n  WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS FOUL, ANGRY LANGUAGE. (WITH S**RS)n

n  I'm just

SO.

F**KING.

CONFUSED.n

WHAT THE FLIPPIN' HECK DID I JUST READ.

Honestly.

Alternative titles:
One Hundred Years of Reading You'll Never Get Back
One Hundred Years of Your LIFE You'll Never Get Back
Four Hundred and Twenty Two Pages of Monotony
Fifty Thousand Mentions of Two Names
A Cure for Insomnia

F**K THAT.

This is like ... you know how there's those jokes that go on and on and on and ON only to deliver a punch line that is so bad and unworthy that you just roll your eyes and groan?? THIS IS THAT.

I can't even deal with the fact that there are people in the world who LOVE this book.

Basically, it's about generation after generation after generation of the same family who all share the same name and it is F**KING CONFUSING. I know that's intentional and symbolic but it doesn't make this any less of n  a chore to readn. It's also just walls of text from start to finish that meander and bumble along making very little sense. There's no flow or logic and it's all clearly intentional but that really doesn't help its case in my mind.JUST BECAUSE IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE DULL AND MONOTONOUS DOESN'T MEAN I'M GOING TO ENJOY READING THAT.

Add to that, n  the family is one heck of a f**ked up family and BATSH*T INSANEn and it's JUST A MESS.

It practically begins with incest and keeps it up the whole way through; there's prostitution and murder and insanity and just basically everything that is wrong with the world can be found in this most disturbing book. 'Magical realism'?? I mean, what the f**k does that even mean?? How the ... f**king REALISM??? WTF???? And normally I don't mind a bit of f**ked up to keep things interesting but how can any book possibly include this much murder and depravity and STILL BE BORING??

Honestly, I feel like I need to Google to properly understand why so much depravity was included and why it's considered to be such genius, because sure, the ending is a little clever but it's certainly not enough to make up for wading through over 400 pages of this utter trash.

I just don't get it.

Clearly my IQ is too low for this "Masterpiece of Literature"; this book is officially the most overrated classic I've ever read in my life.

I hated it so much I tried to make it a group read so I could share the pain and torture XD I AM A TERRIBLE HUMAN BEING.


Conclusion:
I did not like this book very much.

"Sometimes great books have deleterious consequences for other writers, creating footsteps that can’t be walked in, shade the sun can’t penetrate, expectations that have no grounds. Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude crushed the hopes of scores of young Colombian writers, and the spread of magic realism was not exactly beneficent, since it takes a magician to work magic and because rabbits don’t hide in just anybody’s hat."

– William H Gass, in the essay 'Influence' from A Temple of Texts.

This is a book of such terrible and heartbreaking beauty that I'm still reeling from the impact! Books like Nightwood & One Hundred Years of Solitude are proof that greatness shdn't be judged by size alone. This tale is perfect cause in it Márquez finally found the "right tone"–

...the tone that I eventually used in One Hundred Years of Solitude. It was based on the way my grandmother used to tell her stories. She told things that sounded supernatural and fantastic, but she told them with complete naturalness. When I finally discovered the tone I had to use, I sat down for eighteen months and worked every day.*

The mythical Macondo could be any place on earth where mankind was promised paradise but destroyed it as only man could.

Although Márquis said that he only wrote this as a book about incest, it's quite clear that it is a metaphor for the political & social history of Colombia rather broadly of Latin America's colonial past & its tentative march towards modernity as most events described herein are based on facts: Márquez’s native town of Aracataca as the inspiration for the fictional Macondo, the long & bloody civil war roiling South America 1850 onwards, the political assasinations, the arrival of the railways & the cinema, the cruel exploitation of Colombia by the American United Fruit Company, & the horrific massacre of the protesting workers by the Colombian military at the behest of the foreign imperialists, are some of the instances.

"García Márquez’s masterpiece, however, appeals not just to Latin American experiences, but to larger questions about human nature. It is, in the end, a novel as much about specific social and historical circumstances—disguised by fiction and fantasy—as about the possibility of love and the sadness of alienation and solitude."

Just as Rushdie described the waning years of the British Empire & then a free India's tryst with destiny through the Sinai family in Midnight's Children ( a book inspired by this book!), the narrative here is told through the meteoric rise & rise & subsequent decline & fall of the House of Buendias — the first family of Macondo who become a symbol of the culture & the country.
Like the famous first families around the world – the Kennedys, the Perons, the Gandhis, the Bhuttos – their charisma carries their curse:

The charismatic patriarch José Aureliano Buendia, who starts with such dreams & promise, like so many of his descendants, eventually resigns himself:
"We shall never get anywhere. . . . We'll rot our lives away here without the benefits of science". (19)
His descendants all inherit the same difficulty, and thus all eventually succumb to the power of nostalgia, to opting out of their historical reality, which they have never really understood clearly. They cope with their failure by an inner withdrawal...Loneliness in Macondo and among the Buendias is not an accidental condition, something that could be alleviated by better communications or more friends, and it is not the metaphysical loneliness of existentialists, a stage shared by all men. It is a particular vocation, a shape of character that is inherited, certainly, but also chosen, a doom that looks inevitable but is freely endorsed. The Buendias seek out their solitude, enclose themselves in it as if it were their shroud. As a result they become yet another emblem of the unreality.**

What's in a name? A lot, it seems!

