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One Hundred Years of Solitude

by Gabriel García Márquez, Gregory Rabassa (Translator)

3.87 · rating details · 235,350 ratings · 8,459 reviews

One of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world, and the ultimate achievement of a Nobel Prize winning career.

The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and...more

Hardcover, 432 pages

Published July 1st 2003 by Harper (first published 1967)

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Oct 04, 2008

brian rated it

· review of another edition

i remember the day i stopped watching cartoons: in my living room after school fully absorbed in an episode of thundercats in which a few of the cats were trapped in some kind of superbubble thing -- and it hit me that, being cartoons, the characters could just be erased and re-drawn outside the bubble. or could just fly away. or tunnel their way out. or teleport. or do whatever, really, they wanted... afterall they were lines and color in a world of lines and color. now this applies to any work...morei remember the day i stopped watching cartoons: in my living room after school fully absorbed in an episode of thundercats in which a few of the cats were trapped in some kind of superbubble thing -- and it hit me that, being cartoons, the characters could just be erased and re-drawn outside the bubble. or could just fly away. or tunnel their way out. or teleport. or do whatever, really, they wanted... afterall they were lines and color in a world of lines and color. now this applies to any work of fiction -- i mean, Cervantes could've just written Don Quixote out of any perilous situation, but it just felt different with a lowest-common-denominator cartoon. it felt that adherence to reality (reality as defined within the world of the cartoon) wasn’t a top priority.

this ended my cartoon watching days and i’ve pored over it in the years that followed: was it a severe lack or an overabundence of imagination that made it so that while all my friends were digging saturday morning cartoons i alternated between tormenting my parents and attempting to use logic to disprove the fact that everyone i knew and everyone i ever would know was gonna die?

i had a similar experience with One Hundred Years of Solitude. the first chapter is just brilliant: gypsies bring items to Macondo, a village hidden away from mass civilization by miles of swamp and mountains… these everyday items (magnets, ice, etc.) are interpreted as ‘magic’ by people who have never seen them and it forces the reader to reconfigure his/her perception of much of what s/he formerly found ordinary. amazing. and then the gypsies bring a magic carpet. a real one. one that works. and there is no distinction b/t magnets and the magic carpet. this, i guess, is magical realism. and i had a Thundercats moment. lemme explain:

the magic carpet immediately renders all that preceded it as irrelevant. are ice and magnets the same as magic carpets? what is the relation between magic and science? how can i trust and believe in a character who takes such pains to understand ice and magnets and who, using the most primitive scientific means, works day and night to discover that the earth is round -- but then will just accept that carpets can fly? or that people can instantaneously increase their body weight sevenfold by pure will? or that human blood can twist and turn through streets to find a specific person? fuck the characters, how can i trust the writer if the world is totally undefined? if people can refuse to die (and it’s not explained who or how or why): where are the stakes? if someone can make themselves weigh 1000 pounds, what can’t they do? how can i care about any situation if Garcia Marquez can simply make the persons involved sprout wings and fly away?

should the book be read as fairy-tale? as myth? as allegory? no. i don’t think it’s meant to be read solely as any of those. and i’d label anyone a fraud who tried to explain away a 500 page book as mere allegory. moreover, i don’t believe Garcia Marquez has as fertile an imagination as Borges or Cervantes or Mutis –- three chaps who, perhaps, could pull something like this off on storytelling power alone; but three chaps who, though they may dabble in this stuff, clearly define the world their characters inhabit.

so i’m at page 200. and i’m gonna try and push on. but it’s tough. do i care when someone dies when death isn’t permanent? and do i care about characters who have seen death reversed but don’t freak the fuck out (which is inconsistent with what does make them freak the fuck out) and who also continue to cry when someone dies? yes, there are some gems along the way, but i think had Solitude been structured as a large collection of interconnected short stories (kinda like a magical realism Winesberg, Ohio) it would've worked much better.

this is one of the most beloved books of all time and i’m not so arrogant (damn close) to discount the word of all these people (although I do have gothboy, DFJ, and Borges on my side -- a strong argument for or against anything), and not so blind to see the joy this brings to so many people… i fully understand it's a powerful piece of work. but i really don’t get it. and i aggressively recommend The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll to any and all who find Solitude to be the end all and be all.
(less)

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Mar 28, 2008

Adam rated it

Recommends it for: Academics and their students that are forced to read it.

Recommended to Adam by: I'd rather not say

Shelves: classics

So I know that I'm supposed to like this book because it is a classic and by the same author who wrote Love in the Time of Cholera. Unfortunately, I just think it is unbelievably boring with a jagged plot that seems interminable. Sure, the language is interesting and the first line is the stuff of University English courses. Sometimes I think books get tagged with the "classic" label because some academics read them and didn't understand and so they hailed these books as genius. These ...more

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Alfred Ahmed I don't like Samuel Beckett for instance, he's someone widely studied by English students here in the UK. I'm more than happy to admit I most probably...more
Dec 03, 2011 02:01am

Clark Zlotchew Adam, I'm an academic,(Spanish & Latin American Lit) but I agree with you on 100 years of Solitude. I also agree about the existence of the kind of a...more
Dec 04, 2011 02:24pm

Feb 09, 2008

Chris rated it

Shelves: fantasy

Huh? Wha.... Oh. Oh, man. Wow.

