Author Look-Alikes: Vol. 15

Ezra pound is supposed to have died years ago. But are we sure he isn’t running Cuba?

In the category of shaggy-headed, white-haired poets, I give you Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Walt Whitman:

Great smiles, bushy eyebrows, pushbroom mustaches… Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Juan Valdez are both a great credit to their Colombian homeland:

Hair chopped short and smiling eyes, here's Carson McCullers and Annette Benning:

Now, I threw the Kennedy Wildcasts “K” on Tim O’Brien’s hat. But I didn’t really have to. He’d still be a dead ringer for the gym coach in “The Wonder Years” (Robert Picardo). Neither of them seem to go anywhere without their ball caps:

Fidel Castro, Beta Reader

You already know him as the Cuban revolutionary turned controversial human rights villain, but did you know he was also one of the secrets to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s literary success? That's right, he's a trusted beta reader for the Colombian author.

“Our friendship was consolidated by books. He’s an excellent reader. I bring him the originals before I publish the book. He’s like an editor. That’s the exact word: editor. He points out contradictions and inconsistencies that professionals miss. He’s very thorough and reads all the time. His car has a light and he reads at night on long trips.”

Start at the 0:37 second mark:

**Update**

No sooner did I post this than I came across this article, which bears the sad news that Garcia Marquez's writing career is essentially over. Dementia is the culprit. Castro's career as a beta reader may just have come to an end.

First Line Friday!

There is simply no more influential component of a novel than the first line (other than the last line, but we’ll get to that in time). The first line is the writer’s declaration that the novel is in your hands, ready to be read, deemed to be important, and destined to alter your thinking. It's your first impression.

The first line of a novel is so embedded with purpose and prose that it leaves some writers seeming omnipotent, while it leaves others pleading for recognition.

With that being said, I hereby deem every Friday to be “First Line Friday” where we’ll look deep into my favorite first lines of all time.

Let’s start with perhaps the most powerful first line of a novel I have ever perused:

Over the weekend the vultures got into the presidential palace by pecking through the screens on the balcony windows and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside, and at dawn on Monday the city awoke out of its lethargy of centuries with the warm, soft breeze of a great man dead and rotting grandeur.

Of course, that is Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s first sentence of The Autumn of the Patriarch. Hard to believe it’s the first sentence of a novel. The resonance of those phrases are astounding: “pecking through the screens” and “stirred up the stagnant time inside” and “city awoke out of its lethargy of centuries” and “the warm, soft breeze of a great man dead and rotting grandeur” all in the first sentence!

But that’s Gabriel Garcia Marquez for you. Genius.