The theme of a circular time is emphasised again & again through many devices - The multi-generational Buendia family keep giving the same ancestral names over & over to the children of the family, any attempt to break away from this practice is thwarted. The reduction in names' length means reduction in other ways as well – the boys are less of men - more dissolute, purposeless & solitary. The Buendias put the D back in dysfunctional : incest, adultery, debauchery, self-centeredness & excesses of all sorts abound. By having the same names they are condemned to repeat the mistakes of their earlier namesakes - first as farce then as tragedy; their ineffectual repetitive behaviour symbolised in the futile thirty-two armed uprisings & the little gold fishes of Colonel Aureliano Buendia.

The narrative plays out like a Greek tragedy – The characters seem fated to act out their lives as if there were no other way – for example, the seventeen boys of Colonel Aureliano, with the Ash Wednesday cross on their foreheads, are sitting ducks for political vendetta. The Biblical allusions are woven throughout – The Paradise discovered & lost, the deluge & plagues & finally Macondo is so deep in sins that like Sodom & Gomorrah, it has to be destroyed. The ending is heartbreaking but it couldn't have ended any other way. But if you read closely, there is a ray of hope!

I can't recommend this book enough - the epic scope of its narrative, the Magical Realism that became a standard for others writing in this genre, the deeply flawed but oh so human & memorable characters & Márquez's exquisite & at times hypnotic prose will keep you glued to this profoundly sad & disturbing tale.

A note regarding spoilers

Readers who are finicky about their spoiler alerts shd avoid this book – after every few pages the omniscient narrator gleefully announces the gruesome deaths that will befall the various members of the Buendia family, not to mention the back & forth in narrative time, the predictions & foreshadowing galore.
Point is, spoiler alerts are for ninnies – Adults just get on with it!

(*) Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 69, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...

(**) A must read:
Lecture on One Hundred Years of Solitude
http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/intro...

This too:

Memory and Prophecy, Illusion and Reality Are Mixed and Made to Look the Same
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/15...

The Point of Myth?

I suppose if your taste runs to JRR Tolkien and Carlos Castaneda this would be a book for you. But mine doesn’t and this isn’t. I prefer James Joyce and Carl Jung. I understand Marquez’s metaphorical recapitulation of the history of Latin America, his articulation of the repetitiveness of human folly over generations, his recognition of the dangers of human inquiry and technological progress, his appreciation of the dialectical quality of things like ambition, masculine strength, sex, and family life. But I am still left unimpressed and unaffected by the result.

For me the various Jose Arcadia Buendia’s and their homophonic relatives are like Hobbits. They operate in the world in a permanent state of awed surprise - slack-jawed and glassy-eyed. They lack the ability for introspective reflection and so bumble from one crisis to the next but never confront the inimical content of themselves with any awareness. They'd rather be at home but only when they're away from it. Consequently there is no tension of development, of discovery, but merely the flatness of yet another unnecessary familial trial that leads nowhere except to further obsession and avoidable grief. After all, at least Joyce’s Bloom and Homer’s Ulysses have moments of personal insight or revelation. In contrast, Marquez’s JAB’s seem obstinately obtuse.

Like any other parabolic myth, One Hundred Years satisfies many interpretations, even contradictory ones: the world of the inquiring intellect vs. the world of the participative human being; personal ambition vs. communal duty; power and its conceits; the sources of tribal identity, etc. But for me these possibilities don’t lead to anything more meaningful than the opportunity presented by a telephone book to ring up any number of strangers. I find nothing ‘larger’ to which such things point. The various JAB’s are fatally fascinated solely by what presents itself in front of them. I think I would prefer the story of Marquez’s gypsy seer, Melquiades, who had “an Asiatic look that seemed to know what there was on the other side of things.” But Marquez doesn’t say anything else about what that might be.

For a long time I could not find words to write anything on One Hundred Years of Solitude, for Marquez mesmerised me into a silence I didn't know how to break. But I have been commenting here and there on Goodreads and now it is good time, finally, to gather my thoughts in one piece. But this somewhat longer review is more a labour of love than a coherent attempt to review his opus.

