لا أدري لم كان شبح ثلاثية غرناطة يلوح في الأفق منذ الصفحة العاشرة ..ولكن بشكل أسوء تلك المرة !! ياربي
.:D نفس الأشخاص والمراجعات والتقييمات والانبهارات ..؟ العيب منني إذا يا جماعة .؟
لا تنافقوني ..فقط قولوا لي العيب مني بالفعل ..

أم أن الأمر كما قال لي شخص لا أذكر اسمه اثناء مناقشة كتاب ثلاثية غرناطة ..((لديك مشكلة في تذوق الأدب :) )) وبسمايل نعم . :D
ولم تصر تلك المشكلة علي زيارتي في الأعمال العظيمة الفخمة الحائزة علي كل جوائز الأدب والأكثر مبيعا في التاريخ و إلخ ..إلخ ..لا أعرف ..

حسنا .. لقد إختصرت 8 صفحات كتبتها في تلك النقاط العشر .لنبدأ إذا :
بسم الله ..
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1_
الزمن في الرواية ؟ ..رأيته في غاية التفكك ..وكأن العمر ليس في اعتبار الكاتب أصلا ..ولا الفترات الزمنية التي هي خط سير الأحداث ..لا لم تكن في الحسبان أصلا ..
تارة يلمح لعمر أحد الشخصيات ..وتارة ينسي الموضوع ويتركك أنت لتحدد ..هل كبر بعد أم لا ..هل كل صفحة مرت تعني سنة ! لا أدري ..أطلق خيالك ..أنت في ماكوندو يا صديقي :”D
في البداية توقعت أن في تلك الرواية لا يموت أحد ..ثم بالمرور علي الصفحات ..يتخلص منهم الكاتب بكل سهولة !! ولأسباب ساذجة جدا ..وفي النهاية يموتون جميعهم ؟؟! :”D


2_
رصد العواطف والاختلاجات النفسية والبناء المتسلسل للشخصيات !
أين .؟ أين ؟ أين ؟
العواطف لم يكن لها وجود ..الاختلاجات النفسية كان يتم ذبحها بين السطور بلا رحمة ..الشخصيات ..كان عددها مباالغ به فمن الطبيعي أن لا تؤثر بك ولا شخصية ..وتشعر أن جميعهم بلا هوية وشخصيات هامشية ..فلو اجتمع كل الكتاب لبناء عمل بهذا العدد من الشخوص ..كانو سيجدوا صعوبة ضخمة في رسم ملامح لهم ..
التداعيات النفسية الفقيرة الصماء ؟ أين ما تشير اليه تعابير الوجه ؟
أين الصمت المتكلم ؟ أين لغة العيون ! .. أين روحك في العمل يا سيد ماركيز ؟

3_
لازمني شعور منذ منتصف الرواية بأن كل شيء يجول بخاطر الكاتب كان يضمه للعمل ..أي خيال وأي شخصية اوأي مكان , وأي مهنة .. سواء كان شيء جيد أو سيء أو ذا معني أو بدون ..كل شيء لم يتردد في اضافته .. (مجرد شعور)

4_
الحبكة الروائية ..االتسلسل المنطقي للأحداث !
لم أجد برعم واحد يتطور نموه بشيء منطقي . ! وهل لانها ماكوندو فلا يوجد هنا منطق ولنطلق العنان للخيال لينسج لنا الحدث ..؟
لنقفز في الأحداث بجنون ..لنجعلك تتزوج وتنجب وتمت زوجتك بنفس الصفحة !!
لنجعلك قائدا ومديرا وقديرا وعبقريا ومخترعا ومهووسا ومجنون ومربوط بجذع شجرة الكستناء في نفس الصفحة !!!
هل جننا أم ماذا :D ?

5_

هل يكفي الخيال ليغدو العمل رائع ومدهش و بلا بلا بلا ؟ ..اعترف بالفعل أن خيالك جامح !؟ ولكن أنت لم تستطع ترويض تلك المخيلة ..لذلك خرج العمل مهترء في نظري ..مسكين تطوحه الأقدار وتتلاعب به الشخصيات بفوضي وجنون وهزيان .. لم أعاني الأمرين لأتمم عمل ؟؟ لم ؟؟

6_
هناك أشياء كثيرة حدثت بلا تفسير ؟ وأكملت للنهاية علي أمل أن أجد تفسيرا لما حدث ؟ ..
أما بعد ؟ -
سيد ماركيز ؟؟ -
بربك ؟ هل نسيت ما كتبت في النصف الأول أم ماذا :D ?
مما عمق لدي الشعور الذي لازمني وما أوردته في النقطة الثالثة :)

7_
ما الغرض النبيل من وراء هذا العمل ؟!
ما القيمة التي أراد غرسها السيد ماركيز في تلك الأعوام المئة ؟ ماذا غير في شخصي وأي انطباع وصلني عنه –غير معرفة أنه يهيم عشقا في اسم خوسيه أركاديو—ماذا اذا ؟
بعض الأعمال تمتعني ولا تعطي قيمة حقيقة ولكنها تكون مشوقة مثلا
بعضها أتحمله لأتعلم شيئا .
ولكن هنا تحملتك ومللت واختنقت وأنهكتني ولم أحصل علي شيء !!
صدقوني العيب مني يا جماعة :D

