One Hundred Years of Solitude in The Insecure Writer's Support Group Book Club

Dec 18, 2021 TheQueensQuill rated it it was amazing

Shelves: crème-de-la-crème, am-i-rory-gilmore-yet

Gabriel García Márquez said it better: “I wrote the story the same way my grandmother used to tell tales; with a brick face.” (Not the exact thing he said, but we can pretend.)

A hundred years of solitude tells the story of the rise and fall of Mocondo, a fictional town that feels so real one forgets it all has come out of someone’s imagination, and the story of Buendía family that inhabit it. It is loaded with reflections of Latin American history, magic that is far more usual to people than ma Gabriel García Márquez said it better: “I wrote the story the same way my grandmother used to tell tales; with a brick face.” (Not the exact thing he said, but we can pretend.)

A hundred years of solitude tells the story of the rise and fall of Mocondo, a fictional town that feels so real one forgets it all has come out of someone’s imagination, and the story of Buendía family that inhabit it. It is loaded with reflections of Latin American history, magic that is far more usual to people than math and science, and emotions.

In the novel, we follow the buendía family as they go through revolutions and wars, famines, a downpour of rain that doesn’t stop, and a massacre that no one believes. The buendía family house is big, and in every room, something is happening. Open one door and you see insanities and absurdities, open another and you see a family who love eachother and take care of eachother. Every character is different, and very same at once, and you learn to love and hate them and their complexities. Marquéz dives into the personalities of every character and lays them bare, so that you may see for yourself.

Out of all the characters, Ursula really stood out to me. She is a woman of unmatched will and bottomless energy. She heads the family, takes care of the house, enlarges it if it needs more space and cleans its human and non-human parasites. There is always a place for everyone in the house, and she takes care of them all. For Ursula, time runs in a circle, and as we read the story through her eyes, we experience it the same. Ursula might be the only character who you can love without the fear of all you should hate.

Marquéz tells the tale so straightforwardly that he makes the unreal sound like a common everyday occurrences, and the magic real. Flying carpets and floating to the heavens isn’t as surprising as a brick of ice, and film characters dying in one movie and reappearing in another film is so much stranger than talking to the ghosts of dead relatives. A hundred years of solitude is the best example of magical realism, and Marquéz wonderfully sprinkles magic into his story, and makes it sound real.

But magical realism isn’t only about magic. It’s also about reality. Marquéz has been inspired by the events of his childhood and his hometown, and weaves them into his story. From the experiences of his colonel grandfather to the banana massacre, everything we read is real, and Marquéz criticizes them in the best way possible.

I could go on and on about this book, but it is the story of seven generations, and if I were to talk about each generation, we would be here for an eternity.

But what I will say is that this is not an easy read. I took my time with the book, analyzing the characters and the events, and that must have been the best way to read it for me. ...more

1 like · Like · see review