Marquez resets the history of universe such that the old reality ceases to exist and a new parallel world is born in which things do not conform to obsolete, worn-out laws. Everything in this world is to be discovered anew, even the most primary building block of life: water. Macondo is the first human settlement of Time Immemorial set up by the founding fathers of the Buendia family. It is a place where white and polished stones are like ‘prehistoric eggs’; an infant world, clean and pure, where ‘many things lack names.’ And it is natural that here, in the farther reaches of marshland prone to cataclysmic events, the mythscape of One Hundred Years of Solitude should come into existence.

The tone of this epic and picaresque story is set ab initio. Take a gander at this:

n  Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.n

It is not long before fateful human activity mars the innocent beauty of creation. The more they discover the more they are sucked into the inescapable cycle of life. The primordial myth that moulds and shapes their destinies does not let them advance in their efforts to defeat the infernal solitude of existence, whatever they might do, however they might try. History gets back at them again and again and every generation is but a repeat of the past. It is to emphasise the cyclical nature of time, in my opinion, that names of principal characters are repeated in every generation, sometimes to the confusion of the reader, easily rectified by going back to the family tree provided in the start of the book.

An external, portentous, disastrous, evil-like power guides and transforms the lives of people in the hamlet of Macondo. The sense of foreboding pervades the whole story: the rain continuing for many days and inundating the streets, the unceasing storm before the arrival in town of a heraldic character, and the fearful episode when townspeople begin to suffer a terrible memory loss, so that to remember the names and functions of things they write it down on labels and tie those labels to objects like chairs and tables. It tells us that we cannot hope for a future if our past is erased from the slates of our collective consciousness. Past may be a burden but it is also a great guiding force without which there's no future.

The only way to retain your sanity is to remember your history and cling to it, or prepare to go insane. When one Jose Arcadio Buendia loses the memory of things, he goes mad:

n  Jose Arcadio Buendia conversed with Prudencio Aguilar until the dawn. A few hours later, worn out by the vigil, he went into Aureliano’s workshop and asked him: “What day is today?” Aureliano told him that it was Tuesday. “I was thinking the same thing,” Jose Arcadio Buendia said, “but suddenly I realized that it’s still Monday, like yesterday. Look at the sky, look at the walls, look at the begonias. Today is Monday too.” On the next day, Wednesday, Jose Arcadio Buendia went back to the workshop. “This is a disaster,” he said. “Look at the air, listen to the buzzing of the sun, the same as yesterday and the day before. Today is Monday too.” That night Pietro Crespi found him on the porch, weeping for…his mother and father. On Thursday he appeared in the workshop again with the painful look of plowed ground. “The time machine has broken,” he almost sobbed,…he spent six months examining things, trying to find a difference from their appearance on the previous day in the hope of discovering in them some change that would reveal the passage of time.n

The town is threatened when the change taking place in the outside world begins to spill over into Macondo. Here we have a metaphor for the struggle of Maruqez’s native country and continent which is passing through internecine wars on its way toward externally imposed modernity. Divisions that hitherto did not exist come to define the inhabitants of Macondo and of towns farther afield. One of the Buendias, Colonel Aureliano, takes up a piece of metalwork as new and strange as a gun to mount a revolt and bring the promised glory to his land. New lines are drawn. New alliances are made. Old friends become enemies and enemies, partners. Colonel Aureliano Buendia, when he is about to kill him, tells General Moncada:

n  Remember, old friend, I'm not shooting you. It's the revolution that's shooting you.n

The scene above captures the mechanistic element of their revolutionary war; the one below bares the meaninglessness of the conflict, so pertinent to the 20th century militarisation of the whole continent and its endless armed strife led by colonels and generals of all hues and shades.

n  Tell me something, old friend: why are you fighting?"
What other reason could there be?" Colonel Gerineldo Marquez answered. "For the great Liberal party."
You're lucky because you know why," he answered. "As far as I'm concerned, I've come to realize only just now that I'm fighting because of pride."
That's bad," Colonel Gerineldo Marquez said.
Colonel Aureliano Buendia was amused at his alarm. "Naturally," he said. "But in any case, it's better than not knowing why you're fighting." He looked him in the eyes and added with a smile:
Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn't have any meaning for anyone.”n

Although I tried to avoid getting into this discussion, but a review of this work is not possible without throwing in the inevitable buzzword – magical realism. Although the book gets high praise from most readers, it is to be expected that some readers would take a disliking to the basic ingredients from which Marquez draws his style and narrative devices. I want to address in particular one argument from the naysayer camp that pops up again and again: it is not realistic; it can’t happen; this is not how things work. So I ask (and try to answer): what is it with our obsession with “realism” that makes some of us reject the conceptual framework of this novel?

Aristotle in Poetics argues that a convincing impossibility in mimesis is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. The stress is not on what can physically happen but on mimetic persuasion. This is why some novels that follow every bit of convention, every bit of realistic element in them turn out to be unbelievable stories with unbelievable characters. You want to forget them as soon as you finish the book – and toss it aside. But on the other hand Greek tragedies populated with cosmic characters pulling suprahuman feats continue to enthrall generations of readers. How realistic are those stories? It is the writer’s task to convince us that this could have happened in a world he has created and set the rules for. In that Marquez is more than successful, and this is the basis of the enduring appeal of this work.