8_
أخبروني أن تلك الراوية للخبير العتي الفذ فقط !! تلك الراوية ليست للطائشين أمثالي ! بل هي لمتذوقي الأدب ولذاته المقدسة .. والتي لم يودعها الله فيا علي ما يبدو .
ولذلك اذا كان طيشي هو من سيحدد حبي لعمل أصم ثقيل كهذا ..
فوالله لا أريد النضوج ولا الخبرة .. عذرا :) ..

9_
سؤالي لك عزيزي القاريء المقيم بالخماسية !
هل يمكنك إعادة قراءة هذا العمل مرة أخري ؟
-
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حسنا لقد أجبت نفسك :) ..
هل يمكن أن تمر مثل تلك الأشياء علي عمل أدبي حقييقي .. أو علي كاتب حتي لو كان مبتدئا ؟؟

10_
توقعت أن المشكلة كلها في الترجمة ..لذلك قمت بتحميل نسخة إلكترونية من ترجمة السيد صالح العلماني . وقرأت أول ثلاثين صفحة ..وحينها لم أجد أن الاختلاف شاسع ..بل هو طفيف .. لذلك أصابني إحباط شديد جدا . لذلك المشكلة فيا أو فيه فقط ..او الترجمة العربية كلها ..
لذلك لنقل أن هذا العمل الأخير لي مع ماركيز .ومتيقن أن الخسارة لن تكن ضخمة (بالنسبة لي )

التقييم 1.5/5
النصف لراحة ضميري ولشكي بالترجمة فقط لا غير :D
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أخيرا :
ما الذي أدي لشهرة الكتاب بهذا الشكل ؟؟
هل كان للإعلام والتضخيم الإعلامي دور في ذلك ؟.
هل لل748475 خوسيه دور في ذلك ؟ :”D
هل قامت روح أوريليانو خوسيه أركاديو بوينديا توموندو هوكوندو توموندو بروندو وهددت القائمين علي الجوائز ؟ :D
حقا لا أعرف .. !
شكرا للصديقات رغد وشهد وإيلي وRogious
علي المشاركة القرائية .. وأعتذر منكم يا جماعة لو عكرت صفو الرواية ..
اسف بحق للموقع كله :’)

مرتي الأخيرة ال��ي اقرأ بها جراء تقييمات وجوائز ..
وأخيرا أقولها للجميع :
لقد تعلمت الدرس ..
هنيئا لكم بذوقكم ..وهنيئا لي بذوقي السيء :) ..

عذرا علي الإطالة ..
السلام عليكم.

I was rather intimidated and contemplated for quite some time whether I would be able to understand this book – don`t repeat my stupid mistake , just pick this book up and let the story overwhelm you!

My advice would be to get some info on major themes and the structure of the book beforehand, and you`ll be alright. This does not mean that it takes intense research before reading the book in order to appreciate it, but some clues will help you to navigate through the magic and abundance of the story that make this book so beautiful and will take your head for a ride.

The book tells the story of the Buendía family from the foundation to the destruction of the city of Macondo. Yes, there are many characters with the same or very similar names in this family – and with good reason, as the book questions the concepts of time and history. The same character traits are repeatedly displayed in different people throughout seven generations, and the idea that history evolves in circles is brought up again and again. Macondo, the city of mirrors, is located in the jungle, and while reading, you constantly feel the humming of the insects, you feel the heat, the rain, the storm – the language is unbelievingly beautiful. The effect of disorientation and involvement is heightened by surreal events that, in the style of magical realism, are presented as completely normal – so it is raining yellow blossoms when the family patriarch dies, Melquíades resurrects because he could not stand the solitude of death, and Remedíos the Beauty ascends into the heavens because she was too pure-hearted for this world (well, supposedly :-)). The magical and the real melt into each other and form a whole new kind of reality, and believe me, it will blow your mind.

In order to enjoy the overwhelming effect while staying on top of the story, I got myself a Buendía family tree (just google it) and held on to the events that structure the book in five parts and refer to Latin American history: The founding of Macondo, the arrival of the judge as a representative of a central power, the civil wars, neo-colonization represented by the events around the banana plantation, and the destruction of Macondo (btw: what finally happens at the plantation strike really took place in Colombia). I am certainly far from being an expert for Latin American history, but that did not cause any problems here. I really felt with the members of the Buendía family and could see the events through their eyes, as every one of them struggles with his or her own kind of solitude, with their vices (and there are tons of them), their virtues, their personal struggles and the events they have to face.

I never read anything comparable to this book, and I was overwhelmed by its beauty and sadness. So don`t get discouraged because you hear that there are so many characters in this story and that the book does not conform to the standards of “creative writing 101” – that is part of why this book is so special and fascinating!

