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Summary: Good, but overrated work of fiction
Review: To read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's masterwork is to confront one's demons and one's devices in a monumentally singular reading experience. What does that mean? I have no idea, but I thought it sounded good when I wrote it.
Seriously though, you could do worse than to read this book. Although, it is overrated, and at times, you will think it is pretentiously boring. Still, there were enough good stretches of narrative beauty to overtake the sometimes tiresome ponderousness of the story.
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Summary: Not for chickens
Review: This book is not for those who only loved the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. No, this one's for the strong individual. If you have trouble living outside the block - don't touch this one. This one will take you through a journey, with a family through a period of hundred years. The characters are real,raw,blooded,bold,beautiful-people as they should've been before the great civilizations marred our brains with less significant worries. This one is a fantasy with characters you're only dreamed of , if ever. I would recommend it to those who have done a great deal of reading already and not someone checking out on some classics. -Proma Ray,Atlanta
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Summary: read this book
Review: This is a wonderful book, the author is so creative. Its so nice to read a book and get lost in a fantasy world.
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Summary: Fairy Tale for Adults
Review: To me, Gabriel Garcia Marquez' brilliant One Hundred Years of Solitude is best classified as a fairy tale for adults: after all, what is magical realism (which critics have tagged as Marquez' style) but an attempt to take magical fairy tale elements and make them seem real to adults?But whatever you want to call it, One Hundred Years of Solitude has earned the prestige that the decades have bestowed upon it. All the elements of a great story are in it: love, passion, hope, tragedy, hope out of tragedy, and finally the affirmation of life's goodwill. The village of Macondo, and the Buendias family that founded, defined, affected, cursed, and charmed it, are in a way a world where all human emotion and meaning coexist or do battle. The power of their passions live on after the deaths of some of their characters in this beautiful dream-logic universe. One warning: there may be confusion when it comes to the characters' names. There are multiple Jose Aurelianos and Remedios, among others. Fortunately, there's a geneaology chart at the beginning of the book to help you along. In any event, don't let the first few chapters intimidate you. It does all make sense, magical sense, in the long run. Rocco Dormarunno, author of The Five Points
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Summary: Common Elements of Humans are Torment and Solitude
Review: And this book discussed this in great detail over a whole town over many many many years. This book is poetry. It is wonderfully written (and translated)and beautiful. It wasn't difficult to read like some books and really kept me going. I'm really interested in checking out some of Garcia's other works. This story is definelty *not* for the humanist or the easily depressed. There is a lot of sorrow and torment throughout this whole novel. I found I had to stop reading when I got to the part about the Italian man who commited suicide because the love of his life refused to *ever* marry him, even though she loved him and her denial was just a weird game of torment she was playing with him. My explaining it does not do that part justice. It was truly sad... and I had to stop reading right there. I recommend this book to everyone. It is a wonderful books to start expanding your horizons away from al ot of the pulp novels and mass market paperbacks with nothing learned and nothing gained. This books will teach you a lot about our secret condition.
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Summary: So, what's the big deal?
Review: This is without a doubt one of the top 20th century novels, and as such, very much has been written about it. Some clasify it as an epic, while others try and find all the symbolism and deep meaning behind the story of Macondo and the Buendía family. Let me just say that more than a great novelist, García Marquez is a great observer. As a colombian, I can honestly say that the events depicted in this well written novel are not as far away from our reality as might seem at first. Things like the ones descibed here do happen in small "conteño" (from the coast) towns throughout Latinamerica in general. I am sure that for quite some time Gabo had a laugh at the expense of all who searched for the real and inner meaning of Cien Años de Soledad, and who wrote innumerable pages full of interpretations. This book is simply the story of a town as told by a grandmother to her grandson. You either love this book or you hate it, and if you hate it, it's because your world is too small and simple and you do not have the imagination it takes to understand this as an account of my "bananero" country's reality. Do not miss this book.
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Summary: adds to your own experience
Review: There's something very hard to explain about this book. It can be very confusing at times, with the names of the characters, and very slow at times, when you get bogged down in events and wonder what significance they could possibly have. But by the end, something very emotional emerged in my reaction, something that made me very happy to be alive. This is a wonderful book.
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Summary: Feed your mind
Review: The brilliant prose and mind of Gabriel Garcia Marquez is summed up neatly in this tome about a historical city and its inhabitants. Perhaps the finest example of magic realism in the novel form, this book is filled with brilliant and wonderfully evocative events and ideas. If you can get past the endless Buendia's in the book with the same name, you will love it to death. Feed your mind on some real, time-worthy literature.
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Summary: What a book!
Review: But then, we expect nothing less from Marquez. I believe One Hundred Years of Solitude is his tour de force. The juxtaposition of humor, astute observation and metaphysics makes this a work that should survive far beyond Marquez and his avid readers. This one's the best of Marquez. A must read.
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Summary: One to Remember
Review: I picked this book up initially because it made a few top 100 lists and also because I had heard it favorably compared with Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children". Most of the reviews for this book are glowing and for good reason. GGM's writing style is unusual, perhaps reminiscent of Carlos Castenada and also Rushdie. Marquez uses the events and emotions of his generally shallow characters to paint a picture of human emotion and struggle. The characters are painted almost in composite rather than as a picture. Details are used not to create a complete portrait of the character or of the town but to set a mood and convey almost intangible concepts. Appreciating this work is perhaps a little like appreciating Salvador Dali's paintings. The events that occur in the town are fantastic and surreal by design. Taken at face value, the book is almost nonsensical. Read and understood perhaps more as art, as an attempt to paint a picture, the book is haunting, moving, and evocative. This is definitely one work of literature that will stretch your boundaries and stands up to any of the classics.
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