The distinction fell into place for me when I replaced ‘realism’ with ‘truth.’ Kafka’s haunting stories are so far from the 19th century convention of realism we have come to accept as the basis of novel-writing. His The Metamorphosis is not a representation of likely human activity (how could a human transform overnight into a large insect?) but it is nonetheless a harrowingly truthful story that advances existential dilemmas and makes a statement on human relationships, familial in particular. We say this is how it would feel like to be an outcast from one’s family. Or consider Hamsun’s Hunger in which a starving man puts his finger in his mouth and starts eating himself. In the ‘real’ world Kafka’s, Hamsun’s and Marquez’s characters cannot exist but the effect of their existence on us is as truthful and real as the dilemmas of any great realistic character ever created.

Marquez, like a god, has written the First Testament of Latin America, synthesising myth and magic to reveal the truth of the human condition, and called it One Hundred Years of Solitude.


February 2015

Revised 28 March 2012

Huh? Oh. Oh, man. Wow.

I just had the weirdest dream.

There was this little town, right? And everybody had, like, the same two names. And there was this guy who lived under a tree and a lady who ate dirt and some other guy who just made little gold fishes all the time. And sometimes it rained and sometimes it didn’t, and… and there were fire ants everywhere, and some girl got carried off into the sky by her laundry…

Wow. That was messed up.

I need some coffee.

The was roughly how I felt after reading this book. This is really the only time I’ve ever read a book and thought, “You know, this book would be awesome if I were stoned.” And I don’t even know if being stoned works on books that way.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez (which is such a fun name to say) is one of those Writers You Should Read. You know the type – they’re the ones that everyone claims to have read, but no one really has. The ones you put in your online dating profile so that people will think you’re smarter than you really are. You get some kind of intellectual bonus points or something, the kind of highbrow cachet that you just don’t get from reading someone like Stephen King or Clive Barker.

Marquez was one of the first writers to use “magical realism,” a style of fantasy wherein the fantastic and the unbelievable are treated as everyday occurrences. While I’m sure it contributed to the modern genre of urban fantasy – which also mixes the fantastic with the real – magical realism doesn’t really go out of its way to point out the weirdness and the bizarrity. These things just happen. A girl floats off into the sky, a man lives far longer than he should, and these things are mentioned in passing as though they were perfectly normal.

In this case, Colonel Aureliano Buendia has seventeen illegitimate sons, all named Aureliano, by seventeen different women, and they all come to his house on the same day. Remedios the Beauty is a girl so beautiful that men just waste away in front of her, but she doesn’t even notice. The twins Aureliano Segundo and Jose Arcadio Segundo may have, in fact, switched identities when they were children, but no one knows for sure – not even them. In the small town of Macondo, weird things happen all the time, and nobody really notices. Or if they do notice that, for example, the town’s patriarch has been living for the last twenty years tied to a chestnut tree, nobody thinks anything is at all unusual about it.

This, of course, is a great example of Dream Logic – the weird seems normal to a dreamer, and you have no reason to question anything that’s happening around you. Or if you do notice that something is wrong, but no one else seems to be worried about it, then you try to pretend like coming to work dressed only in a pair of spangly stripper briefs and a cowboy hat is perfectly normal.

Another element of dreaminess that pervades this book is that there’s really no story here, at least not in the way that we have come to expect. Reading this book is kind of like a really weird game of The Sims - it’s about a family that keeps getting bigger and bigger, and something happens to everybody. So, the narrator moves around from one character to another, giving them their moment for a little while, and then it moves on to someone else, very smoothly and without much fanfare. There’s very little dialogue, so the story can shift very easily, and it often does.

Each character has their story to tell, but you’re not allowed to linger for very long on any one of them before Garcia shows you what’s happening to someone else. The result is one long, continuous narrative about this large and ultimately doomed family, wherein the Buendia family itself is the main character, and the actual family members are secondary to that.

It was certainly an interesting reading experience, but it took a while to get through. I actually kept falling asleep as I read it, which is unusual for me. But perhaps that’s what Garcia would have wanted to happen. By reading his book, I slipped off into that non-world of dreams and illusions, where the fantastic is commonplace and ice is something your father takes you to discover.

------
“[Arcadio] imposed obligatory military service for men over eighteen, declared to be public property any animals walking the streets after six in the evening, and made men who were overage wear red armbands. He sequestered Father Nicanor in the parish house under pain of execution and prohibited him from saying mass or ringing the bells unless it was for a Liberal victory. In order that no one would doubt the severity of his aims, he ordered a firing squad organized in the square and had it shoot a scarecrow. At first no one took him seriously.”

Español - English

Este es mi mas gran libro favorito de todos los tiempos.

