Title: One Hundred Years of Solitude
Author: Gabriel García Márquez
Pages: 416
Finished: June 18, 2019
First Sentence: Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
Summary: This is the story of the Buendía family and their surrounding town of Macondo from around 1850 to 1950. Honestly, trying to summarize it is rough. It's a story that follows each generation of family from the first to the last of the lineage. We the readers see how the family makes the same mistakes over and over and over again. And we see the town prosper and fall. All while floating on a lyrical narrative.
Thoughts: This was a weird experience. I found myself drawn to the book even as I disliked the characters. The writing was just fascinating. Like reading poetry in prose form. And yet, the narrator was fairly objective. So even as I was reading all these things that were extremely distasteful, the objectivity from the author just made them another fact of life. It was a very strange experience. Like I was floating down a river or something.
The book itself is a bit of a project to get through. There's a family tree that I kept referring back to because woah boy. Every boy is named either Jose Arcadio or Aureliano. The other thing that was really interesting was how Márquez played with time. Often he'd start with something in the present, then jump back to the past, then maybe even to the future before going back to the present. It certainly kept my brain going. (Even more fun, I was reading this at a rate of a chapter a day and concurrently reading Barnaby Rudge at the rate of two chapters a day... Lots and lots of words.)
The book takes place during a time of great civil unrest in Colombia. While I didn't know the history, I didn't find it too difficult to keep track of what was happening in the book. Afterwards, when I did find out the history, I was able to fit things in better. That being said, the magical realism almost helped place this book OUT of time.
Characterwise... well. What I found interesting was that each character started as a decent blank slate. I'd want to like them, because usually you do, but then they'd do what they do. And each generation got worse and worse. And yet, I kept reading because of that objectivity that I had mentioned. The incest, the dubious consensual intercourse, the religious zealousness from one character, it was all really stuff that I don't like reading about. Yet the objective narrator made it bearable in some way.
I'm ashamed it took me so long to read this. I thought this was the book I tried to read my senior year of high school, but I don't remember any of this, so I'm betting that was Love in a Time of Cholera. Either way, people talk about how much they hate Gabriel García Márquez, and I put it off out of fear. I'm glad I read it. I likely won't ever read it again, but it was a profound reading experience.
This books counts for A Novel from the Americas in Back to the Classics AND it knocks another book off my Classics Club list! Also, a shoutout to Joel from I Would Rather be Reading who inspired me to read it this month.
The book itself is a bit of a project to get through. There's a family tree that I kept referring back to because woah boy. Every boy is named either Jose Arcadio or Aureliano. The other thing that was really interesting was how Márquez played with time. Often he'd start with something in the present, then jump back to the past, then maybe even to the future before going back to the present. It certainly kept my brain going. (Even more fun, I was reading this at a rate of a chapter a day and concurrently reading Barnaby Rudge at the rate of two chapters a day... Lots and lots of words.)
The book takes place during a time of great civil unrest in Colombia. While I didn't know the history, I didn't find it too difficult to keep track of what was happening in the book. Afterwards, when I did find out the history, I was able to fit things in better. That being said, the magical realism almost helped place this book OUT of time.
Characterwise... well. What I found interesting was that each character started as a decent blank slate. I'd want to like them, because usually you do, but then they'd do what they do. And each generation got worse and worse. And yet, I kept reading because of that objectivity that I had mentioned. The incest, the dubious consensual intercourse, the religious zealousness from one character, it was all really stuff that I don't like reading about. Yet the objective narrator made it bearable in some way.
I'm ashamed it took me so long to read this. I thought this was the book I tried to read my senior year of high school, but I don't remember any of this, so I'm betting that was Love in a Time of Cholera. Either way, people talk about how much they hate Gabriel García Márquez, and I put it off out of fear. I'm glad I read it. I likely won't ever read it again, but it was a profound reading experience.
This books counts for A Novel from the Americas in Back to the Classics AND it knocks another book off my Classics Club list! Also, a shoutout to Joel from I Would Rather be Reading who inspired me to read it this month.
Thank you so much for the shoutout! I'm nearly done with it, and I agree with a lot of your points. The names nearly drove me crazy! The writing often felt like poetry. and I was compelled to keep reading despite the horrendous actions of the characters. I loved the magical realism, while the jumping back and forth in time made everything feel so surreal. I think you would love his short stories, some of them felt like works of sheer genius. I'm nearly done with this book and should have my review up in about a week.
ReplyDeleteI read this for the Back to the Classics Challenge too and am ambivalent about it. You compare the experience to floating down a river. I agree, though I found the experience a little monotonous. The terrible things that happen have the same weight has the not so terrible events. But glad to have read it none the less!
ReplyDeleteAmbivalent is a good word for it. I know I can chalk this up to one of the more bizarre reading experiences I've ever had.
DeleteGreat explanation of this one! OYS is very surreal. I read it several years ago, and it felt like I was looking at a Frida Kahlo painting. In 2020, I'm doing a read along of this book w/ another book blogger -- to have a better understanding of it -- to pay deeper attention, if that's possible. LOL!!
ReplyDeleteI'm doing the read along with Ruth. I'm excited about it, and hopefully I can help shape your nebulous experience, or explain that's what Marquez so deftly wants us to feel. Like Rushdie in Midnight Children, the effect of the story is what they feel as living in their tumultuous countries.
ReplyDeleteColombia repeats its history. Families can't break their problems, they inherit them. At one point, both books get monotonous, specially Midnight Children once it gets in the war years. And both writers write about distasteful stuff, both give that ugliness the status of poetry. They dignify and make sense of the ugly, immoral and mundane. I thank them for being able to share India and Colombia for us, and telling us those hard truthts but in such a redeemable vehicle that is literature.
No wonder they are up there with Dickens, Tolstoy, Cervantes, etc.
It hurts me to hear he's hated. Those who hate him probably tried his long books. If only I could beg them to read ANY of the short ones, they would see his amazing quality and talent.
ReplyDeleteLatin culture is more sensual, he can't help but writing about what he sees and lives. It's so opposite to the Protestant tradition. Same with Cervantes and Rushdie.
I think it's the same reason that people don't enjoy reading Dickens or most other classics. It's a level of reading that's honestly difficult if you're out of practice or haven't ever been in practice. It's difficult to learn. And how they teach it in high school turns a lot of kids off from ever continuing. It also doesn't help that in the US at least, people seem to be reading below their level more and more than before.
DeleteI agree with you, Allison. I still believe that for the youth, shorter books work better. I don't know, cause I also was scared of Ethan Frome because of the comments some made if having read it in high school.
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