Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's opening line from One Hundred years of Solitude was enough for me to pick up the book. Personally, I feel that this is one of the best openings of any book I've read.
Maybe it is from all the years I have spent trying to trim my overly verbose writing, but "was to remember" grates on me as a needlessly inflated way of saying "remembered."
The Spanish original is "había de recordar", and "was to remember" is a good translation.
It's meaning is different from just "remembered", as it implies a causality. It wasn't a random remembrance that just happened, it was some memory that was brought by the proximity of death.
"was to remember" doesn't imply causality any more than "remembered" does.
"could not help but remember" would've been a much better translation, and even has the similarity that the usage is less common and more literary (i speak Spanish).
I'm no English major but let me explain why it works for me. Firstly, there is a different tense between "was to remember" and "remembered". The former maintains the vantage point of now; we're not quite there, we're looking to the future still. Secondly, the passive voice of the former creates a juxtaposition of its more clinical style against the setting of a firing squad. Both of these choices serve to stop us from putting ourselves directly in the mind of Buendia. Strangely, counterintuitively, it strengthens the impact on us of the scenario when the full meaning finally lands, which the dispassionate narrative style has obfuscated.
It seems to escape English writers (at least at college level) that different ways of writing have different meanings and connotations, which may be necessary in some situations. Another example is the passive voice that is derided in college circles as if there was no good way to use it (yes, there are many).
I'm unsure if you've read this novel, but the translation "was to remember" actually works well here, and was probably a deliberate choice. The cycles of time are a major theme in the story.
I agree but the author might be implying that this was not the first thought and that creates dramatic tension. What triggered the memory? Was he recalling it on purpose to inform his next move? Was he forced to remember because the leader of the firing squad also figured in the memory but he didn't realize it at first?
I love this opening and it’s one I think about more than I should. I recently read his Chronicle of a Death Foretold and it’s opening felt drawn from this one.
Toni Morrison’s Beloved opening is breathtaking as well.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's opening line from One Hundred years of Solitude was enough for me to pick up the book. Personally, I feel that this is one of the best openings of any book I've read.