I had the weirdest dream.

There was this little town, right? And everybody had, like, the same two names. And there was this guy who lived under a tree and a lady who ate dirt and some other guy who just made little gold fishes all the time. And sometimes it rained and sometimes it didn't, and.... and there were fire ants everywhere, and some girl got carried off into the sky by her laundry....

Wow. That was messed up.

I ...moreHuh? Wha.... Oh. Oh, man. Wow.

I had the weirdest dream.

There was this little town, right? And everybody had, like, the same two names. And there was this guy who lived under a tree and a lady who ate dirt and some other guy who just made little gold fishes all the time. And sometimes it rained and sometimes it didn't, and.... and there were fire ants everywhere, and some girl got carried off into the sky by her laundry....

Wow. That was messed up.

I need some coffee.

That was roughly how I felt after reading this book. This is the only time I've ever read a book and thought, "This would be awesome if I was stoned."

Gabriel Garcia Marquez (which is such a fun name to say) is one of those writers that You Should Read. You get some bonus intellectual points or something, the kind of highbrow cachet that just doesn't come with Stephen King. My co-worker, and Wikipedia, say that Garcia was one of the first people to use magical realism, a style in which the fantastic and unbelievable are treated as everyday occurrences. This is certainly the case in this book, and it's part of what gives it such a dreamlike quality - Colonel Aureliano Buendia has seventeen illegitimate sons, all named Aureliano, by seventeen women, and they all come to his house on the same day. Remedios the Beauty is so beautiful that men waste away in front of her, but she doesn't even notice. The twins Aureliano Segundo and Jose Arcadio Segundo may, in fact, have switched identities when they were children, and nobody knows. In the small town of Macondo, weird things happen all the time, and nobody really notices. Or if they do notice that, for example, the town's patriarch has been living tied to a chestnut tree for the last twenty years, nobody thinks anything unusual about it.

Another element to the dreaminess is that there's really no story here. Reading this book is kind of like playing a really weird game of The Sims - it's about a family, which keeps getting bigger, and things happen to everybody. So, the narrator moves around from one character to another, giving them their moment for a little while, and then moving on to someone else, very smoothly and without much fanfare. There's very little dialogue, so the focus of the story can shift very easily, and often does. Each character has their stories, but you're not allowed to linger on anyone for very long before Garcia shows you what's happening to someone else. The result is one long, continuous narrative about this large and ultimately doomed family, wherein the Buendia family is the main character and the various family members are secondary to that.

It's certainly an interesting book, and took a while to get through. Honestly, I kept dozing off, which is very unusual for me. I think it's time for a fluff break - some simple and easy reading to cleanse my mental palate. I may try Garcia again at some point, since I know what to expect now. Just not anytime soon....(less)

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Jul 25, 2007

Kenghis Khan rated it

· review of another edition

"The book picks up not too far after Genesis left off." And this fictitious chronicle of the Buendia household in the etherial town of Macondo somewhere in Latin America does just that. Rightly hailed as a masterpiece of the 20th century, Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" will remain on the reading list of every pretentious college kid, every under-employed author, every field-worker in Latin America, and indeed should be "required reading for the entire h...more"The book picks up not too far after Genesis left off." And this fictitious chronicle of the Buendia household in the etherial town of Macondo somewhere in Latin America does just that. Rightly hailed as a masterpiece of the 20th century, Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" will remain on the reading list of every pretentious college kid, every under-employed author, every field-worker in Latin America, and indeed should be "required reading for the entire human race," as one reviewer put it a few decades back.

No review, however laconic or ponderous, can do justice to this true piece of art. Perhaps I can only hint at a few of the striking features of the work that are so novel, so insightful, and which make it such a success in my opinion.

By far and away the most inspiring element of the work is the author's tone. He reportedly self-conscioulsy wrote in the style that his grandmother back in Columbia used to tell him stories. Thus there is a conversational, meandering, but indeed succinct and perfect narrative voice to whisk the reader through the years of Macondo's fantastical history.

Not unrelatedly, the tone has ample visual imagery, with superb attention to detail (and just the right quantity and nature of the detail that surrounds everyday life) to help prod the story along. The dolls of the child-bride treasured by the mother-in-law and heroine Ursula. The paranormal and mundane contrivences of the gypsies that are celebrated in the opening pages and which close the book. The tree to which the mad genius who founded the town and Buendia line is tied and dies in. The pretentious suitcases of the returning emigre. The goldfishes that are the relicts of a disillusioned but celebrated warrior. And the ubiquitous ants. All these objects have their proper place among the daily going abouts of the Buendia family, and serve to weave into the story a sense of BOTH the ordinary and the surreal.

