One Hundred Years of Solitude

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Summary: Tragi-Comic Masterpiece of Epic Proportions
Review: One Hundred Years of Solitude, the greatest of all Latin American novels is the magic and multi-layered epic of the Buendia family and the story of their jungle settlement, Macondo.

Like many other epics, this book has deeply-rooted connections with historical reality, i.e., the development of Colombia since its independence from Spain in the early 19th century. The story of the Buendia family is obviously a metaphor for Colombia in the neocolonial period as well as a narrative concerning the myths in Latin American history.

The finest example of magic realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a wonderfully comic novel, yet the book also exudes a pervading sense of irony; a strong undercurrent of sadness, solitude and tragic futility. The intermingling of the fantastic with the ordinary keeps readers in a state of constant anticipation, especially where the generations of Buendia men are concerned.

Some of this extraordinary novel's most important effects are achieved through the interplay of time as both linear and circular. The founding of Macondo and its narrative, for the most part, follow time in a linear sense, as does the history of the Buendia family, who form a series of figures symbolizing the particular historical period of which they are a part.

The book, however is almost obsessively circular in its outlook, as characters repeat, time and again, the experience of earlier generations. The book's fatalism is underscored by this circular sense of time. Even a name a person is given at birth predetermines his or her life and manner of death, e.g., the Aurelianos were all lucid, solitary figures, while the Jose Arcadios were energetic and enterprising, albeit tragic.

The characters in One Hundred Years of Solitude represent the purest archetypes; they are two dimensional and are used to convey certain thematic points. This enhances the beauty of the novel rather than detracting from it, for One Hundred Years of Solitude is thematic and metaphorical in nature rather than psychological.

The male figures are obsessive, and full of ambitious projects and passionate sexuality. They are, however, given to extreme anger, irrational violence and long periods of self-imposed solitude.

The female characters also lend themselves to categorization. With the exception of the Remedios, the women in the book exhibit either common sense and determination or passionate eroticism. But while the men are dreamy and irrational, the women are firmly rooted in reality. Both sexes, however, embody a similar fatal flaw; they lack the ability to relate to the world outside of Macondo. They fall victim to their own constructions, plunging them into a harsh and long-lasting solitude.

Macondo is fated to end the moment one of its inhabitants deciphers Melquiades the Gypsy's manuscripts regarding the town's history. In a sense, however, Macondo does survive. One of the few who take the advice of the Catalan bookseller and leave the town before its destruction is Gabriel Garcia Marquez, himself, who escapes with the complete works of Rabelais.

This self-referential ending, pointing to the world beyond Macondo from which Garcia Marquez is telling the story tells us that whatever life is to be lived in Latin America should not be the magic but self-defeating experience of the Buendias, but rather an ever-widening life of learning and moving on; the development of an awareness of doing what each situation requires.

Garcia Marquez is more than a Nobel Prize winning author. He is a magician par excellence; someone whose unique ability to produce a magical realm where anything is possible and everything is believable is unrivaled. This is the overwhelming reason why this dazzling masterpiece does, and will continue to attract, convince and hypnotize readers for decades to come.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Novel...But Not a Favorite
Review: Although I liked some aspects of One Hundred Years of Solitude, I do have some bones to pick with it.

For one, I don't like the way Marquez tells the story. It is not in chronological order. To be honest this isn't my favorite way of telling a story but that isn't the worst part. What really bugs me about it is the fact that he spoils his future events. Not by foreshadowing but by blatantly telling you what will happen later in the story.

Another problem is his sentence structure. Some of them were quite long. I like highly expressive writing styles and complicated sentences, but Marquez does it all wrong. There was one particular one that started more than half way up page 348 and ended at almost the bottom of page 350. Now call me cynical, but that sentence was pretty much a short story in itself. Needless to say I didn't like his sentence structure. (I highly doubt that this extremely long sentence was made with the translation since Marquez complimented Rabassa on his work and even said he preferred the English version of his novel.)

I must say I did enjoy the actual story and the message that Marquez was giving. He was very symbolic and I liked that part of the novel.

In all I think that One Hundred Years of Solitude was good but not the best. If you're curious about my favorite novel, here it is: the unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

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Summary: A magnificent tale
Review: There are not enough words to describe Gabriel Marquez's book. It belongs in a category by itself. Not only is the story of Macondo comic and tragic, but Marquez's description of the story, makes you go to another place. I'm glad the translator had a family tree, because I wouldn't have a clue of what was going on.

A must-read. You won't regret it.

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Summary: Apocalyptic genesis...
Review: ...And magically real. Starting within the end, while terminating where it begins, the legend of the imaginary-and-mega-tangible village of Macondo (a.k.a. One Hundred Years of Solitude) is nothing but the consummate story of humanity and the world, with a certain-whatever (un)established civilisation in between... The saga of the descendants of José Arcadio Buendía, in (perhaps foregoing) and proceeding generations, is one and all, all in one, framed in a scenario where everything exists - though that is yet to be discovered. Within the indefinite and everlasting countless José Arcadio(s) and Aureliano(s) (fill in the blank, or count them if you will), or Úrsula(s) and Remedios(es), lies the completeness of a novel as universal as night and day, where anyone can relate to anything - and where there are no boundaries between the real and the fantastic, solitude abounding.

