Ci Vediamo in Agosto
by Gabriel García Márquez
Translated by Bruno Arpaia
En Agosto nos Vemos, which I read in Bruno Arpaia’s Italian translation (Ci Vediamo in Agosto) was planned to be the first of four (or five) linked stories which, together, would form an ambitious, large-scale novel centering around a female protagonist, Ana Magdalena Bach, and the theme of love in older years. García Márquez managed to conclude just the initial novella and, realising that his creative powers were being sapped by dementia, left instructions that it should not be published, as it “didn’t work”. Ten years after his death, the author’s sons have gone against Gabo’s wishes. The book, they argued, is not as bad as their father thought it was (admittedly, not great praise…). They also thought that just as the onset of illness was hampering his writing, it might also have dulled his critical faculties and warped his opinion about his own work. And so, against García Marquez’s wishes, we have in our hands, posthumously, the great author’s final work.
Although part of a larger, unfinished project “Ci Vediamo in Agosto”, is a satisfactory novel in itself. It is slight and not particularly ambitious but, on a balance, I would say that we readers are better off being able to read it. Its protagonist Ana Magdalena Bach, now in her late to mid-forties, is married to a famous conductor and has two children. Her daughter has a trumpeter boyfriend but is intent on becoming a nun. Ana Magdalena’s son is a musician with a budding international career. Her relationship with her husband is a close one – what the Italians would call “complicità” – they thoroughly understand each other and have a great physical relationship after many years of marriage. Yet, this settled life is disrupted by an unusual event. In her last will, Ana’s mother requests that she be buried in a cemetery on a small Caribbean island. Every year, on the 16th of August, Ana takes the ferry from the mainland, and visits the grave of her mother. And every year, she makes love with a different man, casually met on her only night on her island. The novel is, essentially, a description of these revelatory one-night stands.
This novel certainly will not displace Gabo’s other works, but there
are enough signature elements which make the novella worth reading beyond its
“curiosity” or “completist” value. While eschewing the more obvious magical
realism of his other works, there are many delightful quirks and episodes of
offbeat humour, along more lyrical passages marked by music, sensuality and
nostalgia. This is a novel to read on a sultry summer afternoon. Perhaps in
mid-August.
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