Y no es para menos.

Por este libro pasan acontecimientos narrados en otros libros del mismo escritor, como La triste historia de Cándida Eréndida y su abuela desalmada, Isabel viendo llover en Macondo y Los funerales de la Mama grande.

Narra la historia de siete generaciones de la familia Buendía desde sus inicios y fundación en el pueblo Macondo.

José Arcadio Buendía y Ursula Iguarán son dos primos que se casan, pero que tienen el temor por el mito que decía que sus hijos podrían nacer con colas de cerdo. Al final tienen tres hijos: José Arcadio, Aureliano y Amaranta. Nombres que se repetirán en las siete generaciones, lo que lo hace muy confuso, pero interesante.

En esta familia todos los integrantes parecen estar destinados a la soledad.

---

This is my biggest favorite book of all time.

And is not for less.

Through this book happen events narrated in other books of the same writer, like the Sad story of Candida Eréndida and its soulless grandmother, Isabel seeing raining in Macondo and The funerals of the great Mama.

It narrates the history of seven generations of the family Buendía from its beginnings and foundation in the town Macondo.

Jose Arcadio Buendía and Ursula Iguarán are two cousins who marry, but who have the fear of the myth that said that their children could be born with pig tails. In the end they have three children: Jose Arcadio, Aureliano and Amaranta. Names that will be repeated in the seven generations, which makes it very confusing, but interesting.

In this family all members seem to be destined for solitude.

(399 From 1001 Books) - Cien Años de Soledad = One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a landmark 1967 novel by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez that tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, a fictitious town in the country of Colombia.

Characters: Úrsula Iguarán, Remedios Moscote, Remedios, la bella, Fernanda del Carpio, Aureliano Buendía, José Arcadio Buendía, Amaranta Buendía, Amaranta Úrsula Buendía, Aureliano Babilonia, José Arcadio Segundo, Aureliano Segundo, Aureliano José, Pilar Ternera, Rebeca Buendía, Santa Sofía de la Piedad, Arcadio Buendía, José Arcadio Buendía, hijo, Meme Buendía, Petra Cotes, Pietro Crespi, Melquiades.

صد سال تنهایی - گابریل گارسیا مارکز انتشارات امیرکبیر، ترجمه بهمن فرزانه؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ماه آوریل سال 1978میلادی بار دیگر در سال 1980میلادی

عنوان یک: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: بهمن فرزانه؛ انتشارات امیرکبیر در سال 1353، در 363ص، اما همین ترجمه بهمن فرزانه بارها توسط انتشاراتیهای متفاوت چاپ شده؛ انتشاراتی دادار، 1380 در 360ص، شابک 9647294352؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان کلمبیایی - سده 20م

عنوان دو: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: محمدرضا راهور، نشر تهران، آبگون، چاپ نخست 1379، در 496ص، شابک 9649166831؛ همین ترجمه را انتشارات شیرین در سال 1382، با شابک 9645564937؛ و انتشارات آربابان در سال 1380، با شابک 9647196040؛ منتشر کرده اند

عنوان سه: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: محسن محیط، نشر تهران، محیط، چاپ نخست 1374، در 479ص، شابک 9646246125؛ چاپ پنجم 1378؛

عنوان چهار: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: کیومرث پارسای، نشر تهران، آربابان، چاپ نخست 1382، در 560ص، شابک 9647196229؛ چاپ بیست و سوم 1393؛

عنوان پنج: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: حبیب گوهری راد، نشر تهران، رادمهر، چاپ نخست 1388، در 420ص، شابک 9789648673678؛ و انتشارات جمهوری در سال 1388 در 420ص و شابک 9789646974961؛

عنوان شش: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: مژگان فامیلی، نشر تهران، لیدا، چاپ نخست 1391، در 552ص، شابک 9786006538549؛

عنوان هفت: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: رضا دادویی، نشر تهران، آدورا، چاپ نخست 1391، در 416ص، شابک 9786009307197؛

عنوان هشت: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: محمدرضا سحابی، نشر تهران، انتشارات مصدق، چاپ نخست 1393، در 416ص، شابک 9786009442119؛

عنوان نه: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: زهره روشنفکر، نشر تهران، مجید، چاپ نخست 1388، در 456ص، شابک 9789644531064؛

عنوان ده: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: محمدصادق سبط شیخ، نشر تهران، تلاش، چاپ نخست 1390، در 540ص، شابک 9786005791426؛

عنوان یازده: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: ناصر جوادخانی، نشر تبریز، یاران، چاپ نخست 1390، در 400ص، شابک 9789642340828؛

عنوان دوازده: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: مریم فیروزبخت، نشر تهران، حکایتی دیگر، چاپ نخست 1388، در 518ص، شابک 9789642756124؛ چاپ چهارم 1392؛