There is ample space in this world of Macondo and the Buendias for a sad commentary on that world South of the Rio Grande. Incessant, pointless civil wars. A rigid political and ecclesiastical hierarchy shoved down the throats of decent folk. The rampant exploitation of the tropics by outsiders, both foreign and domesitc. And perhaps most significantly, the strangely marginal and uncomfortable space occupied by technology in daily life in the Latino world. I am surely not alone in uncovering some facet of the work that speaks so boldly and loudly to me. This rich yet surprisingly elegant novel has, it seems, on every page the germinating seeds of an exciting conversation that speaks directly to an observation and experience everybody, and especially those coming to or from Latin America (or any underdeveloped nation), has had.

And of course there are the brilliant characters, and the sense one gets of how they are affected by, and in turn affect, their setting. The story is aided by a pedigree one keeps referring to in the beginning of the book, as its immense scope (yes, 100 years) and maddening array of characters demand of the reader to conjure up visualizations of what exactly is going on. It is no wonder that this work is celebrated for being almost biblical in scope.

Yes, my review can be condensed into three words: READ THIS BOOK!!! (less)

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Dec 03, 2009

Choupette rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: ab-fav, i-wish-i-own, south-american, to-be-re-read

Un petit bijou de chapitre 2:

... avec la sensation qu'il ne pouvait résister davantage à la révolte sourde et glaciale des ses reins, et à l'air qui lui ballonait le ventre, et à la peur, et au désir déraisonnable de fuir et de rester en même temps, à jamais, dans ce silence exaspéré et cette solitude épouvantable.

This book is strange. I worship it.

People often complain about it: how the magical realism is jarring, how there is not enough character development...more

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Apr 06, 2008

Mister Jones rated it

Recommends it for: Drunken frauds who see Shamans on a road during a LSD flashback

Recommended to Mister Jones by: Art and Fart Crapper

I must be missing something about this one, and whatever it is, I know it's not much.

I didn't enjoy it; I wanted it to be a fulfilling and rewarding read; I want it to be everything that everyone else said it was and then some.

So, I learned that some works aren't worth it--not worth reading, not worth the time, and not worth putting faith in what others may deem "a beautiful book."

Marquez pops characters in and out with different brief activities and...more

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Nov 22, 2010

Philip rated it

Shelves: classics, favorites

I imagine these people looking and saying, "Yes, but what does it mean?" As literary critics everywhere cringe or roll over in their clichéd graves I approach this text and review the same way. One Hundred Years of Solitude... beautiful, intriguing... but what does it mean? And does it have to mean anything?

Oscar Wilde: "All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their...more

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Jul 14, 2008

Martine rated it

Shelves: family-drama, magic-realism, modern-fiction, disappointing, south-american, historical-fiction, did-not-finish

I must have missed something. Either that, or some wicked hypnotist has tricked the world (and quite a few of my friends, it would seem) into believing that One Hundred Years of Solitude is a great novel. How did this happen? One Hundred Years of Solitude is not a great novel. In fact, I'm not even sure it qualifies as a novel at all. Rather it reads like a 450-page outline for a novel which accidentally got published instead of the finished product. Oops.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not ...moreI must have missed something. Either that, or some wicked hypnotist has tricked the world (and quite a few of my friends, it would seem) into believing that One Hundred Years of Solitude is a great novel. How did this happen? One Hundred Years of Solitude is not a great novel. In fact, I'm not even sure it qualifies as a novel at all. Rather it reads like a 450-page outline for a novel which accidentally got published instead of the finished product. Oops.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not disputing that Marquez has an imaginative mind. He does, unquestionably. Nor am I disputing that he knows how to come up with an interesting story. He obviously does, or this wouldn't be the hugely popular book it is. As far as I'm concerned, though, he forgot to put the finishing touches to his story. In his rush to get the bare bones on paper, he forgot to add the things which bring a story alive. Such as, you know, dialogue. Emotions. Motivations. Character arcs. Pretty basic things, really. By focusing on the external side of things, and by never allowing his characters to speak for themselves (the dialogue in the book amounts to about five pages, if that), Marquez keeps his reader from getting to know his characters, and from understanding why they do the things they do. The lack of characterisation is such that the story basically reads like an unchronological chronicle of deeds and events that go on for ever without any attempt at an explanation or psychological depth. And yes, they're interesting events, I'll grant you that, but they're told with such emotional detachment that I honestly didn't care for any of the characters who experienced them. I kept waiting for Marquez to focus on one character long enough to make me care about what happened to him or her, but he never did, choosing instead to introduce new characters (more Aurelianos... sigh) and move on. I wish to all the gods of fiction he had left out some twenty Aurelianos and focused on the remaining four instead. With three-dimensional characters rather than two-dimensional ones, this could have been a fabulous book. As it is, it's just a shell.

