One Hundred Years of Solitude in The Roundtable

Nov 16, 2013 El rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: re-read-mania, 1001-books-list, biddles, 20th-centurylit-late, anarchism-revolutions

According to what I entered into Goodreads, I originally read this book in May 2006. I think this is wrong. Because the memory I have of reading this was that I read it back where I used to live, and I left there in 2003. My memories tell me that I read it prior to leaving, so I have it in my head that I read this for the first time in the early oughts, not in 2006. But my mind is a funny place. My memories come and go and sometimes I'm not entirely sure which of the older memories are real and According to what I entered into Goodreads, I originally read this book in May 2006. I think this is wrong. Because the memory I have of reading this was that I read it back where I used to live, and I left there in 2003. My memories tell me that I read it prior to leaving, so I have it in my head that I read this for the first time in the early oughts, not in 2006. But my mind is a funny place. My memories come and go and sometimes I'm not entirely sure which of the older memories are real and which ones are the result of some vivid dream (of which I have have many).

In retrospect, I think the reason I think I read this back where I used to live is because one of my three jobs at the time was in a used bookstore, and a customer came in and bought an old paperback copy of the book one day. As I was ringing him up (which was a process because we didn't have a standard register, we were old-school, and receipts were handwritten), he told me that this was his favorite book and I remember agreeing it's something pretty special. He said he had the first paragraph (which is pretty long) memorized because he's read the book so many times. I made an approving noise, thinking that would be that. But he made me open to the first page and read along while he recited the first paragraph to me, the one about the firing squad and the ice. He went on to say that anytime he found a used, reasonably-priced copy he would buy it and give it away to people who hadn't read it yet. I hoped to one day love a book so much that I would do something similar.

I know I read this book, but no matter when it was that I read it, it has long been evident to me that I remembered nothing about the story. Now that I re-read this for my real life book club, I realize that there's such a wealth of story here that I somehow put entirely out of my mind. I remembered there were a lot of characters (I was right about that), and that's as far as my memory could take me.

There are all these scenes in this book that are so vivid (like my dreams) and make so little sense that you would think they would be such a part of my mental map that it'd be impossible to forget any of them. Pig tails. Eating dirt. Spiderwebs to stop hemorrhaging. Ice. Yellow butterflies. Gypsies. Cataracts. Flood.

You have to be patient to read this, you can't expect everything to make 100% sense. You have to suspend disbelief and roll with the punches and just let the story happen to you. Each "chapter" is a different part of the story, the story itself is the entire family tree, and it may not be cohesive, but no family tree ever is. Every family tree is a little messy with moments of vivid and extreme beauty and there are other moments of vivid and extreme ugliness. And a lot of it is tedious.

You tell your family stories and, like my memory, it's hard to say exactly what you say is absolutely accurate. Stories are told and retold and some aspects are removed, some aspects are improved, sometimes there's a feeling of magic now looking back that wasn't there when it was actually happening.

You might have some yellow butterflies in your family tree, too. ...more

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Jun 24, 2013 Kathy Chumley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: my-top-100

I don't like magical realism, so I don't know what made me decide to read what has been called the granddaddy of the genre. Maybe because it's one of those books everyone is "supposed to read". Maybe I wanted to challenge myself. Probably it's because a reader I respect kept recommending it. Anyway, I decided to give it a try. It's a library book, so if I didn't like it I'd have nothing to lose.

I loved it! It pulled me in right from the start. I had a general idea that this story was a metaphor ...more

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Dec 04, 2007 Sarah rated it it was amazing

Shelves: recommended-novels, translation, 1001-list, 5-stars

Fabulous book that I didn't expect to like. This is one of the few books that I dreamed about while reading it. In the dream, I entered the book in a kind of cameo role - I was a peddler and counter of coins - and the book became a kind of bible, and a kind of history book. Just gorgeous writing fit to live in. ...more

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Jan 09, 2009 Irene rated it liked it

This classic novel, which brought its author literary fame and eventually a Nobel Prize in Literature, is often credited with launching the literary form of “magical realism”. The seven generations of the family at the heart of this book serve as a loose allegory of Columbia. The City of Mirrors founded by the family patriarch is also a city of mirages. Reality is a function of perception. The past haunts the present in a deterministic fashion. In the final lines we are told that the entire hist ...more

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Feb 12, 2009 Meghan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: own, classics, modern-classics, favorites, spanish, book-club, challenge, tnbbc, award-winning, babc

I give this 5 stars because I am still blown away by the story and think it will take a few days to digest everything that I just read. Also, I gave Love in the Time of Cholera 4 stars because this story exceeds that one in both story and writing skill.

Where Cholera was like floating down a lazy river of beautiful poetry, Solitude is like a Midwest barn--solid, simple, almost stoic. And yet, as the pages turn and the story unfolds like sap dripping from a maple tree, you see the intricate lines ...more

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