One Hundred Years of Solitude I

Whew. I read this book 3 weeks agoish, and it still sticks with me. Very vividly. I have a feeling it always will. Perhaps because the book is so primal in its tone and message. This is a lot to wade through, so I'm doing it in at least two parts. By the way, I'm pretty sure that this counts as my 25th book.



Overview: The One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a more modern writer, is a novel that revolves around the Buendia family that live in the village they founded in Spain, Macando. The family patriarch and matriarch who are the two who climb across the mountain range to found Macando (they hadn't any children yet) are Jose Arcadio and Ursula Buendia. Interestingly enough, when I looked up names (because this is the type of novel that you suspect that the names mean something), both Arcadio and Ursula mean bear. I'm not sure how this figures in at all, but it's interesting nevertheless. We find out eventually that the reason that the Buendias took some people and moved was that Jose Arcadio had murdered someone over a cockfight and the spirit of the murdered man left him no rest, so they pledged to leave the town. This is almost a bad omen, a curse that leave the Buendia family to one hundred years of solitude.



The Buendias. Wow. This family packs a punch. In the family there are exactly 2 men (patriarch Jose Arcadia is kind of a mixture of the two, in fact you would say that both men's traits were from him). The same men just repeat and repeat and have two names: Jose Arcadia (or variations) and Aureliano (variations). The women are varied and all strange. One becomes a hermit lady, one an old maid, one flies up into heaven, one an adulteress, one a pompous, overly religious hypocrite. Actually the latter was technically an in-law. But still cooky. However, the Buendias have one overwhelming trait in common: they are all passionate. In a second however, we find out through one of the themes of the novel, I think, is that passion does not equal love. Actually, Marquez reaffirms this belief by stating, when the last (insestuous) child is born - I believe they call him Aureliano -, that he was the only Buendia to actually have a heart. Of course this baby meets an tragic end just days after his birth, making his ending also tragic. And symbolic. But I'm trying not to reveal too many plot points, so you'll have to figure that one out on your own (hint: something else is destroyed at the same time).

If you haven't gotten a hint by now, the Buendias are a very violent and sinful family. Here is a quick list of violent/sinful acts I can remember off the top of my head:
Incest
Murder
Betrayal
Adultery
Incest
Lust (No, you don't say!)
War (not necessarily a crime, but violent indeed)
Usurping of authority(a brother's, so see betrayal above)
Incest
Gluttony/Carousing
The introduction of evil to society(not a direct crime, but I'll add it)
Now, don't get me wrong, there were some heroes in the family. And even someone who was taken off into heaven (via floating/flying). And do you get the picture that this is, indeed, a very passionate family?

There are some unique circumstances in the novel. Though the sentence of solitude, I'll call it, is 100 years long, time moves faster than that. How do I say this? At the beginning of the novel, Marquez states that the time was at the point when some words weren't invented yet, and gypsies roam and bring them magic and ice, which is given almost magical qualities. As time moves, the reader witnesses an Industrial Revolution and what I think is supposed to be the Roaring Twenties and airplanes and trains, as well as the civil war. Of course, the timeline of Macando wouldn't line up to that of the United States, because it is a Brazilian writer writing about Spain. But you see what I mean. Everything evolves faster in invention and progress while only a century passes. Actually time is a great theme of this novel, but I think I'm going to leave it at this and post things like themes and symbolism in my next post.

By the way, since I referenced a similar novel for The Joy Luck Club, I might as well for this. The Alchemist is a book also by a South American author that takes place somewhat in Spain. The writing style is a little similar, but I blame that on the toll translation takes on style. Apart from that, the two books don't really have a lot in common. But I love The Alchemist, which delves into the forces of the world, and other world-encompassing matters. It's a short read, unlike Hundred and way less tragic also. I would give it a 4 1/2.