One Hundred Years of Solitude

published	July 1st 2003 by HarperCollins
first published	1980
binding	Hardcover
isbn	0060531045 (isbn13: 9780060531041)
pages	432
description	"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."<...more [close] "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: <blockquote> 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. </blockquote> 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 [close]
date added	08-29-06 edit book

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Kman rated it:

(review of isbn 0060929790)

07/25/07

Read in January, 2005

"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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Alpher rated it:

09/08/07

Read in March, 2001

recommends it for: Miguel de Cervantes

第一次看《百年孤寂》(One Hundred Years of Solitude)是四年前。當時是為了學校功課而讀，看得頗草率，沒有太大感觸。幾年來，也沒有翻過，可是書中的味道慢慢地沉澱了。後來老是將這本書想像成喝到口中的茉莉香片，苦澀也芬芳，那顏色大概是聯想自於美洲雨林的斑斕。
　　
　　"多年以後，當他面對著槍隊時，邦迪亞上校想起了許久以前的一個下午，父親帶他去看冰......more 第一次看《百年孤寂》(One Hundred Years of Solitude)是四年前。當時是為了學校功課而讀，看得頗草率，沒有太大感觸。幾年來，也沒有翻過，可是書中的味道慢慢地沉澱了。後來老是將這本書想像成喝到口中的茉莉香片，苦澀也芬芳，那顏色大概是聯想自於美洲雨林的斑斕。
　　
　　"多年以後，當他面對著槍隊時，邦迪亞上校想起了許久以前的一個下午，父親帶他去看冰..."這是全書的第一句，整本書便是從悲劇性的開章下展開。當讀到有關邦迪亞上校的倒敘時，必然會想到最後他被子彈穿透胸膛的情景。《百年孤寂》是這樣，在不停地的倒敘、回憶、插敘中進行，時而又會跑出某些奇怪的人物預告未來，時空圍繞著一個家族的六代人不斷向前翻向後退。這是馬奎斯(Gabriel Garcia Marquez)的風格，大概也是他對時間的看法，過去現在將來溶為一體，所有已發生的都將會再發生，小說中的時間像是咬著自己尾巴的蛇。
　　
　　《百年孤寂》錄邦迪亞家族這六代由興到衰之間的愛恨情仇。書中可以讀到很多取自聖經的故事，其中的角色也有象徵聖經中的主要人物。雖然全書籠罩著悲劇性的沉重負載著各種隱喻，可是馬奎斯的筆觸是輕挑的，率性地搬動時間人物。故事中心的那一所詭異的大房子取自馬奎斯童年記憶，他說"這龐大的屋子裡，充斥著鬼魂。我的家人都非常迷信和敏感。彷佛每個角落都是屍骸和記憶。六點以後你是哪裡也不敢去的了。"
　　
　　混合著神話、政治、歷史、與真實，「魔幻寫實」像是芙烈達卡洛(Frida Khalo)的油畫般地陸離斑駁。書中的吉普賽人帶來了各式各樣的嶄新器械，亦帶來了魔法飛毯和千奇百怪的玩意。馬奎斯的世界滿是鬼魂，但並不駭人，鬼魂像生人一樣有著煩惱，而且會與人吐心事。印象深刻的是一幕當書中一個女孩自殺後，她身上的血變成了有生命的線，轉彎抹角違反所有物理定律地走到老祖母跟前告知死訊。各種奇異的事件展現了馬奎斯的想像力，同時可讀到南美洲人的信仰及世界觀。
　　
　　殖民地時代，天主教由西班牙傳入中南美洲。當地的土著有著自己的宗教，但該宗教的其中一個特點就是喜歡把別人的神祇納入自己的信仰中，可以想像到天主教被本土化時滑稽的情景。他們同時是非常迷信的民族，信仰是很生活化的，由其是對死亡的樂觀看法：在天主教式葬禮上載歌載舞是他們樂知天命。這樣繽紛的一個民族是馬奎斯的創作土壤。「魔幻寫實」之所以是寫實，是因為馬奎斯認為真實是各種主觀認知的總和。
　　
　　同是諾貝爾獎得主的墨西哥詩人柏斯(Octavio Paz)說"美洲其實並不存在，她祇是歐洲人幻想的烏托邦。"說穿了，「魔幻寫實」其實是後殖民時代的超現實主義，第三世界的精神體現。除加美兩國以外，美洲的確於十八十九世紀興盛一時，當時她們的身份是被佔領的殖民地。可是當二十世紀，真正的現代化將要來臨時，歐洲人又離開了，中南美洲回到了過去百多年前的貧窮，孤寂。大街上滿是牆灰岥落的教堂，人們腦中仍緬懷著過去的繁華。政治上，唯一的真實就是人民永遠被蒙在謊言裡。這也就是「魔幻寫實」的真實寫照。
　　
　　在柏斯的詩中也印證歷史分離了真實，他寫道：
　　
　　詩，
　　歷史與真實之間懸吊的橋，
　　並不要通向任何一頭：
　　而是去看
　　動蕩中的沉靜。
　　
　　馬奎斯的《百年孤寂》就是這樣的一條橋。...less

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Chris rated it:

02/09/08

bookshelves: fantasy

Read in March, 2006

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 need some coffee. ...more 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 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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Jonyleo rated it:

09/20/07

bookshelves: to-read

"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 heav...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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Suzanne rated it:

(review of isbn 0330255592)

05/02/08

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 get throug...more 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 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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Shriya rated it:

03/21/08

Read in February, 2008

I'm so glad to have read this book - and that my experience with Latin American literature wasn't limited to that awful piece of work Like Water For Chocolate.

