One Hundred Years of Solitude (P.S.)
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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Book Reviews of One Hundred Years of Solitude (P.S.)
Book Review: Crammed full of life
Summary: 5 Stars
I recall reading, in Harold Bloom's analysis of OHYS, a phrase that sums the book up more solidly than any other of which I can think: "crammed full of life." This is a novel so full of life that it seems to exude from the pages, dripping into your mind and creating a beautiful, complex tale.
Garcia Marquez is a master. I make my allegiances clear and unabashed with that simple sentence; the reader of this review must take into account that I absolutely love Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and I have read almost everything he has written. This is the crowning point of it all; it is the book that made him famous, and for good reason. OHYS is full of vibrant characters and sometimes-fantastic events (such as the plague of insomnia in the beginning, or the invasion and disappearance of the banana company), cycling through generation after generation of the Buenia family and the town of Macondo at large.
There is humour aplenty, moments of drama, moments of sorrow, and scenes that are representative of nigh every human emotion and feeling of which I can think. Some may be turned off the surrealism of the book at certain times; for instance, when a character floats up into the heavens and disappears. These strange events occur in the middle of the story, with almost no incredulous reaction from the other characters, and they are why Garcia Marquez is called a magic realist. Magic Realism isn't peculiar to Garcia Marquez, but he is probably the most well known writer within the loose genre, and contends with Jorge Luis Borges as the best. I recommend, if this style turns you off (if you love it, reading the following is even more necessary!), that you read a few works as sort of primers for it: "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka, and any of the short stories of Borges--THE ALEPH and FICCIONES are the best two compendiums of his stories. Both authors are precursors of the magic realist genre that culminates in Garcia Marquez and his contemporaries, and, though they are actually significantly stranger, are somewhat more believable in the "realistic" sense of the word.
Many have noted or complained about the characters names--this is a fair point. Many characters, over the some hundred and twenty years the book covers, share the same name or very similar names, and, especially for us English speakers, these names can be very difficult to keep track of. You will almost assuredly have to refer back to the family tree from time to time, so it is best to mark this page. I do not think this is a negative, as many families, could we see them in their generations, would have similar circumstances; it is simply a difficulty that requires more attention. Remember: this is a work of literature (and a great one at that), not a romance novel.
Garcia Marquez is, along with Borges and Dostoevsky, tied for second place among my favourite prose authors; only Tolstoy ranks above them (this does not speak to their weakness, only to the latter's power!). OHYS is his best work, and sits alongside CRIME AND PUNISHMENT as my favourite novel besides WAR AND PEACE. Read it, and you will be infinitely rewarded.
Book Review: A Slightly Difficult Read but a Masterful Book
Summary: 4 Stars
With a foundation in magical realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude follows the growth of the Buend'a family and the city of Macondo. Drawing from childhood stories, Márquez pens an extraordinary tale of love, death, and loneliness. The book begins with a foreboding sense of determinism when Márquez writes:
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buend'a was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice" (p. 1).
In fact, an impending sense of helplessness meanders through the book as the family expands with children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. With each generation, the names of Aureliano, José Arcadio, and Remedios are recycled. There is a sense in which each person is merely an extension of a larger character. "There was no mystery," claims Márquez,
"in the heart of a Buend'a that was impenetrable for her because a century of cards and experience had taught her that the history of the family was a machine with unavoidable repetitions, a turning wheel that would have gone on spilling into eternity were it not for the progressive and irremediable wearing of the axle" (p. 396).
Just as each character blends with previous characters that have come and gone in the narrative, each lives and dies in resolute isolation. Whether through external circumstances or internal influences, each family member succumbs to a life of seclusion. For example, Márquez describes a character's despair, saying:
"Instead of going to the chestnut tree, Colonel Aureliano Buend'a also went to the street door and mingled with the bystanders who were watching the parade. He saw a woman dressed in gold sitting on the head of an elephant. He saw a sad dromedary. He saw a bear dressed like a Dutch girl keeping time to the music with a soup spoon and a pan. He saw the clowns doing cartwheels at the end of the parade and once more he saw the face of his miserable solitude when everything had passed by and there was nothing but the bright expanse of the street and the air full of flying ants with a few onlookers peering into the precipice of uncertainty. Then he went to the chestnut tree, thinking about the circus, and while he urinated he tried to keep on thinking about the circus, but he could no longer find the memory. He pulled his head in between his shoulders like a baby chick and remained motionless with his forehead against the trunk of the chestnut tree" (267).
Originally written in Spanish, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a difficult read. The sentences are long and the narrative does not follow a singular arc. However, the book brings harsh questions into focus. Are we free to choose the direction of our lives or have they been set in motion long before we were conscious of our choices? No matter how many friends and loved ones orbit our lives, are we actually alone? I encourage you to pick up Marquez's masterpiece and struggle your way to your own answers.
Originally from Where Pen Meets Paper Blog
Book Review: A Classic Must-read
Summary: 5 Stars
In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez introduces us to the mythical town of Macondo, and tells the story of the Buendía family who live, love and die there. It is a fascinating novel, full of dozens f plots that wind through a land where magic is part of daily life.
We follow the Buendía family through the town's founding and the first Jose Arcadio Buendía, throughout several generations to the books conclusion. In the beginning, the town of Maconda is a peaceful town isolated from the rest of the world, save for gypsies who visit every year, bringing new amazing things with them. Eventually the town, and the Buendía family, lose their isolation as civil war, innovation and industry (in the form of the Banana company) sweep in.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is hands down the best book I have read this year. It is not an easy read, but it is worth it. As much a philosophical study as an entertaining novel, you can read as much, or as little, into the story as you wish. There are complex themes blended with funny stories and exciting and surreal mini-plots. It is written in the style of "Magical Realism," and there are several events throughout the book that are totally unexplained, and you are just forced to take them for what they are. Surprisingly, this is not as hard to do as you might think. The book has a great flow and you find yourself sucked into the lives of the Buendía family.