What a waste of a perfectly good story.(less)

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Jan 06, 2012

Shan Jago rated it

· review of another edition

Imagine you work the night shift stocking shelves in a Grocer with seven other misfit insomniacs. It’s a new job in a new town. You are still fairly young; a bit green and romantic (if you were ever those things), though you like to believe you’re not. The store opens at 6. A dark summer’s morning lingers outside. The overhead music has looped. You know this because Don’t Get Me Wrong by the Pretenders is playing for the second time that shift. It’s 5:15 AM. Time to ditch. Once outside you leap ...moreImagine you work the night shift stocking shelves in a Grocer with seven other misfit insomniacs. It’s a new job in a new town. You are still fairly young; a bit green and romantic (if you were ever those things), though you like to believe you’re not. The store opens at 6. A dark summer’s morning lingers outside. The overhead music has looped. You know this because Don’t Get Me Wrong by the Pretenders is playing for the second time that shift. It’s 5:15 AM. Time to ditch. Once outside you leap on your bicycle, peddle up that first hill, then ride straight downtown like a dewy arrow into the town’s slumbering heart. The town is quaint. Quiet. There is still a quality of discovery for you here. At the large pond near Town Hall you dump your bike in the grass. There is a gazebo that seems to float, strung with a tangle of white lights, and the moon is an 8o watt bulb hanging in a mirror of water. This is your reading room. You’ve been following this routine since you started your new job. You are nearly finished One Hundred Years of Solitude. Later, when the sun peeks a reddened eye over the tree line and the first twisting scents of breakfast steal over the sidewalks, you will find a Diner. But for now, you open Marquez’s novel and think ‘this book might as well be bound in a jacket cut from magic carpet’. You feel its gentle tug, playful, and in your hands it catches the tail of a zephyr and suddenly you’re like one of Chagall’s exalted figures rising over the town, or the Dude led by his bowling ball above the city of Los Angeles; only the environment you see below is a labyrinthine village constantly reshaping itself . You are flying in circles above this village and its inhabitants at about the height of the smallest mountain (which is pretty high indeed), and there are tiny tornadoes and dust devils starting to form on the ground. In the air there is a fall of tiny yellow flowers and a butterfly that’s all up in your face. The village people *cough* are looking up, pointing at some marvel in the sky that isn’t you after all, but a passing airplane. The book sputters in your hand, as if it had an engine and you fall a few meters before you catch another current of air. Must be running out of magic juice. Below a train rolls past filled with oversized bananas (when you see this you wish you could take people from other books and place them in the one you’re reading, for instance, poor Vardaman would shit his pants seeing all those bananas!). The villagers have gathered around a light bulb and you notice that you’re in a tailspin, but luckily there are plenty of hammocks to fall into. Instead you hit the dirt in the courtyard. The town seems a lot less populated than you remember and the dust storm is worsening. You run into a home, where on the floor, ragged and pale, a few carpets shuffle doggedly around. On a table there is a very modern blender which you jam the book into, hitting the button marked ON (why you would do such a thing isn’t really certain; though you are known to be a bit of a whack job). When you’re satisfied it’s been mixed for long enough you empty the contents on the table and discover a mound of tiny metal golden fish. Having finished, you close the book and look out over the pond and the slants of rooftops in the foliage of the town. A new town. A new life. Grab hold, before it's only dust in your palm. (less)

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Nov 14, 2007

Brian rated it

· review of another edition

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a tremendous piece of literature. It's not an easy read. You're not going to turn its pages like you would the latest John Grisham novel, or The DaVinci Code. You have to read each page, soaking up every word, immersing yourself in the imagery. Mr. Marquez says that he tells the story as his grandmother used to tell stories to him: with a brick face. That's useful to remember while reading, because that is certainly the tone the boo...more

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Jan 16, 2008

Shira rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Ok, I hate when this happens. I hear great things about a book for years, I finally decide to pick it up, and it turns out that I HATE it! It's not just that it's not my kind of book -- it's that I cannot for the life of me figure out what other people saw in this book. I found it to be utterly disturbing. I have never seen so much incest, adultery, rape, and bestiality in the same book!

I know it's supposed to be magical realism, but the sum total of what happens to this family...more

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Apr 26, 2010

Jason rated it

· review of another edition

This book went from 5, to 4, to 3 stars. It went from brilliant & zany, to unique & amusing, to overworked & predictable. Magical realism--the sine qua non of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the archetype, the empyreal novel that pioneered the outburst of this type of South American writing. I would not re-read this novel, but I would recommend it to all who savor the radial expanse of genre in literature. To be considered a comprehensive reader at life's end, you will had to have read magical reali...more

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Mar 15, 2009

Chandra rated it

Shelves: 2009-reads, classics

Gabriel Garcia Marquez himself has expressed bemusement over the outrageous success of this seminal work. He said in a conversation with a fellow novelist:

Most critics don't realize that a novel like One Hundred Years of Solitude is a bit of a joke, full of signals to close friends; and so, with some pre-ordained right to pontificate they take on the responsibility of decoding the book and risk making terrible fools of themselves.