عنوان سیزده: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: اسماعیل قهرمانی پور(شمس خوی)، نشر تهران، روزگار، چاپ نخست 1389، در 415ص، شابک 9789643741822؛

عنوان چهارده: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: عبدالرسول اکبری، نشر تهران، شبگون، چاپ نخست 1393، در 584ص، شابک 9786009454518؛

عنوان پانزده: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: بهاره خدادادی، نشر: تهران، نسل آفتاب، چاپ نخست 1389، در 4644ص، شابک 9786005847192؛

عنوان شانزده: صد سال تنهایی؛ اثر: گابریل گارسیا مارکز؛ مترجم: آوینا ترنم، نشر تهران، ماهابه، در سال 1393، در 477ص، شابک 9786005205596؛ و توسط نشر هنر پارینه، در سال 1390، در 584ص، شابک 9786005981032؛

چاپ نخست این اثر در سال 1967میلادی، در «آرژانتین»، با تیراژ هشتهزار نسخه، منتشر شد؛ تمام نسخه‌ های چاپ نخست «صد سال تنهایی» به زبان اسپانیایی، در همان هفته ی نخست، کاملاً به فروش رفت؛ در چهار دهه، و سالهایی که از نخستین چاپ این کتاب، بگذشته، بیش از سی میلیون نسخه از آن، در سراسر جهان، به فروش رفته، و به بیش از سی زبان، ترجمه شده است؛ جایزه «نوبل ادبیات» سال 1982میلادی به «گابریل گارسیا مارکز» برای آفرینش همین اثر تعلق گرفت

هشدار و اخطار برای کسانیکه میخواهند داستان را گرم گرم بخوانند؛ ...؛ لطفا ادامه این نوشتار یا سطرهای پایانی آنرا نخوانید؛

داستان، به شرح زندگی شش نسل، از خانواده ی «بوئندیا»، پرداخته؛ که نسل نخست، آن‌ها در دهکده‌ ای به نام «ماکوندو»، ساکن می‌شوند؛ ناپدید شدن، و مرگ بعضی از شخصیت‌های داستان، به جادویی شدن روایت‌ها، می‌افزاید؛ صعود «رمدیوس» به آسمان، درست مقابل چشم دیگران؛ کشته شدن همه ی پسران سرهنگ «آئورلیانو بوئندیا»، که از زنانی در جبهه جنگ، به وجود آمده‌ اند، توسط افراد ناشناس، از طریق هدف گلوله قرار دادن پیشانی آنها، که علامت صلیب داشته؛ و طعمه ی مورچه‌ ها شدن «آئورلیانو»، نوزاد تازه به دنیا آمده ی «آمارانتا اورسولا»، از این موارد است

به باور بسیاری، نویسنده، در این کتاب است، که سبک «رئالیسم جادویی» را، ابداع کرده است؛ داستانی که در آن، همه ی فضاها و شخصیت‌ها، واقعی، و حتی گاهی، حقیقی هستند، اما ماجرای داستان، مطابق «روابط علّت و معلولی شناخته شده ی دنیای ما»، پیش نمی‌روند؛ سرهنگ «آئورلیانو بوئندیا»، پسر دوم «اورسولا»، و «خوزه آرکادیو» است؛ نخستین فرزندی است، که در «ماکوندو»، به دنیا می‌آید؛ این شخصیت، فاقد هرگونه احساس عشق، نفرت، ترس، تنهایی، و امید است؛ وی از کودکی، تحت تأثیر برادر بزرگتر خود، «خوزه آرکادیو بوئندیا»، قرار دارد، و در اوج داستان، توسط برادرش، که در نقطه ی مقابل دیدگاه سیاسی وی است، و به نوعی نماینده ی دشمنان او نیز، به شمار می‌آید، از اعدام، نجات پیدا می‌کند؛ وی بارها و بارها، از مرگ می‌گریزد؛ نه جوخه ی اعدام، و نه زخم و سم، و نه خودکشی، نمی‌توانند، وی را بکشند؛ وی به نوعی نماد شخصیت کسانی است، که باید زنده بمانند، و عذاب بکشند، تا پلی بین سنت و مدرنیته، در شهر خیالی «ماکوندو» باشند؛ وی در طول جنگ‌های داخلی، در تمام جبهه‌ های جنگ، با زنان بیشماری همبستر شده، و هفده پسر، که همه، نام کوچک وی، و نام خانوادگی مادرانشان را، دارند، از او بوجود آمده‌ اند؛ تو گویی، در تمام مسیر پیشروی در جبهه، تخم جنگ را نیز، پراکنده است؛ اما همه ی این هفده پسر، که یک کشیش روی پیشانی آن‌ها، علامت صلیب را، با خاکستر حک کرده، به سرعت کشته می‌شوند؛ در نهایت، سرهنگ، در اوج تنهایی، و فراموش شدگی، می‌میرد

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 20/11/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

"نسل های محکوم به صد سال تنهایی، فرصت مجددی در روی زمین نداشتند."

