Rating: 
Summary: Struggling
Review: I agree with the other reviewers that say this book is tedious and much overrated. I read quite a bit, and I usually enjoy everything I read. However, I just cannot get in to this book. Yes, it is rambling, confusing, and all those other adjectives someone else used. But I don't want rambling and confusing. I don't want to be spoon fed, but it would be nice if there were an identifiable path for the book. I wonder how much is lost in the English translation, and if it would be a much better read in its native language. I am a few hundred pages into the book. I'll keep reading -- and keep hoping that it improves.
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely perfect!
Review: This book is an absolutely perfect example of Marquez' talent. One of my favorite books, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" conatins the secrets of life and heaven and should be required reading for every person on the planet. I can't praise this book enough. If you can't buy it, borrow it from the library.
Rating:
Summary: The best book ever
Review: This was really the best book I ever read. The non-standard use of time and space concepts is amazing. I read it in two languages (both translated) and I started to study Spanish just to read this book in original. Everytime I read this book it gives me a completely different view.
Rating:
Summary: Read this book. You'll be a better person for it.
Review: I don't want to spend time explaining the plots or merits of this book. I couldn't do them justice anyway. I just want anyone out there who hasn't read this book to know that it would be an absolute travesty to die having never read it. I've read it three times in English and once in Spanish and I never once got tired of it. I have a bachelor's degree in Literature and will soon be atending grad school. I've read a fair amount of stuff, and this book is without comparison. I'm telling you people, READ THIS BOOK, love it, and then read it again.
Rating:
Summary: Mystical Generational Changes
Review: This epic novel is as much about non-change and having one's subconscious roots stick with them, as much as it is about the outwardly, external transformations going on in the adaptable town of Macondo. The vast interplay among genders and other relationship roles between the conservative moralist and the liberal freedom fighter, religion and science, old and young, lovers and lustful temptations, community and business, health and openness, etc define the rapid transformations that invade the sleepy hamlet of Macondo and the residents of it's original founders of the Buendias and the Arcadios. As much as men are at the center of action during war, strikes, assassinations, persecutions, scientific and geographical discovery, and the search for sexual satisfaction, women hold the core of the household and people's sanity together. It is the patience and selflessness Ursula, Pilar, Renata, and finally Fernanda exude that smoothes out the roughened edges and keeps the house remarkably intact without any significant violence breaking out, with one exception and with maintaining a self-respect for the pioneers that came before them. It is through the ineffective fallibility of the men's characterstics to repeat the mistakes of the past and eventually lead into a parochial faceted neuroticism that leads to the destruction of the last becon of fortitude in Macondo, the Buendias household. Melquiades' prophetic words reverberate in one's mind as the final victims of their complacency are diminished to death by the ravages of nature and by their resignation to complete the cyclical journey of ending peacefully one's journey at the point of one's nascent origination. One hundred years pass never to be repeated or documented and written off to the annals of history. This ending, sadly paralleled the destruction reaped upon this quaint villages through the forces of imperialist, industrial, capitalism. Losing it's connectivty and bonds led to the destruction of Macondo with such unforeseen forces only to be overwhelmed by it at the end with nothing to record the reasons for it's fall. Therefore, it was bound to repeat and repeat it did until a higher consciousness was awakened by further tragedies that would lead to the obliteration of millions of lives with WWI and WWII. The Macondo's no longer exist and innocence has been lost through years of backstabbing exploitation, but Gabriel Garcia Marquez has given us all a treasure that we can rejoice in our solitude that will balance our perspective and leave us attune to our inner peace among the rapid, stop n go, rollercoaster ride hecticness that is life. Truly a must read for anyone searching for the roots and meaning of effective balance.
Rating:
Summary: One hundred years of solitude
Review: One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece. The novel tracks the life of a family and the village it founds since its creation to its death. With a passion for inventions and progress the first Jose Arcadio Buendia creates a village and family that thrives driven by friendliness, hospitality and genuine curiosity. As the family expands however, and the years pass, this original drive is replaced by less noble ambitions. Jose Arcadio's heirs are gradually caught up by their weaknesses and relive the lives and mistakes of their ancestors. The novel would not have been such a masterpiece if Marquez had not employed a style that fitted perfectly with his goal--through magical realism, somewhat dispassionate and cyclical storytelling he manages to convey to the reader his main idea--that the life of the Buendias and Macondo and pretty much every human being in this world is full of tragedy and drama, hope and hapiness. It is the flow of life that makes Marquez characters stand out--yes, unknowingly they repeat the mistakes of their fathers and sometimes they recognize it, even if it is on their deathbed. But the stregth with which they continue to live and love makes them stand out. Those that do not do not leave any memory or sign of their existence.(...)
Rating:
Summary: A Week?!
Review: A friend recommended this book to me. He said "it is incredibly life-affirming." A week later, he asked if I had started it yet. "Started it?" I asked, "I just finished it yesterday." "What did you honestly think of it?" he asked eagerly. This is pretty much what I told him: This wonderfully poetic novel follows the Buendia family in a way that is at times deeply touching, terribly amusing, and genuinely tragic. The book reads like a dream: slow, circuitous, confusing, beautiful, enchanting, disturbing. I could list adjectives forever, but I won't. I'll just say that this book represented some of the best prose I have ever read. Garcia Marquez takes the reader through one hundred years with an amazing touch that makes the magic feel so real. on that note: read this book. it is well worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: No Substance
Review: "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is the story of the Buendia family and their time in the town of Macondo. The story follows the family through civil wars, encounters with gypsies, incestuous relationships and all manner of odd and magical happenings. The best thing I can say about "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is that it is an easy book to read. Marquez is a good writer from a word usage standpoint. His writing does have a ceratin musical element to it that rings in the mind. However, the question must be asked though, to what end. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is nothing more than a mystical trip. There is nothing to learn from this book nor any thing to be taken from it. It's just words for words' sake. In that I will give Marquez his due. Like I said before, he does have a musical way of writing that is as easy to speak as to read. However, there needs to be something more than that, something that can be taken away from a story more than just the pleasantness of its lyricism.
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Summary: Most overrated book of the century
Review: So if nobody understands what the heck the author is trying to say means that the book rates five stars? I think not.
Rating:
Summary: My favorite book
Review: Why is this book one of the greatest pieces of literature ever written? First, it speaks to universal truths about the human condition, independent of culture. The behaviour and motivations of the people of the mythical town of Macondo, near the Caribbean coast of Colombia, seem as familiar as those of our neighbors, wherever we live. Secondly, the work illustrates how we are fated to repeat the successes, follies, and failures of our ancestors. It makes rational the belief of the Indians of central and Sourth America concerning the circular nature of life and time. And thirdly, it is written in language so elegant that it cries out to be read again and again. I have read it four times in Spanish and three times in English, and I am sure I am not finished yet. By the way, the translation by Gregory Rabassa is a remarkable piece of literature in itself.
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