Prior to finishing 100 Years I tended ...moreGabriel Garcia Marquez himself has expressed bemusement over the outrageous success of this seminal work. He said in a conversation with a fellow novelist:

Most critics don't realize that a novel like One Hundred Years of Solitude is a bit of a joke, full of signals to close friends; and so, with some pre-ordained right to pontificate they take on the responsibility of decoding the book and risk making terrible fools of themselves.

Prior to finishing 100 Years I tended to believe this might just be the self conscious protestations of an author both uncomfortable and embarrassed by his own success. Now, after having finished the book I still think that is partially true, but for the most part I think he was being honest. And I don’t mean that as an insult to the book – in fact I think that is one of the things that makes this book worth reading.

It’s the bizarre, nonsensical rambling quality that sets this book apart from other ‘masterpieces’. It is a style that will either captivate or put people off completely. I can honestly sympathize with both reactions and found myself somewhere in the middle. I really enjoyed the beautiful and distinctive writing - this is the novel’s real strength in my opinion and I can’t imagine what the experience of reading this in the original Spanish must be like! But, simple minded reader that I am, I also really felt the lack of a cohesive plot. This book was easy to put down for days (sometimes weeks) at a time. But then again I was always glad to pick it back up and resume my journey with the fascinating Buendia family. I’m not entirely convinced every book needs to be a page turner. The characters are dynamic and captivating and days after putting this down I’m still thinking about them. Why couldn’t Amaranta forgive herself or Rebeca? How could Colonel Aureliano Buendia have the capacity for war and art and yet lack passion? And finally, the concept of solitude (expressed on almost every page) is something near and dear to my heart.

Ultimately, I feel like I lack the basic socio-political knowledge of Colombia and Latin America to even begin to dissect this novel so I’m not even going to attempt being one of those ‘terrible fools’ and ‘pontificate’ on the meaning of this classic.

**My final verdict – Everything you’ve heard is true - this is a dense and confusing work, but there are rewards to be had for those who persevere.
(less)

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May 28, 2011

Meg rated it

Recommended to Meg by: Springville Library Book Club

I guarantee that 95% of you will hate this book, and at least 70% of you will hate it enough to not finish it, but I loved it. Guess I was just in the mood for it. Here's how it breaks down:

AMAZING THINGS: I can literally feel new wrinkles spreading across the surface of my brain when I read this guy. He's so wicked smart that there's no chance he's completely sane. His adjectives and descriptions are 100% PERFECT, and yet entirely nonsensical. After reading three chapters, it ...more

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Jun 11, 2008

Laura rated it

More like A Hundred Years of Torture. I read this partly in a misguided attempt to expand my literary horizons and partly because my uncle was a big fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Then again, he also used to re-read Ulysses for fun, which just goes to show that you should never take book advice from someone whose IQ is more than 30 points higher than your own.

I have patience for a lot of excesses, like verbiage and chocolate, but not for 5000 pages featuring three generations of peop...more

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Aug 23, 2007

Jacey rated it

Shelves: fiction, fantasy

This was the first book I'd ever read where the end was as good as the beginning and middle, that's to say -- excellent. A circular story of a family through the generations, through the banana trees, through the political turmoil. Magical realism at it's best.

If it helps, by the time you get half way through the book you shouldn't have to look at the family tree at the front of the book anymore.

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Jul 22, 2009

Choupette rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: own-or-access, to-be-re-read, south-american, french, may-i-say-blah

I don't know what possessed me to try and read this in French. Actually, that's a lie: it was because I felt like re-reading it and I don't own an English copy. I guess that I thought that since the original language was Spanish, a French translation in theory is worth as much as an English translation. Then I probably said to myself (as I am wont to do) "Well, there's no time like the present to improve one's command of the French language, no matter how tedious, time-consuming and ultimat...more

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Jan 19, 2012

ميّ أحمد rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: روايات

حين تفكر بقراءة هذه الرواية يجب أن تضع نصب عينيك أنك لا تقرأ عملا اعتياديا يستلزم جهدا مشابها
عليك أن تترك كل حواسك مع الكتاب
المترجم علماني كان متفهما جدا لطبيعة القارىء العربي وربما صعوبة التواصل مع أسماء بهذا الكم وأجيال بهذا العدد فما كان منه إلا أن وضع خارطة للأجيال الستة التي مروا على قرية ماكوندو من أسرة خوسيه أركاديو بوينديا تسهيلا وحتى لا يقع القارىء في لبس الأسماء وهذا يحسب لعلماني كمترجم له باع في الترجمة بلغة سلسة أصبح يتهافت عليها الجميع

