One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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Book Reviews of One Hundred Years of Solitude
Book Review: Fantastic
Summary: 5 Stars
I read this book a few weeks ago and was intrigued by the subject matter. Gabriel Garcia Marquez weaves a beautiful tale of mystery and wonder. The story center around the Buendias living in a fictional Central/South American town. We're lead through the lives of each person generation after generation, each person has different story and you would think that this would get redundant but with each new birth I am anxious, awaiting the next tale. There is a legacy that continues through each and everyone.
It's uncoventional perhaps, there's no true "hero" or a central story line. But Marquez somehow effortlessly flows from one generation to the other without an annoying break in the story. He just simply begins one story and ends another simultaneously without leaving any questions or doubts. And you would also think that all of the similar names that jump around would get confusing but they surprisingly don't, that somehow is not a problem.
I don't know how he does it but Marquez tells a simple tale with poetic grace and ease, never boring the reader and never losing ground or stalling. That is a true feat in itself. He blends without announcing it the fantasy world with reality, engaging the imagination and keeping you turning the pages. The anti-climax was breathtaking and the simple ending should have been boring, but it wasn't.
I strongly recommend this read, it's a tale for the ages.
Book Review: A great novel
Summary: 4 Stars
Most magnificent, incredible novel that flows by like a bizarre dream but like most dreams lacks coherent plot or discernable direction. It's good, compassionate, humane, complex and very long folk tale spiced with philosophy and politics. Unfortunately I don't speak Spanish well enough to read this masterpiece in the original but I read it both in English and Russian translation and I would recommend it to any mature reader. An English speaker should only attempt to read this book if he is comfortable with other large foreign novels. If you can handle large works of Dostoevski (Dostoevsky) or Balzac in period translation, - cover to cover, - then go ahead. Otherwise don't even try to because what you'd be up against is pure torture. An abridged version of the novel or the same work narrated by a professional actor on audio tape could be considered a lighter cuisine but I am not familiar with either abridged version or the tapes. I guess people from nations which have had long periods of civil unrest and war on recent their historic consciousness could better relate to this work, its atmosphere and its characters than those who lack such experience or for whom it would be an extremely distant historic memory. While it is certainly not an easy read, as a complete work of literary art the One Hundred Years of Solitude must be one of the best 20th century novels written in any language.Book Review: A Review for the Average Reader
Summary: 4 Stars
I know there are people who make a fulltime job of analyzing and intellectualizing Marquez but rather than impress anyone with what a smartypants I think I am, I'm just going to give you my opinion of this book as a regular reader.I finished the novel over the course of a few months. Whenever I picked it up, I found it absorbing, and engaging but it wasn't by any means a page turner. Everytime I put it down for a period of time, when I picked it up again I had to flip back to the front to remember who I was reading about.
It is an epic book wherein just about all the different characters have the same name.
If you were just reading it for amusement, you've got to let go of the pesky anal urge we have to want to know exactly what is going on and just take it in pieces and trust that intuitively it will all fall in place in the end.
It does. I think the Buendia family saga is really a protracted metaphor for the development of Western civilization.
Trust the book. If you want to take it apart and study it, I suggest waiting to try and do that on the second read. Someday, I'll probably go back and read it again which means I must have liked it.
And so,
I recommend the book.
Book Review: Solitude is Life
Summary: 5 Stars
There has been renewed interest in the work of the Nobel Prize winning Columbian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The keystone of his work is "One Hundred Years of Solitude" originally published in 1967. A reissue edition of the novel published in 2003 by Harper Collins and translated by Gregory Rabassa tells the story of several generations of residents of the fictional town "Macondo." Like the South American macondo tree, the people of the town have roots both in and above the earth. In simple declarative sentences, a style he learned from his mother's oral histories of her family, Marquez describes every aspect of the lives of the people from birth to death and beyond. Macondo lies in solitude between the mountains and the sea, and the several generations of characters mirror that solitude in their personal understanding of the world. Idiosyncracy and passion are common denominators in the diverse characters who are all full of life but respectful of death. The reader quickly enters the story by learning to abandon the traditional sense of time, space, and social structure. Then Marquez takes the believer on a marvelous conscious and unconscious journey through the human condition.Book Review: Groundhog Day in book form
Summary: 2 Stars
I would equate my experience reading 100 Years of Solitude to watching the movie Groundhog Day 5 times consecutively.
I mildly enjoyed the first 150 pages or so, though in my opinion it still is not spectacular writing, but merely competent. But still, if this book was only 200 pages, I would look on it favorably. Unfortunately.... it's twice that long. The foundation of the book is incessant reincarnations of the same family members over and over and over again. Brevity and succinctness is obviously not Marquez's strong suit. This, along with a very fable-like style makes the book strangely feel more antiquated than Beowulf (but not nearly as interesting).
I will admit that it is initially captivating, but unfortunately this is accomplished the same way soap operas and Lifetime movies do: ridiculous interpersonal dramas endlessly unfold in a cantilevered manner.
100 Years of Solitude painfully beats a dead horse in a manner which makes Atlas Shrugged seem like a pamphlet in comparison.