Gabriel García Márquez wanted to destroy his last novel. It's about to be released.
Towards the end of his life, with his memory destroyed, Gabriel García Márquez struggled to complete a novel about the secret sex life of a middle-aged married woman. He tried at least five versions and tinkered with the text for years, shortening sentences, scribbling in the margins, changing adjectives and dictating notes to his assistant. Finally he gave up and issued a final, damning verdict.
“He told me directly that the novel had to be destroyed,” said Gonzalo García Barcha, the author‟s younger son.
When García Márquez died in 2014, several drafts, notes, and chapter fragments of the novel were preserved in his archives at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The story remained there, spread across 769 pages, largely unread and forgotten – until García Márquez's sons decided to defy their father's wishes.
Now, a decade after his death, his final novel, Until August, will be released this month and will be published in nearly 30 countries worldwide. The story focuses on a woman named Ana Magdalena Bach, who travels to a Caribbean island every August to visit her mother's grave. On these dark pilgrimages, briefly freed from her husband and family, she always finds a new lover.
The novel adds an unexpected coda to the life and work of García Márquez, a literary giant and Nobel Prize winner, and is likely to raise questions about how estates and publishers should handle posthumous publications that contradict a writer's instructions.
Literary history is littered with examples of famous works that would not have existed if executors and heirs had not ignored the authors' wishes.
🔗 Texto adaptado de: Entertainment News. Disponível em: spamchronicles.com. Acesso em: 30 jun. 2024.
🟨 Questão 24
In which of the following alternatives the same kind of comparative was used as in the word in bold in the following excerpt?
“He told me directly that the novel had to be destroyed,” said Gonzalo García Barcha, the author‟s younger son.
(A) as good as
(B) better
(C) less important than
(D) badder
(E) the youngest
Gabarito: B
🧭 Leitura orientada
O termo younger é um comparativo irregular do adjetivo young. A banca pede que se encontre outra forma que use o mesmo tipo de comparativo, ou seja, um comparativo irregular formado por mudança total da palavra.
📝 Análise técnica das alternativas
(A) Incorreta. “as good as” é uma estrutura de igualdade, não um comparativo irregular. 🚩 Pegadinha da banca: confundir comparação de igualdade com forma comparativa.
(B) Correta. “better” é o comparativo irregular de good, assim como “younger” é o comparativo irregular de young. 🚩 Pegadinha evitada: identificar mudança total da palavra.
(C) Incorreta. “less important than” é um comparativo regular formado com less, não irregular. 🚩 Pegadinha da banca: confundir perífrase com irregularidade.
(D) Incorreta. “badder” não existe; o correto é worse. 🚩 Pegadinha da banca: testar se o candidato conhece formas irregulares reais.
(E) Incorreta. “the youngest” é superlativo, não comparativo. 🚩 Pegadinha da banca: confundir grau comparativo com superlativo.
🚩 Armadilhas da banca
A banca aposta que o candidato confunda comparativo com superlativo ou com estruturas de igualdade. Só formas como better, worse, older, younger representam comparativos irregulares verdadeiros.
🧠 Resumo B3GE™ Master
Younger é comparativo irregular de young. O mesmo tipo aparece em better, comparativo irregular de good. Gabarito: B.