الرواية من الروايات ا...more

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Oct 14, 2010

إسراء البنا rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: pdf, novels

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

الرواية فى قمة الروعة
تستحق فعلا جائزة نوبل للادب

بالرغم من تداخل الاشخاص فى الرواية و اعادة الاسماء فتلك السلالة الطويلة .. يسمى فيها الابناء باسمين اما اورليانو او خوسيه
و تتعدد الاجيال و تمر السنين و يتسم ابناء هذه السلالة بالعزلة

و لكن تلك العزلة تختلف
فلا يجد فيها ملل بلا على عكس فيها حياة

اول السلالة كانت نهايته تحت شجرة الكستناء و اخر السلالة انتهى فى الغابة عن طريق النمل
...more

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Jul 05, 2009

K.D. rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Tata J

Recommended to K.D. by: 501 Must Read Books

Shelves: 1001-core, 501, favorites

After extremely enjoying the famous works of Hemingway (Old Man and The Sea), Neruda (Love Poems), Coetzee (The Life and Times of Michael K) and Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath), I told myself I have to read some works of the other Nobel Prize of Literature awardees and I was not disappointed picking ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by this Columbian author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

This work introduced to literature the "magical realism" style in story telling. Fantasy was incorpora...moreAfter extremely enjoying the famous works of Hemingway (Old Man and The Sea), Neruda (Love Poems), Coetzee (The Life and Times of Michael K) and Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath), I told myself I have to read some works of the other Nobel Prize of Literature awardees and I was not disappointed picking ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by this Columbian author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

This work introduced to literature the "magical realism" style in story telling. Fantasy was incorporated to reality in telling the story of the seven generations of the Buendia clan. It is a thick book (450 pps) but I finished this in just 6 days. Thanks partly to Pasig Day - July 2, 2009 but also to the beautiful prose of G. G. Marquez. There is never a dull moment as there are always something to look forward to every time you turn the page. The characters are also well developed and even if there are 7 generations told in the 500 plus pages, the characters in the first generation still influence the way the last generations lived their lives which at some point made me wonder if they were still alive. Ursula, the matriach lived up to 130 years and she shrunk and shrunk and ended up blind and "like a raisin" when she died but she was still influencing the lives of Aureliano, Amaranta Ursula, etc. Even the ghost of Melquides was still talking to Aureliano the way he talked to Colonel Aureliano Buendia and Aureliano Segundo.

I finished this while visiting my hometown Quezon and I could not help imagining myself like when G. G. Marquez visited his hometown in Columbia after several years of staying in Mexico. During that visit, he was able to talk to his grandmother who was fond of telling fantasy stories with a poker face (as if the story was true). G. G. Marquez got the idea from that visit for him to devote 18 months of uninterrupted writing of this novel. Well, I am not writing any novel but when one stayed for several years in the city and one day goes back to the province and talk to some old people there, one will surely hear many old stories - fantasy, tragedies, supernatural, gossips, etc.

One highlight that I struck me most is the power of the past generations of our family to us. There are tales, practices or even prejudices that we now have in our family that were just passed on to us. This novel made me aware of some of those.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez really deserved his Nobel. There seems not to be anybody like him. (less)

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May 02, 2008

Suzanne rated it

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My father-in-law loves this book so much that he gave me a copy for Christmas two years in a row. My father had already given me a copy years before. Lots of people I respect rave about this book; how it is a classic, a timeless work of genius, a brilliant critique of capitalism, etc. etc. I really want to share their enthusiasm; I want to be a member of the tribe that has read and loved this book, but I am ashamed to admit that I have never been able to finish it.

I have tried to ge...moreMy father-in-law loves this book so much that he gave me a copy for Christmas two years in a row. My father had already given me a copy years before. Lots of people I respect rave about this book; how it is a classic, a timeless work of genius, a brilliant critique of capitalism, etc. etc. I really want to share their enthusiasm; I want to be a member of the tribe that has read and loved this book, but I am ashamed to admit that I have never been able to finish it.

I have tried to get through it several times. I have charted the family trees of the characters in order to keep track of the four-syllable names and incestuous couplings - but I get bored and frustrated with the meandering plot and give up half-way through every time. I keep thinking that maybe the end of the book, the part I've never been able to get to, is really great.

There are certain things I do really like about the book, which is why I still gave it three stars, the writing is beautiful, but I think the book, as a whole, is overrated - either that, or I'm missing something, the last part of the book perhaps, that inspires the kind of passionate enthusiasm that people tend to have about the book and it's author.

I've thought a lot about it on my stroller walks lately and I have come to the following conclusion: It's just not my genre. I prefer non-fiction and memoirs to fiction. The "magical realism" of García Márquez is too far out there for me - too fictional. I have enjoyed reading the commentary about the book far more than I have ever enjoyed the book. I have especially liked reading commentary about the book's allegorical meanings; readers who have linked this bizare work of fiction with fact, anchored the fictional town of Macondo to the places of García Márquez' childhood and the socio-political history of Columbia.