صد سال تنهایی؛
حکایت مردم غریب ماکوندو بود، مردمی که به رهبری خوزه آرکادیو بوئندیا شهری که توش زندگی می‌کردند رو ترک گفتند تا ماکوندو رو پیدا کنند. ماکوندو؛ سرزمین تنهایان.
تمامی شخصیت‌های این کتاب صدسال تنها بودند، تمام شخصیت‌ها صدسال زندگی کردند و در تنهایی مردند. تمام شخصیت‌ها وقتی می‌تونستن از دورهم بودن لذت ببرند از هم دور شدن و در آخر هم تنها ماندند.
این شخصیت‌ها هرکدوم یه جور خاصی تنها بودند؛
خوزه آرکادیو بوئندیا دربین اختراعاتش تنها بود، اورسلا بین نگرانی‌هاش وخوزه آرکادیو و سرهنگ آئورلیانو و هفده فرزندش هم تنهاترین آدم‌های ماکوندو بودند.
در نظر من به نثر درآوردن زندگانی هفت نسل خانواده ی بوئندیا این کتاب رو به یه شاهکار تبدیل کرد. چون حتی تصور این هفت نسل و تمام شخصیت‌ها کار ساده‌ای نبود.
بسیار لذت بردم

Mă tem că multă lume a rămas cu impresia că „realismul magic” e invenția lui Gabriel García Márquez. Ce-i drept, ecoul imens al romanului publicat în 1967 a impus sintagma și a făcut să curgă valuri de cerneală pe tema „realismului magic”.

Dar expresia e străveche, a fost folosită mai întîi în legătură cu pictura. Încă din anii 40 ai secolului trecut, în America latină, unii prozatori au amestecat gesturile „magice” (levitația gospodinelor etc.) și evenimentele reale într-un text care nu era nici fantastic, nici realist. Mă gîndesc, în primul rînd, la Miguel Ángel Asturias și Alejo Carpentier. Într-un interviu din 1967 (an în care a primit premiul Nobel), Miguel Ángel Asturias pretindea că el a fost cel dintîi realist magic. Se lăuda degeaba. Ca în majoritatea cazurilor, inventatorii sînt mai mulți. Și toți au convingerea că sînt singuri...

Romanul lui Márquez pornește, se pare, de la un incident din copilăria autorului. Bunicul lui a fost insultat sistematic de un individ și, pierzîndu-și răbdarea, l-a împușcat. Toată lumea din sat i-a dat dreptate, inclusiv familia răposatului. Cu toate acestea, căința l-a constrîns să părăsească satul și a mers în altă parte, unde a întemeiat o așezare. Îi spunea adesea nepotului: „Tu nu știi cît te apasă pe cuget un mort”.

Recitind de curînd Un veac de singurătate, am observat că multe situații se repetă (replici, gesturi, nume proprii etc.). Asta m-a dus cu gîndul la un fragment din Scriptură, care conține deviza - de mai tîrziu - a lui Giordano Bruno: Nihil sub sole novi.

Așa încît romanul lui Gabriel García Márquez poate fi citit și ca o ilustrare narativă, realizată de un scriitor extraordinar, a unui verset ilustru din Ecclesiast, 1: 9: „Ce a fost va mai fi, iar ce s-a făcut se va mai face! Nu este nimic nou sub soare!”. În fond, aceasta e și concluzia prorociței Pilar Ternera, culcată în balansoarul ei de liane: „Un secol de dat în cărţi şi de experienţă o învăţase că istoria familiei nu era decît un angrenaj de repetiţii inevitabile, o roată turnantă care ar fi continuat să se învîrtească în veci, dacă n-ar fi fost uzura progresivă şi iremediabilă a osiei ei” (p.347). Pilar rămîne în familia Buendía, neclintită ca un turn, citind în cărți viitorul, iar dacă este nevoie (cînd Macondo e vizitat de morbul insomniei), trecutul. Prezicerile ei se adeveresc fără greș și oferă locuitorilor din Macondo o realitate mai blîndă...

Inventivitatea metaforică a lui Márquez este cu adevărat prodigioasă.

"The book picks up not too far after Genesis left off." And this fictitious chronicle of the Buendia household in the etherial town of Macondo somewhere in Latin America does just that. Rightly hailed as a masterpiece of the 20th century, Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" will remain on the reading list of every pretentious college kid, every under-employed author, every field-worker in Latin America, and indeed should be "required reading for the entire human race," as one reviewer put it a few decades back.

No review, however laconic or ponderous, can do justice to this true piece of art. Perhaps I can only hint at a few of the striking features of the work that are so novel, so insightful, and which make it such a success in my opinion.

