Rating: 
Summary: Enchanting!
Review: One Hundred Years of Solitude is a brilliant masterpiece, probably the best South-American Book I ever read. It is the fable of a family in a Latin American village, fable that runs over 5 generations of Buendias, allegorically dealing with the problems, events and stakes that Latin America faced throughout the XIX and XX century. The story is fascinating and epic. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is some time close to Dostoevsky, for the number of characters and the ecstasy of the reading, some time close to the greatest pieces of Balzac, for the richness of the details and the realness of his luxurious creativity. The story is brilliant, brilliantly written, and pretty well translated indeed. As a matter of fact, there is a double and schizophrenic tendency that appears while reading this book : one side of you, fascinated by the story, wishes to read faster, in order to see what happens, in order to feed your curiosity, while another part of your personality, so impregnated by the feeling of wellness that surrounds you along the reading, gets depressed by the tangible and fast diminution of the remaining pages to read. Also recommended: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez
Rating: 
Summary: For Lovers of Latin American Literature
Review: I was pleasantly surprised to find this on Oprah's list. I read this book in college and it was my first exposure to magic realism. Such imaginative narrative is hard to come by and who could forget such events as the discovery of a dead angel, the whole town suffering from insomnia, or the beautiful Remedios (one of many)ascending to heaven? Just as a sidenote I find one of the characters toward the end is disturbingly like Michael Jackson with his lifestyle of decadence and his penchant for the company of little boys. It's a book that is very sensual and colorful, I would love to see it transferred successfully to film. But this book is not for anyone. Just for those who love truly imaginative literature.
Rating:
Summary: KEEEEEEEELARR
Review: this here book done made me feel alone like a peice of strang hanging from a spiders web up in a tree and i the spider spinnin around lost in the nite air and vaccuum of silence!
Rating: 
Summary: Good if you like twisted books
Review: I am not going to go easy in my criticism but frankness is the best option. I was forced to read this, literally, because it was for a required class, during summer break. Well, I thought that since the book was in a tropical setting, I might as enjoy myself. Well, did I get a cool breeze indeed! First of all, like all great families, this family described in particular like to name their children alike generation after generation. That's not the worst part: they even like to name them alike in the same generation, so I got lost by the middle of the book and had to constantly retrace the family tree.
And of course, if you want to entrench yourself on such a reading journey, better be prepared for incest. Even though the book is mostly against it (with the superstitions etc.), the first generation mentioned is a fine example of it.
The imagery is great, but I wouldn't know if that is the work of the original author as I, like many other Americans, read the translated version. It is a great book to build up vocab, because apparently the translator interpreted it as so. I was very glad to be done with it after 2 weeks (a usual novel with this length usually takes me less than a day to finish).
Of course, it's not the worst book I ever read. Try Moby Dick or The Bluest Eye if you're looking for another different form of torture.
Rating: 
Summary: sometimes boring
Review: I read this book many years ago (in Spanish) and even if it keeps your attention and has great images and colorful descriptions it gets a little too boring. YOu want to flip some pages and keep going. Usually people who want to sound very "literate" try to talk you into it... be aware, is not the "flowing through the pages" type of book. Some understanding of the culture behind the whole story would be a good idea even before purchasing the book.
Rating:
Summary: Best Book Ever Written
Review: I'm in the middle of re-reading "Cien Anos" for the fourth or fifth time. I have it filed away in my head under the label "best book ever," but, even so, each time I pick it up, I am surprised at how much I enjoy it. Sorry to say, the reviewers on this board who criticize this book as boring or depressing are illiterate morons who should go back to reading Nora Roberts and procreating with their kin. The criticism that it's not a "page turner" is unfathomable--I couldn't put it down the first time I read it, and that carries through to this day. For those of you who get confused by the names--there's a family tree in the front of the book! Stick a bookmark in that page, and consult it when you get confused. This isn't rocket science.
Rating:
Summary: Deafening Applause
Review: I have to congratulate Oprah on her recent turn towards recommendations of classic literature as exampled by "East of Eden" and "Cry The Beloved Country"."One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a recommendation that must be applauded. Originally penned in Spanish, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" has been translated into two dozen languages with worldwide recognition of excellence. Overall, avid readers of well crafted stories will be delighted with "One Hundred Years of Solitude." To qualify this statement, I refer to "well crafted stories" to mean more commonly accepted library recommendations, critics picks, and book club selections like "East of Eden", "The Secret Life of Bees", "My Fractured Life", and "The Way the Crow Flies." Well crafted, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" masterfully traces the 100 year history of the mythical town of Macondo. In his prose, Marquez is both deeply comedic and deeply tragic in alternating and dually existing form.
Rating:
Summary: finally Oprah scores!
Review: I was amazed to see that 100 Years...was on the OPRAH book club list. Not to be unkind but some of her fans will drop out of the club because of this book. It requires patience, imagination, and some historical knowledge of South American politics and writers. Much of this book is written in metaphor to protect the author and other individuals. The informed reader will note that Marquez received the NOBLE PRIZE not the Pulitizer for this incredible literary work. To the new reader keep reading if you want to have a life changing experience. It is my favorite book of the late 20th century.
Rating:
Summary: Flawless, Timeless, Riveting....
Review: This is my all-time favorite novel and one of the great masterpieces of world literature. This work, more than any other, is what brought García Márquez the Nobel Prize. Having read some of the other reader reviews, let me point out that those who have never lived in Latin America or experienced a foreign culture may find this a difficult read. The novel can be more easily understood by anyone who has actually spent time in Latin America (no, spring break in Cancún does not count). I read this book in the original Spanish (if you know Spanish, don't bother with any translations) in 1985 and could not put it down. I almost didn't want the book to end! What some reviewers have clearly failed to realize is that the story of Macondo is an allegory for the history of Latin America. Enter a land where magic happens on a daily basis, where the improbable is routine. This could be Anytown, América Latina. Are the fanciful events of Macondo so truly difficult to accept? When the Buendía patriarch dies, it rains flowers.... In the minds of many Latin Americans, such an idea is not at all preposterous. Among the surreal yet not inconceivable characters are a woman who floats into the heavens, a boy who automatically knows that the tea his identical twin is drinking has no sugar, a ghost unable to quench his thirst for water, and a man who for some reason speaks Latin when he sleeps. García Márquez's description of the arrival of the "gringos" and their "discovery" of the local, exotic fruit -- the banana -- is both hilarious and sadly real. Although I am not a fan of the author's politics, anyone who knows history will agree that it's not hard to understand the Latin perception that exploitative foreign fruit companies helped create the "banana republics." This is a novel to cherish and savor. Linger over the breathtaking prose and the vivid descriptions of fantastic events. This is Latin American magical realism at its best.
Rating:
Summary: An intellectual adventure
Review: I read this book in its original language of spanish when I was in my early 20s and living in Argentina. The story was so facinating that I could not put it down, but was such an fantastically imaginative weave, I could not tell you what it was about, now, 20 years later. I did enjoy it.
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