Someone once told me that there are two types of people: those who believe there are two types of people and those who do not. I am a knitter. Knitters are often lumped into two groups: process knitters or project knitters. Project knitters knit to produce wearable functional garments. Process knitters knit just for the experience of knitting. I am a process knitter, but a product reader. I like to knit but I'm not really concerned with the finished product. I like to read, but my focus is what I get out of a book more than the experience of reading it. I like to learn something either about a real place, real person, or gain some insight about myself. I like my fiction to be realistic. "Magical realism" is not for me. Every time I read this book I ask myself, "Where is this going? What is the point," where, if I were a process reader, perhaps I'd be able to let all of that go and appreciate the lyrical nature of the book's beautiful writing.

The cast of characters is too large. I think keeping track of all of them is a major distraction from the story. The plot is too abstract for me to grasp - and as much as I can appreciate the lyrical beauty of the language, I have never been able to get into this book. (less)

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Jun 06, 2007

Eleanor rated it

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Recommends it for: everyone

A book that covers the passage of time as if it were a wheel that would spin on into infinity were it not for the wear of the axle, One Hundred Years of Solitude is the story of the rise and fall of the Buendia family and their village Macondo. It tells the tender truths and lies of a family from the life of each member by blood and marriage, the passage of time told by the relationships of members who scarcely realize the depth to which their daily actions resonate back to generations before. ...more

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May 22, 2009

Evan rated it

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Shelves: world-literature-top-100-list-poll, none-too-good, 2009-reads, epic, oprah, parody-review

That's it, enough!
A virtuosic bamboozle, this...
A cold jag with no heart or soul, told from an omniscient distance. He did this and that, and she did this and that, and they did this and that. No inner heart, no longing, no sense of people, of desire, of inner worlds and struggles. Just cold actions. Just a cartoon world full of incident and surface color but little inner feeling. Cold and distant and shallow to me. It was like a guy at the bar droning on and ceasing to be interesti...more

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Jun 07, 2007

Adam rated it

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Okay, so this is one of those books on various "best book ever" lists, as if that was possible to measure, but for some dumb reason I always fall for it. I bought this for Sarah for a wedding gift (thought I was being funny with the title as an expectation for marriage with me--not likely!) but she has yet to get through it. I've actually tried to read this four times, and even though I was weened on the old testament, I struggled to keep track of all the Arcadios and Aurelianos eno...more

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Mar 11, 2008

Alice rated it

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Shelves: read-in-2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is widely renowned as a masterpiece / a classic, is one of the most oft-listed favorite books on Facebook, and has been called the "first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race."

So it may be utter sacrilege for me to say this, but, oh well: I haven't read the Book of Genesis, but if it's anything like "One Hundred Years of Solitude" it's going to be long and ...more"One Hundred Years of Solitude" is widely renowned as a masterpiece / a classic, is one of the most oft-listed favorite books on Facebook, and has been called the "first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race."

So it may be utter sacrilege for me to say this, but, oh well: I haven't read the Book of Genesis, but if it's anything like "One Hundred Years of Solitude" it's going to be long and boring. Marquez's style in this book has been described as "hypnotic." Well, true. I fell asleep pretty much every time I opened this book. I finally managed to finish last night, out of a sense of obligation more than any particular enjoyment.

On some level, I sort of appreciate what he was trying to do here, constructing a town, characters, and a whole fabric outside time and reality, hitting up a litany of Important Themes along the way. The vicious shortcomings of capitalism. The pointlessness of warfare. The inevitability of fate. The cyclical/repetitious/fluid nature of time. With the goal of exploring such themes, and delivering his insights in that rambling narrative style, Marquez couldn't really have done it any other way, I suppose.

But on the other hand, a reader has to stay interested, and that, for me, was the biggest problem. There goes Ursula or Fernanda or Amaranta trying to save the house from the ravages of the red ants again. There goes Jose Arcadio or Aureliano or who-cares pining after his relative and having wild intercourse again. There goes Melquiades appearing randomly to Jose Arcadio or Aureliano or who-cares as he goes through the manuscripts again. Yawn.

I had the same problem - to a much lesser extent - with "Love in the Time of Cholera": in the end, or, really, by the middle of the book, I just didn't care about anybody or anything in the book.

Oh, also, a minor gripe about Marquez's 'hook' first sentence - it's used again later, with names substituted, in "Chronicle of a Death Foretold."

I will admit that I did crack a smile when the last Buendia was, as Ursula feared, born with a pig tail, so for that one moment of interest alone, I anoint this book with 2 stars, and not 1. Yipes, I feel as if I've just committed one of the newly minted 14 mortal sins by writing this review. (less)

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Aug 31, 2007

Natalie rated it

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Maybe I didn't get it. I feel slightly ashamed to give such a beloved classic three stars. But I almost gave it two stars.