By far and away the most inspiring element of the work is the author's tone. He reportedly self-conscioulsy wrote in the style that his grandmother back in Columbia used to tell him stories. Thus there is a conversational, meandering, but indeed succinct and perfect narrative voice to whisk the reader through the years of Macondo's fantastical history.

Not unrelatedly, the tone has ample visual imagery, with superb attention to detail (and just the right quantity and nature of the detail that surrounds everyday life) to help prod the story along. The dolls of the child-bride treasured by the mother-in-law and heroine Ursula. The paranormal and mundane contrivences of the gypsies that are celebrated in the opening pages and which close the book. The tree to which the mad genius who founded the town and Buendia line is tied and dies in. The pretentious suitcases of the returning emigre. The goldfishes that are the relicts of a disillusioned but celebrated warrior. And the ubiquitous ants. All these objects have their proper place among the daily going abouts of the Buendia family, and serve to weave into the story a sense of BOTH the ordinary and the surreal.

There is ample space in this world of Macondo and the Buendias for a sad commentary on that world South of the Rio Grande. Incessant, pointless civil wars. A rigid political and ecclesiastical hierarchy shoved down the throats of decent folk. The rampant exploitation of the tropics by outsiders, both foreign and domesitc. And perhaps most significantly, the strangely marginal and uncomfortable space occupied by technology in daily life in the Latino world. I am surely not alone in uncovering some facet of the work that speaks so boldly and loudly to me. This rich yet surprisingly elegant novel has, it seems, on every page the germinating seeds of an exciting conversation that speaks directly to an observation and experience everybody, and especially those coming to or from Latin America (or any underdeveloped nation), has had.

And of course there are the brilliant characters, and the sense one gets of how they are affected by, and in turn affect, their setting. The story is aided by a pedigree one keeps referring to in the beginning of the book, as its immense scope (yes, 100 years) and maddening array of characters demand of the reader to conjure up visualizations of what exactly is going on. It is no wonder that this work is celebrated for being almost biblical in scope.

Yes, my review can be condensed into three words: READ THIS BOOK!!!

I'd like to think this book defies description, but I lie. It's pretty much an epic 5 generation story of a mythical Colombian town rife with magical realism. There's a lot of walking dead, dead stored in bags, dead bleeding on the streets, and the not quite dead of a peep that lives for over 500 years. Never mind the magic carpets or the thousands of people with the same damn name. It's a family that will damn well reuse a loved name over and over because they loved the originals so damn much.

Huh. Well, as long as I've now given up on tracking them except by their place in time and the events, I rolled with it and listened to the ever-growing complexity of the cyclical tales written simply and passionately, feeling like the town is the MC, from its founding (birth), it's part in the civil war (troubled teens), and it's modernity (this came out in 1967, so just assume there's lots of passionate free-love sex (in marriage)).

Here's the thing about preconceptions. I never looked up what the novel was about, so I based it entirely on the book cover and the freaking title. So what did I think as I read this?

Where's the freaking solitude!!!!!????

Sigh. This novel is FULL OF PEOPLE, people. I mean, lordy, they're everywhere and in everyone's faces. I kept looking forward to the science-minded and scholarly peeps because they, at least, wanted a little time alone! It was tiring for me to keep up with so many damn people! (except, of course, in a flowing tapestry of sensation and recurring themes, of course. That part was actually damn pleasing.)

Did I study and draw diagrams to keep track of everything in this novel? Hell no. I considered it, but in the end, I didn't care enough to do much other than take it all in with huge gulps, burping every once in a while, but determined to drink every last drop.

It was good, dammit. The writing was smooth as silk and managed to accomplish so much so economically, that I see why it's considered a classic. Will I ever try this one again?

No. Likely not. I don't like admitting that a novel tired me out. :)

I must be missing something about this one, and whatever it is, I know it's not much.

I didn't enjoy it; I wanted it to be a fulfilling and rewarding read; I want it to be everything that everyone else said it was and then some.

So, I learned that some works aren't worth it--not worth reading, not worth the time, and not worth putting faith in what others may deem "a beautiful book."

Marquez pops characters in and out with different brief activities and events, scattering them into a literary collage; humans with tails, and a girl who eats dirt..those things would be interesting if a story was surrounding each one, but there isn't. It's like going to a carnival looking through a peep hole and seeing a freak of nature briefly.


To just pop these abnormalities in as being convincing, which it sure as hell isn't, seems to be stretching the point of lucidity and literary, and after that, I stopped reading--because there's a big difference in reading and just wallowing in a collage of intellectual masturbation where events and names are continuously wrapped around the charming misnomer:"magic realism."

Ultimately, it's monotonous, confusing, and in the end boring as hell.

I've given it no stars because I'm so full of magic realism. I'm real and can perform magic,and I'm far more convincing than this pretentious work ever could be.

Watch me: I'm waving my literary wand and sending 100 Days of Boring Crap on a magic carpet ride directly into my "crap that actually got published" bin. BRAVO!