One
Hundred Years of Solitude tells
the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of
Macondo, through the history of the Buendia family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive
with unforgettable men and women – brimming with truth, compassion, and a
lyrical magic that strikes the soul – this novel is a masterpiece in the art of
fiction. (Book jacket)
At last I
finished reading “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia
Marquez. I had begun reading it years
ago but at that time had been unable to see it through to the end. I’m glad I didn’t completely abandon the
endeavor and picked it up again. I truly
liked the way it was written – very compelling.
It made me want to keep reading – even if it wasn’t the most thrilling,
heart-stopping, edge-of-your-seat story one has ever encountered.
It’s a
very Latin American book, if I may say so; because from my personal experience most
every great Latin American novel I’ve read over the years tend to have similar
characteristics with this, dwelling on a particular family and generations of
that family. They are oftentimes more
character-driven rather than plot-driven.
The characters give color and depth to the story and in this book there
was certainly no lack of strange, quirky, and even magical characters. And that’s another thing worth mentioning –
magic. Magical realism as a literary
style is wielded by eminent Latin American authors the way paring knives are
wielded by the best chefs. The reader is
left to figure out what to believe. For
instance, a perfect beauty is born into the family only to end up ascending
body and soul into heaven; or a very public massacre of three thousand people
whose bodies were piled into a two-hundred-car train and then dumped into the
sea; or continuous rain that does not stop for four whole years; and many
more. And of course the presence of the
ghosts of dead friends, enemies, and forebears – what good Latin American novel
has no ghosts? I am absolutely awed by
how GGM writes about falling in love, and the passion of lovemaking. He describes it as something equally painful
and beautiful, like an act of excruciating creation and renewal where in order
for something to come forth, there has to be another thing destroyed. I love the way he managed to make individuals
of each and every character even though they all had the same names. It is amazing how at any point in the story
you know exactly which Aureliano is in the spotlight, or which Jose Arcadio was
causing havoc everywhere.
But as I
said before, this one is all about the characters. One thing – why oh why was practically
everyone named Jose Arcadio, or Aureliano, or any combination of these? Couldn’t this family think of any other
name? Colonel Aureliano Buendia fathered
seventeen sons on seventeen different women – all were named Aureliano. Not for a lack of creativity and imagination,
I’m sure. The Buendia family had those
in aces. I choose to think it is because
of a shared destiny passed on from one generation to the next, carried on
through those names. Even the women were
not spared – you were either an Ursula or an Amaranta or a Remedios or any
combination of those. I prefer to
believe they were all unconsciously driving toward something inevitable, so
they kept passing their names to their children and grandchildren. And this destiny is something that is tied
directly to the fate of the town of Macondo itself. How many downfalls and renaissances have the
Buendia family instigated in Macondo?
Wars, assassinations, massacres, debaucheries, prosperity, healings, and
miracles – they brought all of these to their little piece of the world. The Buendia Family was Macondo and Macondo
was the Buendia Family. That’s why they
kept coming back no matter how far they may stray. They could not escape the destiny they shared
with the land they owned and which owned them.
Ironically
enough, even though it was the men who were the major movers and shakers of
each generation of the Buendia family, it was the women who lived and witnessed
the longest. Ursula, the matriarch, and
Pilar Ternera, the prostitute, were the two whose children and grandchildren
peopled the generations, and they were the only two who witnessed the shared
destiny as it was passed on. So what was
this strange destiny anyway?
Solitude,
of course. They were all destined (or
should I say, cursed) to revel and to suffer in solitude – alone in each one’s
isolation, and alone even in each other’s togetherness and filial bonds. Just like the town of Macondo itself, forever
isolated in spite of war, trade, progress, prosperity, and disaster. In the end, solitude is all that they would
have ever had.
Strangely,
though the book compelled me to read on continuously, once in a while I felt so
tired. It was as if by the end of the
book it was I who had lived all those one hundred years. Repeatedly the characters built me up and
then broke me down over and over again.
However, I cannot say I did not enjoy the book – it is deeply truthful
and magical. But it is not a book that I
would consider rereading for a long time to come. Ah, but who knows? I might someday want to revisit Macondo and
entangle myself in the lives of the Buendias again, if I should want a dose of
their brand of mysterious, exquisite solitude.
Other Latin American authors I love:
Laura Esquivel, Isabel Allende, Mario Vargas Llosa, Paulo
Coelho
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