Márquez does an amazing job of mixing fantasy with reality and weaving them into a moving novel. The loneliness and desperation of Colonel Aureliano Buendía is palpable throughout the war years, and the theme of desperation pervades the whole book. When a character finds its way out of the city, such as when Remedios the Beauty rises to heaven, one feels elation for that character that they found a way to escape. Despite the sense of apathy that surrounds the book, the short anecdotal story lines keep the book from becoming bogged down and boring.
The hardest part of reading this book was keeping some of the names straight. Several of the male characters have the same two names (Aureliano or Jose Arcadio), and many of the lives are so intertwined that even those with names that are not similar are still easy to confuse. This was a detail I became accustomed to however, and there was a family tree included in the beginning of the book that helped to clarify thing.
While One Hundred Years of Solitude, may not be light reading, it is a novel worth finishing (If for no other reason that to finally put all of the story-lines missing plot pieces together.) Like all good novels, there are questions in the book that are answered in the end and others that we can only answer ourselves. If you are looking for a book to challenge you and at the same time entertain you I highly recommend One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Book Review: I loved the Novel, but not the "book" (edition)
Summary: 5 Stars
Thumbs up to Gabriel Garcia Marquez' fantastical epic novel, "100 years of Solitude"! It is the story of Macondo, a fictional South American town founded by the bold patriarch of the Buendia clan, Jose Arcadio Buendia. Twenty households of folks subsist in peace and relative isolation, minding their own business, until hosts of visitors and newcomers, bringing new ideas--scientific, political, and economic--descend upon the sleepy village. These developments, along with the growth and development of the Buendias through generations, lead to unexpected and often bizarre and tragic results.
Marquez' imagination seems to know no bounds, as he recounts story after incredible story in ridiculous detail, which are bound together with certain common recurring themes. The style of the novel, "magical realism", means that the most freakish stories are told in the same matter-of-fact tone as the most prosaic ones. Marquez grew up in the home of his grandparents, natural story tellers, who related countless such tall-tales in such a way, blurring the boundaries of reality and unreality. My favorite of these tall tales is the part, toward the end of the book where it rains for "four years, eleven months, and two days". What they went through during that time was hilarious and outlandish!
Another big theme is the recurring personalities of the male Buendias across five generations. The author does a good job of creating real and interesting characters, but I particularly enjoyed some of the female ones, as they were each quite different and extraordinary. Ursala, the matriarch, is a central central figure who lives over a hundred years, during which she works endlessly to care for the family throughout the generations. Fernanda, the wife whom Aureliano Segundo takes from a ruined aristocratic family in "the Highlands", never really fits in. The best Fernanda scene is during the rainy season, when she drones on complaining at Aureliano for an incredible three pages with just one sentence!
One of the many themes in the book that interest me is the strong sense of irony which pervades the novel on many levels. The overriding irony which also underlies the whole story is the circular nature of time--the recurring personality types and their dysfunctional actions which they seem doomed to repeat. This is an irony of tragic futility. At times it seems tedious, but the author uses it to brilliant effect, and particularly at the end, where the story culminates with one surprising final ironic twist.
These are just a few of my ideas and reflections about this monumental work. Lastly, I suggest that you buy one of the other editions of the book because this one is rather flimsy and cheaply made. The Oprah book club edition (which I have not seen) can be had for $7.00, including shipping, and the hardback for $11.12, if you click on the words "32 new". I hope this helps. Enjoy!
Book Review: I love Marquez and, yet, I find myself very disappointed.
Summary: 2 Stars
I would like to take this moment to state that I am enamored with the way Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes. One Hundred Years of Solitude is the third book by Marquez that I have read. The first Marquez book I picked up was Love in the Time of Cholera and I was blown away by the story and the remarkable and beautiful prose. Next, I picked up a small novel of Marquez's, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, and once again walked away delighted. I found that Marquez had a very unique ability to create emotional ties to the characters in his stories. I also found that I was reveling in the joys of those characters, as well as suffering their grief. Unfortunately, in One Hundred Years of Solitude, I never made those emotional connections.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is a novel that is ostensibly about a family, the Beundias, and the lot they drew which apparently leads to eternal suffering and misery for everyone in the family. As compelling as that theme should be, I found that deep down, the story was simply about a town, Macondo and the suffering is tangential and always on the periphery.
Marquez does tell the reader that the characters are suffering, and he does so with vivid language:
"The need to feel sad was becoming a vice as the years eroded her..."
"He could not understand why he had needed so many words to explain what he felt in war because one was enough: fear..."
"Rebeca, who had needed many years of suffering and misery in order to attain the privileges of solitude..."
These are all beautiful descriptions of grief and torment; however, over the course of the novel, each set of characters is replaced about every thirty pages. No relationships or attachments are formed between the reader and the character. So, while I can see the pain and suffering, I can read the eloquent descriptions, I could not feel the emotion.
The disconnect I felt while reading One Hundred Years of Solitude made finishing the novel a chore. The disconnect, along with frustration, grew with the passing of each set of characters. I found myself not really caring how Marquez wrapped up the end of the book, as long as the book ended. Therefore, I found the story had no climax, no central moment, no real theme other than "suffering exists".
I was once told that if you have nothing nice to say, then don't say anything at all. Well, I may have broken that rule, but, I will stop here so that I avoid digressing and letting my frustration show anymore than I already have.
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