One Hundred Years of Solitude (Oprah's Book Club)

Rating:
Summary: One Hundred Years of Solitude, or Destination of man kind?
Review: Far from being a novel yet a bible in the context of human history, this book tells much to all man kind. Once you finish the book, you would realize you're always alone even if you're living in a metropolis.

The book is a story of a family who has lived in Macondo for about hundred years. The family started with mischief, which prevailed the fate of the family. But the family and Macondo vanished from the Earth when a baby was born with a pig tail.

Bible tells about God's love towards human being; the book tells about the life of people who were deserted from God. Bible says about the Judgement of man kind; the book says about the suffering of deserted people. Bible is the promise of the uncertain salavation and Second Advent of Christ; the book is the story about the fate of deserted people who should suffer solitude even after dying.

If you couldn't help but feel lonely, this book tells you why.

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: The best book I've ever read
Review: To be honest, this is the best book I've ever read. Like "The Lord of the Rings", it houses a whole world within itself. It is a bit like "realistic" fantasy, or true sci-fi. It's also like the best wine, if you come to love it, you'll never understand how so many people prefer CocaCola.
When I first read it, in spanish, I couldn't help having it in my pocket, just to re-read it, for over one month after I had finished it. The music and the rhythm of the prose is untranslatable into english, but the fable and the feeling, that brand new world, is truly unique.
Try it, if you can enjoy something different.

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Summary: look, have any of you actually written a paper on this book?
Review: well I have, and this book has got to be one of the stupidest things I have ever tried to write about. It is basically about nothing, and I had to write about that for a school paper! you would hate it too if you had to write about it for a flippin' school paper! Really, need I say more? I bet the people who loved it never had to write an essay about Amaranta's repeated refusal of love, and in about a week! Just ask everyone who's a junior at my school! It is a torture manual! Far too beastly a book to be dealt with, even for most english majors and teachers!
I give it two stars because it has more substance than the stuff Allende and Amado put out.

Rating:
Summary: It takes another hundred years to read this book...
Review: I read a lot of books and I read them quickly...classics, NY Times best sellers, etc. But this book pretty much stopped me in my tracks. It took an unprecidented MONTH to read and understand this book. I was constantly rereading pages because the characters are so numerous and their names so similiar that I could not keep track of them. I nearly quit reading the book a few times. Magical realism is definately an acquired taste which is why I had to read it twice before I decided I liked it. And I liked it A LOT! Definately read it once, everyone should. Then go ahead and read it again because it really takes two readings to figure out the many different plots and characters. I promise its worth it!

Now I'm going to go and start reading Love in the Time of Cholera.


Rating:
Summary: tough read
Review: This is a tough read. I almost gave up at several points. The reason is that the writing is "train of thought". The is little organization and it is quite hard to keep track of things.

There is not much of a plot. You might call this book just several hundred pages of rambling.

But in the end, I felt rewarded by reading it. I'm not sure why, but I did.

Rating:
Summary: Zzzz ...
Review: One hundred years of characters and you won't care about one. This novel is overloaded with characters, but I didn't feel much of anything for any of them. It lacks focus, and failed to make me care about anything that happened in the story.

Rating:
Summary: Is It Fair To Strangle the Guy Who Called this 'Aimless'?
Review: Absolutely.

This, in my mind, is one of the greatest accomplishments in South American literary history, and perhaps some of the greatest of the past century period.

Nothing in this novel is in there just to be in there. I've read this book 3 times, every time more is unlocked and the seemingly random points of the book suddenly connect, and then they landslide into further amazing ideas and meanings, and I can honestly say that no book since the Bible has this many honest life lessons and profound meaning.

No word is wasted, and every letter sets you one step closer to unlocking this treasure of a novel hidden at the center of a forest of imagery. I read this book for school, wrote an essay on it, discussed it with friends, and read it again, and then I was so fascinated with it that I read it again. The story is captivating, the cycles of life the handling of time are simply so profound I cannot believe that this all came from one man. I thank you, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, for writing quite possibly, my favorite novel of all time. I could only imagine it's brilliance in its native Spanish. Much like Naruda, each reading unlocks even more beautiful subtleties and spectacular connections to modern life.

So, in conclusion, if you have any curiosity, entertain it and pick up this novel. Please ignore the dissenters about this book, read it for yourself and decide.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but not as good as "Love in the Time of Cholera"
Review: Yes, this is a seriously engaging book, and as far as the style of "magical realism" goes - this one has it ALL. However, even though I enjoyed reading it and could not leave it alone for any long periods of time, I was still a bit disappointed by this family-saga classic, and I must admit I am much more fond of Marquez' "Love in the Time of Cholera".

I found it a pretty easy read, and that might actually be part of the problem - I feel it is actually too easy...Most aspects of the story, including the people and all their thoughts and feelings, are almost "over-explained", which does not leave the characters with any mysteries. I almost felt cheated out of my desire to ponder their personalities, thoughts and actions - perhaps with the exception of Remedios the Beauty, where the author resists the urge to dissect her interior emotions.

As a sidenote, I kept referring to the family chart in the beginning of the book quite often. Some readers have complained that the book is hard to follow due to all the similar names in the family tree that appear with regular intervals in the different generations. When I state that the story is too "easy" I am mainly referring to the portrayals of the charcters and not Marquez' elaborate construction of generational relationships.

Overall, I liked the descriptions of the town, landscapes and scenery the best since Marquez left me something for my own imagination.

In conclusion, I liked the book, but I did not love it.

Rating:
Summary: Creative but boring and aimless
Review: Though this story was written in a unique voice, it is not the great classic that everyone claims it is. It often wandered and was full of characters who's personality and dialogue (not to mention names) were all so similar that you could hardly tell them apart.
Let's be honest, it's only trendy to read this right now because it was featured on Oprah's Book Club. Don't believe the hype.