I've wanted to read this book for the longest time now, and I'm finally doing it. I'm so glad – I must have been 9? 10? the first time my sister told me to read it. It was (and still is, to this day) her favorite book, and a universal classic. She loves Gabriel García Márquez, and I still remember vividly how sad she was the day he died. Staring at her books, knowing there wouldn't be others. 

Now I've finally begun this journey – and so far I'm loving it. The beautifully built magical realism and strange –but profound– characters have pulled me into the book in a way I didn't expect. I lived in Colombia for a while and I have Colombian family, so it's also a lot of fun reading about the jungle-town environment and the historical changes throughout the novel. I expected this book to be slow, since at least in my school, it's a mandatory read and some people complain about it, but I was positively surprised to find that I can read several dozens of pages and barely notice it. It's different to what I usually read, and I love it. 

Well, I still got a long way to go. So far, I'm happy with what I have found! 

While this book is one the surface a novel about a family, it is hard to shake the idea that the book is also about the power of reading.  In some ways, the story is about the power of the reader to create life, to give the characters life beyond what the writer of the story can do.  It is important that the book starts and ends with a sense of memory because in many ways that is what reading is.

                The history of the Buendia family is strange, wonderful, and horrifying.  It involves numerous children, possible saints, lovely women, mistresses and out of wedlock births.  The family lives in a village that is both cut off when the world and part of it.  It is the solitude, the smallness of place that time passes over.  There is a sense of the story and the family reaching end and this is like a book, just like how a story will change depending on who is reading the book, or even how they feel that day.

                In part this is because one of themes is the conflict between love and solitude, which in many ways what reading is about.  It is in many cases, a solitary pursuit, but it is also one that makes people more empathic in general, studies prove this.  So, it is a solitary pursuit that has ramifications when it comes to love.

                The repetitive use of names does add to the magic realism, but it also makes some of the characters too similar, which does seem to be in part the point.  The women, too, with a few expectations fall into the virgin/whore choice, which is usually the most common stories for women in works by men.

(Original Review, 1981-02-27)



I love One Hundred Years of Solitude, in my top three books. When I first read it, it was quite confusing, with all the names the same - and so sad and funny. Not to skip ahead, but I still remember that none of it really made sense until I read the very last page - and then I understood everything in a kind of revelation - I'd never had that feeling before nor since with any other book, and that is why I think it has stuck with me all these years. Sometimes, if I see it in a book store, I just read the last page - but it's never the same.

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

I finally finished this!  I took forever for multiple reasons.  First--I started and restarted probably four or five times, because I was quickly finding myself lost as to what was happening.  After a while, I just went with it--though also checked out the text version to go back and forth.  I also was finding myself going for longer periods between listening sessions and having shorter sessions--my running volume has gone way down, and most of my audio "reading" has tended to happen during runs.  (Plus walking to the office from the parking lot in the morning and walking during lunch.)  There was a period where I was having headphone problems, and there were times when I just wasn't in the mood for this book.

It's not the book's fault!  It's Garcia Marquez--it's captivating.  But I had to be in the right headspace for it, and I did get there.

The book chronicles seven generations of the family of Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguaran.  Jose Arcadio Buendia is the founder of the village of Macondo in Columbia.  Jose Arcadio and Ursula are first cousins, which causes her to fear that their children will be born with tails (of pigs).  They are not, but much later in their line (after some accidental and worse inbreeding), eventually one of their descendants does appear with a tail like that.

The family through its many generations keeps repeating the names Jose Arcadio and Aureliano for their male children.  Remedios and Amaranta are favored names for the girls.  The repetition of names reinforces the cyclical nature of time expressed in the narrative.  Political upheavals, wars, and economic cycles parallel historical events in Columbia.  The characters casually interact with ghosts and some of the characters can deliver prophecies.

One of my favorite quotes:  

"The years nowadays don't pass the way the old ones used to," [Ursula] would say, feeling that everyday reality was slipping through her hands,  In the past, she thought, children took a long time to grow up.

 

Boy, can I relate!