Rating: 
Summary: This is not here
Review: 'One Hundred Years Of Solitude' is a fascinating book, full of symbols and allusions, a book that is easy to read and the strange and fragile surreality of which is truly outstanding.However, there is quite a huge number of people who dislike it - and after reading some negative reviews I think I might have understood why it's like that. First of all, many object to the immoral things described in the book (especially incest). I myself don't read exclusively books by authors whose morals I agree with, but I understand that can differ. That is not the case with the second possible reason for people disliking this novel, however - and the reason is: people try to find traditional characters and a traditional storyline in the book. That is, naturally, impossible, because Marquez is very much of a postmodernist - thus there are no characters you can 'care for' and no real plot to follow - because these things simply do not matter, they have little or nothing to do with the meaning, the essence of the book. The main character of modern novels is usually an individual who doesn't fit in with the world, and Marquez certainly stretches the concept of that - in this case, the individual is the whole family. It matters not what each of the characters says, feels or does, because all the events are not meant to illustrate the characters' life, but rather the whole family's life - that is emphasized by the fact the names in the family as well as whole scenes from the family history continuously repeat in the novel. Marquez destroys the barriers of time, no such thing exists for him, everything was meant to happen long before it happened and thus time has no meaning, he freely moves events and characters in time, it seems. In other words, the whole book is not a history of a family - it is a history of an individual, really (you can see the birth of the family, its childhood, youth etc. and then death) or - perhaps - even the whole civilization (many classical themes have been used - from the Bible, for example). Marquez's language is immensely interesting - it is lively and changes throughout the book. He is also extremely good at exploring seemingly insignificant details (they can usually be taken as symbols - for example, butterflies have long been considered the symbol of the short life of happiness). Another thing that cannot be left unmentioned is the truly mesmerizing way he merges the real with the unreal, thus rising a question - what IS real? I think 'One Hundred Years Of Solitude' is one of the most important novels in the history of literature. It is open to interpretations - and if you are willing to try, you will find very much in this book.
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Summary: One of the landmark works of literature of the 20th century
Review: This remarkable novel had been on my "Must Read Soon" list for nearly twenty years, and with some shame I admit that I only recently got around to it. What a stunning masterpiece this is! I had read LOVE IN A TIME OF CHOLERA shortly after it appeared in English translation, and enjoyed it immensely, but as excellent as that was, it in no way prepared me for this amazing book. García Márquez's virtuosity is apparent on every page, assembling a vast array of improbable and unusual elements and blending them together to produce something utterly unique. He reminds me of those jugglers in a circus who spin plates on sticks, balancing them on every conceivable part of their body. García Márquez brings in such disparate elements that one can't imagine that he will manage to be able to keep all his plates up in the air. Remarkably, he does. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE is the novel we most frequently associate with Magical Realism. It is impossible to think of this book without referring to "magic," but the magic has as much to do with García Márquez's astonishing mastery of his material as it does with the extraordinary events that occur in the novel. In the hands of a lesser writer, this could have been a dreadful novel. Even a very good writer could be given a Cliff Notes summary of the book, and be asked to produce their own version, and produce a literary horror. The material is difficult, but García Márquez works it with a phenomenally deft touch, crafting it as superbly as Colonel Aureliano does his tiny gold fish. What is as unlikely is the way that he continuously introduces one supernatural element-a woman ascending to heaven while folding sheets, four years of rain followed by ten years of drought, a woman so sensual that her lovemaking causes livestock to reproduce at an usually fecund pace, a priest who levitates when drinking hot chocolate-after another without each new miracle seeming stale or losing its effect. The novel differs from most modern novels in that it does not contain in depth analyses of the characters. In fact, the characters aren't in general realistic characters at all. They function more like archetypes, and are sharply divided by gender. Men tend to act in the public arena, while women are guardians of the home and have it as their realm of influence. But not even the more fully drawn characters in the novel, such as Colonel Aureliano or his mother Ursula, emerge as full blown characters as in most serious novels in the 20th century. Nor is there a tightly constructed plot. Rather, the novel consists of a series of remarkable, fantastical collection of events and characters centered on a particular South American town. Some readers I know who want in depth, realistic characters have found the novel disappointing. But I have trouble accepting that a novel can take only one form. One could easily make the case that this is the most influential novel of the past forty years. It has had a profound influence not only in the Latin American world, but on writers in virtually every culture in the world. It has achieved a remarkable success in countries as disparate as Japan, Russia, the United States, and the various European nations. It is widely read in Africa and has been embraced in the Arab world as a modern day version of the Arabian Nights. The novel enjoys as close as one can find to universal appeal of any work of the past half century. My belief is that its success is merited and that it is one of the most remarkable novels that one can find.
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Summary: best book ever written!
Review: read it and you will know why!
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Ever
Review: Gabriel Garcia Marquez has written many interesting and beautiful books about his native Colombia. This is, pardon the expression, the granddaddy of them all. It tells the story of the Buendia family who left a town near the coast and traveled through the mountains to found the town of Macondo in the interior of the country. The plot tells the story of several generations of the family and chronicles, in an almost off-hand way, the revolutions/civil wars that plagued Colombia throughout its history, the amazements of invention and technology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the strength and drama of family, and of course the romance in life. If this is the first Garcia book you read, it will take some time to get used to the book. The characters have similar names, and the story twists and turns through time, going back and forth almost at will. The characters and the author all accept magical events as commonplace. A few of the deeper thoughts may be difficult to understand; I know there were some sentences that were too deep for me. But, above all, you will be charmed by the beautiful writing, engrossed by the plot and in love with the world that Garcia creates.