To me this book was a long, rambling, chronicle of a family. Aaand... thats pretty much it. The story seemed like it was being made up as it went along, I didn't really care about any of the characters, and I didn't learn or feel anything profound.

It was a few years ago that I read it so it's not fresh in my mind. But sometimes I think time valida...more

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Sep 05, 2007

Tim rated it

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Recommends it for: Everyone, anyone

Shelves: clampantsclassics

I had a magical AP English teacher my senior year of high school, who had an ethereal, almost magical (sort of a whisper, sort of a song) voice and a flourish and passion for reading. She assigned us Garcia-Marquez' "100 Years Of Solitude," it was one of those (i'll admit and hope it doesn't sound lame or cheesy) life-changing moments.

I can't say what it was at that moment that so moved me, but I attribute this as the book that made me love reading...love words. I hadn't ...more

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Nov 11, 2010

Bassam Ahmed rated it

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ملكيادس مات و خوززيه الجد مات واورسولا ماتت و خوزيه الصايع مات و العقيد اوريليانو مات وروبيكا ماتت و اوريليانو العاشق مات والحزين مات وتيرزيزا كمان ماتت وارمانتا ماتت واوريليانو التاني مات وخوزيه التاني مات وفيه واحد اتولد ف اخر الرواية اسمه اوريليانو برده مات دي بقت مائه عام م الوفيات اصلا :]

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Sep 20, 2007

Jonyleo rated it

"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."

It is typical of Gabriel García Márquez that it will be many pages before his narrative circles back to the ice, and many chapters before the hero of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Buendía, stands before the firing squad. In between, he recounts such wonders as an entire town struck with insomnia, a woman who ascends to ...more"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."

It is typical of Gabriel García Márquez that it will be many pages before his narrative circles back to the ice, and many chapters before the hero of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Buendía, stands before the firing squad. In between, he recounts such wonders as an entire town struck with insomnia, a woman who ascends to heaven while hanging laundry, and a suicide that defies the laws of physics:

A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room, went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendía house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlor, hugging the walls so as not to stain the rugs, went on to the other living room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-room table, went along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under Amaranta's chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson to Aureliano José, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where Úrsula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread.

"Holy Mother of God!" Úrsula shouted.

The story follows 100 years in the life of Macondo, a village founded by José Arcadio Buendía and occupied by descendants all sporting variations on their progenitor's name: his sons, José Arcadio and Aureliano, and grandsons, Aureliano José, Aureliano Segundo, and José Arcadio Segundo. Then there are the women--the two Úrsulas, a handful of Remedios, Fernanda, and Pilar--who struggle to remain grounded even as their menfolk build castles in the air. If it is possible for a novel to be highly comic and deeply tragic at the same time, then One Hundred Years of Solitude does the trick. Civil war rages throughout, hearts break, dreams shatter, and lives are lost, yet the effect is literary pentimento, with sorrow's outlines bleeding through the vibrant colors of García Márquez's magical realism. Consider, for example, the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar, whom José Arcadio Buendía has killed in a fight. So lonely is the man's shade that it haunts Buendía's house, searching anxiously for water with which to clean its wound. Buendía's wife, Úrsula, is so moved that "the next time she saw the dead man uncovering the pots on the stove she understood what he was looking for, and from then on she placed water jugs all about the house."

With One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez introduced Latin American literature to a world-wide readership. Translated into more than two dozen languages, his brilliant novel of love and loss in Macondo stands at the apex of 20th-century literature. --Alix Wilber --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
(less)

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Jul 23, 2008

Henry Manampiring rated it

Just like 'Love in Time of Cholera', another superb blend of imagination, realism, and honesty.

I finished the book with renewed sense of the nature of love, of loving, of human nature, of being honest.

The writing is far from tedious (for a serious litrary work) , it is evocative, at times it makes you chuckle, at times it creates lump in your throat

A beautiful work.

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About Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist. García Márquez, familiarly known as "Gabo" in his native country, is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. In 1982, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

He started as a journalist, and has written many acclaimed non-fictio...more

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“He dug so deeply into her sentiments that in search of interest he found love, because by trying to make her love him he ended up falling in love with her. Petra Cotes, for her part, loved him more and more as she felt his love increasing, and that was how in the ripeness of autumn she began to believe once more in the youthful superstition that poverty was the servitude of love. Both looked back then on the wild revelry, the gaudy wealth, and the unbridled fornication as an annoyance and they lamented that it had cost them so much of their lives to find the paradise of shared solitude. Madly in love after so many years of sterile complicity, they enjoyed the miracle of living each other as much at the table as in bed, and they grew to be so happy that even when they were two worn-out people they kept on blooming like little children and playing together like dogs.” — 637 people liked it

“There is always something left to love.” — 330 people liked it

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