like everyone else - office in the morning, home in the evening. It is either work or home and whatever we choose is the chosen option for months together at a time. This strange lifestyle of ours leads to the "clashing-nostalgias" phenomenon- a damn bummer.
'One hundred years of solitude' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: This book had been on my TBR list for more than a year. The many reviews I happened upon, all nearly said the same thing, that people had trouble going through it because it was a demanding book - and demanding it was! I couldn't read it as fluidly as I do generally; my average reading speed came down, there were just so many characters and events and things to remember. I was worried it will all cloud together and become one giant mash in my brain so I kept taking breaks in between. When I was reading the book, I didn't want to read it any longer and when I wasn't reading the book, getting back to it was all I could think of. I had such a love-hate relationship with it, but I was going through a rough patch in life personally and this book gave me exactly what I needed - an alternate universe that will suck me in, keep me sucked in and fill up all the voids of my empty mind. It was a very interesting read and truly one of a kind. Thanks Ramya Vedicherla for recommending it. It's been an absolute rollercoaster!
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