Woven by tales which repeat themselves all over again, endlessly, the grandiosity in this particular work by the finest writer Latin America has ever delivered lies in the very (post)structure of its own textuality, in its own deconstruction, in its own simulation. García Márquez's Buendía network in the unfolding Macondo extends its representation to that of one hundred years of existence, wherever and whenever and whatever and whomever and however, while it recollects and reassembles the general wonder, sorrow, celebration, disgrace, ecstasy, stigma, and amazement that we refer to as life (but don't forget that, like in the novel, if it lacks a name due to its being too recent, you can grant it one by pointing at it).

To put it in a few words, whether or not you're Ursula or José Arcadio, or Aureliano or Remedios, a bit of each one or all of them at once, One Hundred Years of Solitude is your story and that of your environs, of your passions and emotions - the story instructing the outburst of being able to start all over again, of living one hundred years in the company of a novel so delightful which could be read way over one hundred times per life...

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Summary: An unsurpassable masterwork!
Review: One hundred years of solitude is a surreal, epic tale that focuses on the Buendia family and the fictional village of Macondo which the Buendia founded. More than a real place, Macondo represents the paradigm of solitude. Its inhabitants (and the Buendia in particular) are bound to be lone... As the story unfolds we learn more about the various buendias (many generations follow one another) and their adventures/troubles. In fact they are all the same, they behave much in the same way (they even have got the same names as to underline this continuity) and eventually they are all destined to feel an enormous solitude...

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Summary: Vacation from reality
Review: Garcia-Marquez is my favorite autor and "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is a wonderful book, one that should be read by every intelligent reader. He deftly suspends the laws of reality and takes you to a world that will leave you with the feeling that you have just returned from a rejuvenating vacation. This book is not to be missed. The writing is at once mystical and cathartic, and it will leave you breathless.

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Summary: a seminal work
Review: I think I experienced the ultimate reading sensation when approaching this book. I had just come back from Spain and my Spanish was pretty good, so I decided to read it in English and Spanish at the same time. Since there was no facing page edition (like Pinsky's Inferno translation of Dante which is the best of both possible worlds), I had to buy a Spanish copy and an English copy. For the first half, I read the English first and then the Spanish chapters, but for the latter half, I was warmed up enough to read the Spanish chapter first and then the English. The effort is well worth it in any language. Rabassa (a Dartmouth alum, my alma mater) is a great translator and does justice to this magnificant work. The reader who said that he dogeared the genealogy page is correct -- once you can keep the different generations straight, you are well on your way to being drawn into the magical world. Not only is it a great novel in its own right, it's mandatory reading because so many authors (and not just Latin American ones) use his magic realism style. Some of my personal favorite authors like Murakami and Jonathan Carroll borrow liberally from this style, sometimes not even consciously. Marquez paved the way for scores of Latin American writers, put Latin American literature on the map and influenced huge numbers of other writers as well. I loved every moment of the experience of reading this book -- the ending is so shockingly good that it's worth committing the last page to memory.

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Summary: A bewitching, enchanting journey
Review: 'One hundred Years of Solitude' is not an easy book, make no mistake about it. Or at least it is not an easy book to begin with. However, its mellifluous, dreamlike narrative, and touching appreciation of so many facets of human nature seep into the subconscious as the story of Macondo's existence unfolds, and I defy anyone to put it down if he or she is patient enough to read the first hundred pages or so.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez has created a miniature world in which the inhabitants seem to be afflicted by all the horrors of human society at the same time. The novel is crammed full of so much magical imagery that at times it seems like there is nothing more that the author could have put in, yet the focus is incredibly narrow, concentrating almost exclusively on the fortunes of one incredible family.

Ultimately, as Marquez doubtlessly intended, the reader emerges from the final pages as if from a slightly surreal, yet utterly fascinating dream; to adequately describe a century-worth of history in under 350 pages may seem like an impossible feat, but the author does just that and more at the denouement, by entirely subverting all that has gone before.

This book is essential reading for anyone with even the slightest interest in mythology, history, sociology or just good old-fashioned story-telling.

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Summary: A masterpiece. Classic
Review: The beginning of the book contains a family tree of the Buendia family, and if you're like me you'll surely mangle and dog-ear this page as you work your way though the book, trying to keep track of the Aurelianos, Remedios, and Ursulas.

But the struggle is worth it. This was truly the great novel that Garcia Marquez was meant to write; to me everything of Marquez that followed seems like recycled material. I first read One Hundred Years of Solitude years ago before moving to Latin America. Now that I here and have read it again, many of the messages that before were inaccessible now reveal themselves. The Story of Macondo is the story of Colombia and, to a larger extent, of Latin America. The reviewers tell us this, but it is amazing to see it with my own eyes.

The literal and the fantastic are interwoven with a seamlessness that amazes. One compares his style with Kafka before and Kundera after, literary voice established in this novel has withstood the test of time. It remains unique.

The book is at once funny, sad, tragic; it's history and fantasy. But overall it is a marvelous read. Clearly one of my all time favorites. There are very few books that I recommend as highly as this one. A true classic.

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Summary: Hooked by the Book
Review: I've often heard that authors have to hook the reader within the first ten pages or else. This is the first book that ever hooked me in the first sentence. A great story told by a master teller with a wonderful translator. I only wish I read Spanish so that I might experience this novel in its original form. Garcia Marquez is the only writer whom I've read who could pull off "magical realism". This is Garcia Marquez's finest book.