Marquez is credited with bringing the style of magic realism to the global community - and One Hundred Years of Solitude easily justfies this claim. Marquez artfully uses magic realism to enhance the novel's several messages. The circular and cyclical aspects of time are not at all tedious to read through. In fact, the repetition of ...more I'm so glad to have read this book - and that my experience with Latin American literature wasn't limited to that awful piece of work Like Water For Chocolate.

Marquez is credited with bringing the style of magic realism to the global community - and One Hundred Years of Solitude easily justfies this claim. Marquez artfully uses magic realism to enhance the novel's several messages. The circular and cyclical aspects of time are not at all tedious to read through. In fact, the repetition of characteristic traits found throughout the generations of the Buendia family are marvellously interwoven with the plot; thus despite the passage of time, new generations often reflect their ancestors' actions and responses to similar events.

The novel deals with the idea of solitude, found at both national and personal levels. Marquez uses a variety of literary devices to portray the varying manifestations of solitude. The reader will have no trouble in connecting on a personal level with the novel.

Significantly, the use of magic realism allows Marquez to portray the devastation that political events of South America had on the people. Importantly, the novel cannot work unless magic realism is employed; it does not seem out of place within the text, as it did in Esquivel's Like Water For Chocolate. I cannot imagine this novel without elements of the surreal, and of the fantastic, whereas Esquivel's novel would have made a far better impression on me had she left out magic realism entirely.

My one tiny problem with 100 Years is the fact that throughout the novel, one of the characters does call the reflexivity of time to attention. I didn't like that, because it almost forced me to say "yes i KNOW I DO see it, thanks, I DON'T need it shoved down my throat." The thing is, Marquez generally does not force metaphors down the reader's throat. The symbols are there, the hidden meanings are there - but that is the key isn't it? That the meanings ARE hidden. (So I'm forgiving him for those few lapses where I frowned at the novel when it wasn't subtle enough.) I'm a reader who likes working a little, who likes to delve into the books to find out what the author is saying, and to establish my own connections with the novel. I detest superficiality in novels, and was glad to see that this one was multilayered. Rich with characters and plot points that hold significant meaning to the political events of Latin America, One Hundred Years of Solitude can be read on a variety of levels, by a variety of people.

"What happens in it?" I was asked once. And I failed miserably in answering. The book isn't about characters or specific plot points, in the end. It attempts to answer much more difficult questions. It would be inaccurate to say "nothing happens". It's easier to say...that everything happens. Love, loneliness, politics, incest, isolation - but these words don't come close to explaining the book. ...less

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Adam rated it:

03/28/08

bookshelves: classics

Read in January, 2007

recommended to Adam by: I'd rather not say
recommends it for: Academics and their students that are forced to read it.

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....more

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Alice rated it:

(review of isbn 0060929790)

03/11/08

bookshelves: read-in-2008

Read in March, 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 boring. ...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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Martine rated it:

07/14/08

bookshelves: family-drama, historical-fiction, magic-realism, modern-fiction, south-american, very-disappointing

Read in July, 2008

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'...more 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 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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Camilo rated it:

02/03/08

Reviewing this book in a couple of paragraphs is impossible. It is truly an epic, given the number of characters, the number of successive generations that are involved, and the tremendous complexity of the various themes that the author handles.

The only thing of depth, which I feel I can convey here, is that this book is in part about the loss of cultural identity, or perhaps, of cultural uniqueness. This is not an immediate message of the book, since it is not apparent till one reads th...more

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Shira rated it:

01/16/08

Read in January, 2008

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 is just...more

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Brian rated it:

(review of isbn 0060929790)

11/14/07

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 th...more

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Mister Jones added it

04/06/08

bookshelves: crap-that-actually-got-published

Read in March, 2008

recommended to Mister Jones by: Art and Fart Crapper
recommends it for: Drunken frauds who see Shamans on a road during a LSD flashback

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 events, scattering them...more

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Kevin rated it:

04/04/08

Read in March, 2008

The thing that surprised me most in reading 'One Hundred Years of Solitude" was how contemporary it felt; I am amazed that it was written in 1967. I suppose it is difficult to read it, now, without having in mind all that has come in its wake--Magic Realism, various postcolonialist literatures, etc. The hype had been so great, in fact, that I was initially disappointed; the language was wonderful, of course, and the imagery (the mysterious gypsy Melquiades, living on after his death; Colone...more

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Paula rated it:

07/23/08

Read in July, 2008

"100 Years of Solitude" has been sitting on my bookshelf for at least a year. I meant to read it, but then I thought it would be better in Spanish, but never got around to buying the Spanish version... so finally I took it with me on my trip to Brazil, figuring it would at least be regionally appropriate.

While I can't believe I've waited so long to visit Brazil, I'm not similarly inclined towards "Solitude." Essentially it depicts the rise and fall of the 6 or 7 generatio...more

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Kristen rated it:

07/19/08

bookshelves: books-i-have-loathed

I suppose the placement of this book - clearly a classic of literature - in my most loathed shelf deserves a bit of explanation. I can't say that it wasn't well written, because it was, but I found it ponderous, heavy, overly long, and ultimately, I took little away from it other than a sense of lost time (mine) and frustration at the pieces of greatness I saw in a book that seemed almost nihilistic in its grandeur.

Magical realism certainly has its place in the canon, but this seemed to m...more

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