Blog Post #9

"The certainty that his day was assigned gave him a mysterious immunity, an immortality for a fixed  period that made him invulnerable to the risks of war and in the end permitted him to win a defeat that was much more difficult, much more bloody and costly than victory." (pg. 170)

Last week, I read past the point we were supposed to and I ended up doing a blog post for the wrong section. This week, I'm going back to previous section. This passage really spoke to me. Throughout the book, Marquez (the author, not the Colonel) has a very unorthodox and interesting way of setting the rules for death. Last week, my post dealt with the concept of death and I am starting to notice that death follows very unusual rules in this book. The passage above implies that everything is set in stone. Since Colonel Aureliano Buendia's, "day was assigned" he death was inevitable, but in a special way. His death is a sort of prophecy that is going to occur at a predetermined time, not a moment before, not a moment later. He knew when he was going to die therefore up until the actual moment of his death, he was invulnerable. This raises an interesting question as to what this means. Is Colonel Aureliano Buendia literally invulnerable at this time? If someone were to shoot him in the head during his "immortality for a fixed period", would he die? This take on death is so fascinating and it seems so unusual, but in a weird way it almost makes sense. If this passage isn't meant to be taken literally, is this Marquez's way of describing the sudden rush of courage people get if they already know they are going  to die? Think about it: if you were told you had six months to live, you would probably go out into the world and do a bunch of death defying things like skydiving, bungee jumping, etc. I thought about both of these interpretations, and both seem perfectly viable in the context of this book. I would expect something as crazy as a man literally becoming immortal for a short time from this book as death doesn't seem very final in this book. On the other hand, it seems just as likely that Marquez conveyed the illusion of temporary immortality humans get when told they only have so long to live in such a way that it speaks volumes on how humans work. I'm totally torn on which one I think is the intention; the figurative approach is more realistic, but the literal approach makes perfect sense based on the book. I think me being indecisive also adds to the magic this book holds as it constantly makes you question not only the book, but yourself.