About this title: Since its publication in 1967, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" has sold more than 20 million copies and earned its author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a host of awards, including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. The novel has prompted comparisons to Miguel de Cervantes, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, and even the Bible. The new edition of this critical volume brings together full-length essays that explore the nuances of Marquez's captivating fictive world. This study guide comes complete with an introductory essay by master scholar Harold Bloom, notes on the contributors, and reference ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: Eleventh Printing
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Avon Books, New York
Date Published: 1971
Description: Good- 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. The rich and lusty story of the rise and fall of the Buendia family. Wraps are scuffed and creased with edgewear. Pages yellowing. Pages are clean & free from markings. Binding is tight.. read more
"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 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."
"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 people with the same names. I finally tore out the family tree at the beginning of the book and used it as a bookmark! To be fair, the book isn't actually 5000 pages, but also to be fair, the endlessly interwoven stories of bizarre exploits and fantastical phenomena make it seem like it is. The whole time I read it I thought, "This must be what it's like to be stoned." Well, actually most of the time I was just trying to keep the characters straight. The rest of the time I was wondering if I was the victim of odorless paint fumes. However, I think I was simply the victim of Marquez's brand of magical realism, which I can take in short stories but find a bit much to swallow in a long novel. Again, to be fair, this novel is lauded and loved by many, and I can sort of see why. A shimmering panoramic of a village's history would appeal to those who enjoy a human tragicomedy laced heavily with fantasy. It's just way too heavily laced for me."
"This is not a review. This is what I wrote immediately after reading this book:
At the forehead I said, "Father."
I was standing on the side of the highway when the explosions began. To the south, in the distance I assumed to be Sacramento, enormous poppings and booms were heard and towers of black smoke darted into the sky. I instinctively began to make the sign of the cross, slowly at first, whispering "Lord have mercy." As the explosions increased in intensity and repetition, so did my prayer and the rapidity with which I made the sign of the cross. No one knew if the explosions were caused by bombs or an industrial accident of some sort. As long as the explosions sounded I did not cease my prayer. The valley sky darkened with soot. My arm grew sore from the fervent, repeated motions and my throat was parched by the hot air.
At my lower intestine, the seat of the passions, I said, "Son."
Earlier that day I had retreated to the last stall in the women's restroom at the data-processing center where I work. Hot, desperate tears spilled silently from my eyes. He only weighed one hundred pounds, she was only 32.
At my right shoulder I said, "Holy."
Seven hours later as I drove home from work I saw a bulky man jogging with a small, caramel-colored terrier sprinting ahead of him on a long leash. I was amazed at the speed with which the small dog propelled himself along the sidewalk. He was not trotting, but leaping. I laughed with a buoyant and unexpected joy in my heart. It was a much needed respite from the every day road kill that would always bring a lump to my throat. By the time I reached the next stop light I was weeping, again.
At my left shoulder I said, "Spirit."
The boys who had left him naked and bleeding in a cornfield did not feel any remorse at what they had done. When someone suggested they apologize to the victim's family the boys became indignant. "This is the truth of how we felt at the time we kicked him in the head," they scoffed. At the trial, the defense called upon a bio-anthropologist from the university to testify to the irrepressible, primal instincts of alpha males and the innate, biological urge to eliminate weaker members of the pack with whom they compete for food, jobs and trucks.
This was the beginning of the time when the bees began to die."
"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."
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