I finished reading this interesting novel not too long ago and felt I had to ask about in on the dope, mostly because nobody I know has even heard of the novel, let alone read it and I figured that at least someone on the dope has probably read this book.
First off, I’ve never quite read a book like it, not only due to the writing style, which is so lacking in both descritiption and dialouge and focuses almost completely on action. yet is heavily character driven and so surreal. Like shown from the beginning where Jose mentions to the townspeople about proving the world is round, and the townspeople tell him such a thing is crazy(Despite living in latin america and there is numerous mention of contact with europe), or the later mention of gypsies bringing magic carpets and the patriach merely shrugs it off and says he’ll invent something better(as if flying carpets are nothing special).
Part of this is fed by the vague nature of the time period, the uncertain passage of time, the continuing recylcing of names throughout the generations, the way the narrative will move back and forth across generations, and the acknowledged cyclic nature of the story, how the characters tend to keep falling back on the same patterns over and over again, over the course of generations.
The story feels so deep at times and it makes me wonder how much of the story supposed to be meaningful and symbolic and how much is merely there because of the authors sense of humor and need to keep moving things forward.
Personally, I felt the earlier generations were the most interesting, particularly Jose Arcadio Buendio and the Col. Auerileno Buendio, with the later generations feeling more confused and less distinct until the family begins to wind down towards the end, when only a few characters are left and the town itself is dying after the massacre.
I know it seems like I’m rambling, but is hard to really define a novel like this conventionally, particulary to people who have never read it. I guess I’m trying to provoke a discussion about the book with other people who have read it
Márquez’ style is usually described as magic realism, rather than surrealism.
What seemed to me quite clear when I finished reading the novel was that it was the story of a town told as the story of a single person. The first chapters are magical because they correspond to childhood. There is a sense of wonder and discovery. As the town ages, the tone of the novel changes, becoming more down-to-earth in adulthood. Finally, at the end, there is a slight return to magic but the tone is dark and somewhat nightmarish, reflecting the physical and mental decrepitude of someone on the brink of death.
This novel is still, after many years, probably the greatest I have ever read. There is spectacular technical virtuosity – a single sentence that spans, what, two pages or the frequent use of the future tense. However, these are never a empty exercises in style, but rather feel somewhat completely natural and serve the story beautifully.
From the first sentence, it was obvious to me that this was a great novel. I’ve occasionally quoted the sentence for other writers and they all are similarly impressed.
Really a great book. It’s probably time for me to read it again.
After hearing rave reviews, I bought the book for my trip to Europe as something to keep me occupied on the flight. But, I hated it, I hated the writing style, couldn’t care less about the plot or characters. I wanted to like it, I really did. I tried to stay with it but bailed out after 150 pages and gave it away to another traveller.
Did I miss something or is it one of those books you either love or hate?
It’s been awhile since I’ve read it, but I always liked Love in the Time of Cholera better. I know I’m in the minority, though, because it seems like most people consider One Hundred Years of Solitude to be Garcia Marquez’s masterpiece.
BTW, when I was in Colombia in February, I saw a store called “Tienda Macombo”. It took me a minute to place the reference, but when I did, I was pretty much delighted. Colombians are very proud of Garcia Marquez - even though he’s lived in Mexico for ages now. I should reread some of his books now that I’ve been to Colombia.
One of the trends of the 20th century was to break down conventions about how books should be written. James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, Marcel Proust, Gabriel Garcia Marquez were some of the radical experimenters, but plenty of other authors labeled post-modern did it too.*
They were not writing what we think of as standard form novels, and this confuses and annoys the heck out of people who are expecting standard novels. You have to be able to view their books as poem or mediation or flight of fancy, and give up on complete rational wrapped up plot, to appreciate them. To be fair, neither the authors nor their publishers have really made this clear to the public and the unsuspecting continue to be disappointed. Further to be fair, just because something is experimental does not mean it is good.
I do think that 100 Years of Solitude is good–almost great–maybe it is great but I have to read it in translation, and something like this more than anything else probably loses by translation.