Rating: 
Summary: Unforgettable characters, beautiful prose
Review: This is a very difficult book to review. It is universally regarded as a classic, probably deservedly, but that does not mean that I liked everything about it. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a fantastic storyteller and writes some of the best prose that I have ever read (I'm referring to the English translation, of course; he is supposed to be even better in his native Spanish). I echo the views of another reviewer when I say that this is a tremendously rewarding book if you have a lot of time and energy to put into it. However, if you plan to stretch this book out over two weeks or so, the rewards will be significantly less. This is probably true with all literature, but especially so with this one, as it is easy to mix characters up and get lost in the many intricate personal stories that make up the book. The book traces the history of one Columbian village (Macondo), and one family (the Buendia family) within that village, over five generations. At the beginning, the town is almost like a tropical utopia cut off from the rest of the world. It is pointed out that nobody has ever died in the village. In reality, that is because the town was founded only a couple of years ago, but the irony is clear. Over time, however, the town's isolation is eroded by the intrusion of the state, the entrance of American investors, and the inevitable changes brought on by technological change. This was my favorite aspect of the book. The bulk of it, however, is less concerned with the tide of history and more concerned with the inner lives (solitude) of it's characters. This did not work quite as well for me, but that is just due to my personal preferences. Much of it, though, is that I did not really care for most of the characters. Indeed, many of them are downright detestable. About the only member of the Buendia family I could really sympathize with was the matriarch of the family, Ursula. And there are too many instances of characters doing things for no apparent reason. There are two separate occasions in the book in which a young woman shuts herself off from the world for the rest of her life after her husband/lover dies, although it is not clear from the book why she should choose such a drastic route. One of the most important characters spends the prime of his life fighting the government as a leftist guerilla, although he never once seems to voice any political opinion whatsoever. Most of the characters spend the majority of their time in quiet (surprise!) solitude, brooding in their rooms as their lives waste away. Marquez does have some good things to say about nostalgia and difficulty of recounting the past. And many of the stories in the book are delightful. In fact, most of the secondary characters, those outside of the Buendia family, are wonderful. I kept wishing that Marquez would talk more about them and less about his protagonists. In general, I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking a good story, and those who like reading about people's inner lives. If you a few free days to truly dedicate yourself to this book, you will not be able to forget it.
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Summary: More real than history
Review: These 100 years in Macondo are some how more magically real than real history, and as mythical as the Bible. With 5 Arcadio's, and 22 Aurelianos, there is so much "family history" that the names become confusing ... but this helps create the feeling of dynasty, of repetition, and the inseparability of past, present and future. ... "The first of line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by ants". Colonel Aureliano Buendias endless melting and creating his gold fishes also highlights this cycle and the interplay of memory and forgetting. Full of sensuous smells as Melquiades' laboratory, tastes as Rebecca's mud, and delightful colors as Mauricio's yellow butterflies the book can be intoxicating. The interplay of reality, fantasy, and magic made for a remarkable read!
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Summary: This is the best book I have ever read
Review: Where to start? Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a genius. This is absolutely the finest novel I have EVER read. I keep rereading it because I like it so much. It must be known that I am usually an objective, discerning reader. I don't call many books "great," but in this case I have no proper words for the quality of this novel. Thank you, Mr. Marquez, for giving us such a beautiful piece of literature!
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Summary: I'm sure I'm not the only one
Review: Suffice it to say, there are surely enough glorifying reviews of this novel to choke a donkey. But one more can't hurt at this point. I first read this novel for a class, ripping out the family tree to use as a bookmark so I wouldn't lose track of which Aureliano or Jose Arcadio I was reading about. It is very interesting to read a book with such a broad scope with a group of people available for discussion throughout. It is safe to say that there are few themes this novel leaves out. Love, hate, religion, revenge, progress... life literally oozes out of this book at every page. There wake of the story drags you along behind it long after you finish the final page. And Garcia is one of those authors who inspires us to ask after each sentence, "How the heck did he come up with this?" Easily one of the best novels of the twentieth century that I have read, and one that, at the very least, inspires us to see the beauty and the magic that resides in the world, to seek it out and love it.
Rating: 
Summary: Confusion. Intrepidation. Asphyxiation.
Review: In what appears to be a stab at Western values this Prize winning author has created a confusing mess. Many people take this book and wade through it seeking some sort of enlightenment from such a prestigious work (Nobel Prize 1982). When, in reality, this book is a sophomoric slap at US and Western European anti-communist policies of the Cold War. I am not saying the Western policies were sound, but I will say that communism and the system it supported have been proven to be morally bankrupt and fiscally unsound. Perhaps the politics of the time pushed the Nobel Committee into giving an award that could have been given elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not great.
Review: Honestly i cant really see why this book in particular is so great as to deserve a nobel prize, just this book at least. I havnt read any of the authors other works, which may be a little more deserving. Anyhow, the book is genuinely origional. The idea of a story that goes through a whole family's rise and fall was great, the repetiton of names, however much it was needed for the underlying ideology of the story, got to be a little too much for me to bear though, bordering on annoyance. The book itself never really drew me into it either, too many parts of it read like a history textbook, by the time the last few chapters rolled around I was just reading to finish it up, desperately hoping for something to save it, and the ending, however meaningful, was too little too late. The book did have its moments, dont get me wrong, but for me the cons too much outwieghed the pros.
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