"A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I think another good way of reexamining the value of short stories is by delving into the tales of other cultures. Storytelling is so vital a part of so many different cultures, it makes sense that different cultures tell their stories in different ways.

Not to suggest that A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings is an appropriate way to view another culture, but it carries something real and honest with it because it's from another culture. I love that this story is tied in no way to the Self-Proclaimed Intellectual Capitol of the World (NYC).

Even though "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" is different from its original Spanish version, "Senor Muy Viejo Con Alas Enormas," and most of Marquez's nuances in language are completely lost, I absolutely love this story. It deals with different subject matter, it looks at it in a different light, and it does so with confident wisdom. ("Confident wisdom"...I'll have to put that on the back of a book some day.) I think this shows that story does not necessarily have a lot to do with specific decisions in diction, or even with style in general. The story can be good without a reliance on especially clever word choice or snappy descriptions or people in their 30s who live on the East coast.

The story is short, worth reading, makes you look at things differently, and it doesn't suck. Definitely good material for this blog.