*This is not brand new in any event–imaginative authors have bent the rules for centuries, from Sterne to Cervantes to Hemingway to any poet you care to name.
I loved this book too. Perhaps it is a “love it or hate it” thing. I like magical realism, I love the writing style. And tho I agree that the earlier generations are the most interesting, I like the last sentence of the book almost as much the first.
Seriously, I loved the book, and the questions you’re asking about whether things are literal or symbolic or jokes or whatever, if I may be so bold, are the wrong questions. Just trust the writer and enjoy the ride.
I wonder how the translation works… I’ve read the book in Spanish and Portuguese, but never English. Whoever has done that translation must’ve had a hard work!
I’ve read other of his novels (obligatory HS reading, plus some on my own)… I think I like Crónica de una muerte anunciada better. I do not know the translation for that one. Also loved El Coronel no tiene quien le escriba, and the main character is similar to the Coronel Buendía, and the setting and ambience is a bit similar to OHYoS.
But in general, in magical realism, I much prefer to read the short stories rather than the novels.
And if you read them both, you can see how Isabel Allende was influenced by the style in OHYoS to write House of the Spirits.
Garcia Marquez has praised the English translation (by Gregory Rabassa) and has called it superior to his own Spanish original. That may have been hyperbole, but clearly he thought it was a great job of translating (he waited three years until Rabassa was available).
That’s a bit strange to me, I’d consider Garcia Marquez to be one of the most important and most widely read authors of the 20th century… Anyway, it’s been a while since I read One Hundred Years of Solitude or any of his works, I had a bit of a Marquez-phase a while back, but haven’t really revisited anything since (I tend to do that with authors). Perhaps, if you’re in the market for something similar-yet-entirely-different in the way of warping and playing with established rules, reality, and concepts, and if you aren’t already familiar with him, you could do worse than to look into Jorge Louis Borges’ work, who is widely credited with at least playing a significant part in kicking off the so-called Latin American Boom of the 1960s and '70s. Here’s the full text of his short story The Library of Babel, if you’re interested (and here’s Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, just because I can never decide which one I like better).
I’m from Spain, so we were requested to read Chronicle of an Announced Death (older than 100 years, and according to the Spanish-language wiki the second most read book in Spanish, but I suspect school homework may have too much to do with that). It went over our heads big time, it’s not an appropriate novel for 14-year-olds.
A book in a similar style but with English as the original language is The Milagro Beanfield War.
In the U.S., Crónica de una muerte anunciada is typically called Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and yes, along with Cholera, are books that I prefer to 100 Years.
I think of Marquez, in some ways, like Steinbeck: Both write heavy big books and lighter smaller books. I love *Chronicle *in a way that I love *Tortilla Flat *or Cannery Row - they capture a simpler time in a timeless, magical way. I think of *100 Years *as more like *East of Eden *or *Grapes of Wrath *- just bigger and heavier, so while brilliant, doesn’t inspire the same affection in me as a reader…
I adore Garcia Marquez, and I did my (undergrad) thesis on him and mostly OHYoS (though touched on his other books as well). If you liked magical realism (the telling of extraordinary events like they are everyday, common things), there are a lot of authors you’d probably dig.
Seriously, there is a lot of wonderful South American fiction out there. It’s amazing.
Slight correction: Latin-American fiction, in general adopted the “realismo mágico” current. There’s, for instance, Juan Rulfo (Mexican) who wrote very few stories, but has the style down pat. In Cuba there was Alejo Carpentier.
There are even a couple of movies, like “Como Agua para Chocolate” (arguably part of the current), or “Pedro Páramo” (written by Juan Rulfo, screenwriting by Carlos Fuentes).
Well, not a correction, no offense. I said South American because I took a great class in South American Fiction (not Latin American Fiction). I haven’t really read any Latin American fiction that wasn’t from South America. Sorry if I sound a bit touchy, but I did mean SA Fiction, not Latin.