Many years ago I was told this is one of those books you have to read before you die. I didn't get far on that occasion, but returned recently with steely determination to have a second bite at the cherry (or should that be banana), to see if it really lives up to all the hype. Well, I certainly don't think I would take this as one of my few novels after being dumped on a desert island, nor would I have a special place on my bookshelf, and take it out every now and then to scrape moss from the cover and shoo away any unwanted lizards from within the pages, but yes, I am glad to have read it.

My fifth Marquez book had what I would come to expect in terms of magical realism, but through all the death, violence, and weird happenings, I found many of the characters still attached to real life situations, dealing with love, loss and war that had real consequences. I also found it darker in places than what I expected, but then again, what did I expect?. This is Marquez after all, and he sprung many a surprise on me. Mostly all good.

The names though, Ggggrrrrr!!!!! where was my copy of the family tree?, I bloody well could have done with one. Took much wrangling with the old grey matter to figure out just who is who's son/daughter etc...but just about got there. The narrative is a magician's trick in which memory and prophecy, illusion and reality are mixed and often made to look the same. How does one describe the techniques and themes of the book without making it sound absurdly complicated, labored and almost impossible to read. Though concocted of quirks, ancient mysteries, family secrets and peculiar contradictions, it makes sense that it doesn't always make sense but that's what gives the pleasure in dozens of little and immediate ways. The book is a prognostic history, not of governments or of formal institutions of the sort which keeps public records, but of a people who, like the earliest descendants of mankind are best understood in terms of their relationship to a single family. In a sense, José and Ursula are the only two characters in the story, and all their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are variations on their strengths and weaknesses. José, forever fascinated by the unknown, takes up project after project, invention after invention, in order among other things, to make gold, discover the ocean and photograph God. He eventually goes mad, smashes things, refuses to speak except in Latin and is tied to a giant chestnut tree in the middle of the family garden. A mixture of obsessive idealism and durable practicality informs the lives of the Buendía descendants. The males, all named Arcadio or Aureliano, go off to sea, lead revolutions, follow gypsies, fall disastrously in love with their sisters and aunts (except one who develops a passion for a 12-year-old-girl) but most of them add to the family's stature and wealth and all contribute generously to its number. The women are not overshadowed by the men, one feature I found most welcome, and the bizarre events including eating dirt through depression, burning hands in the wake of suicide, and sending an innocent beauty to heaven with the family sheets left for never a dull moment.

Márquez creates a continuum, a web of connections and relationships. However bizarre or grotesque some particulars may be, the larger effect is one of great gusto and good humor and, even more, of sanity and compassion. The author seems to be letting his people half-dream and half-remember their own story and what is best, he is wise enough not to offer excuses for the way they do it. No excuse is really necessary. For Macondo is no never-never land. Its inhabitants do suffer, grow old and die, but in their own way. It is a South American Genesis, an earthy piece of enchantment and so much more. It might have been just another phase in the incestuous life of Macondo, like the 32 revolutions or the insomnia plague, but enchantment and solitude cannot survive the gringos any more than they can avoid the 20th century.

The novel is packed full of political commentary on real-life events and there are several reminders of the tangible material world, we can say that the misogyny and violence don’t matter because none of it is real? depends how you interpret Márquez, the one thing I found to be the novels strongest assets were that he offers plenty of reflections on loneliness and the passing of time, the caustic commentary on the evils of war, and a warm appreciation for familial bonds. Through all the magical and strange tidings García Márquez has urgent things to say, about the world, about us.

It didn't all work for me structurally, and I still prefer the shorter writings of 'Innocent Erendira and Other Stories' as my favourite Márquez to date, but it's easy to see why for so many this remains such a cherished novel throughout the world.

Magical realism has been one of my favorite genres of reading ever since I discovered Isabel Allende and the Latina amiga writers when I was in high school. Taking events from ordinary life and inserting elements of fantasy, Hispanic written magical realism books are something extraordinary. Many people compare Allende to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who is considered the founder of magical realism. Until now, however, I had not read any of Marquez' full length novels so I had nothing to compare. On this 50th anniversary of its first printing, One Hundred Years of Solitude is the revisit the shelf selection for the group catching up on classics for January 2017. An epic following the Buendia family for 100 years, Solitude is truly a great novel of the Americas that put magical realism on the map.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born in Aracataca, Columbia in 1927. Influenced by his grandmother's vivid story telling, Marquez decided at an early age that he wanted to be a writer. Upon completion of la Universidad de Cartagena, Marquez began his career as a reporter and soon began to write short stories. His earliest stories were published as early as the 1950s, yet in 1964 while living in Mexico City with his young family, he completed Solitude in a mere eighteen months. Finally published for the first time in 1967, Solitude sold millions of copies, establishing Marquez as a world renown writer, leading to his receiving the Nobel Prize in 1982.

Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguaran lived in an isolated Colombian village where branches of the same family intermarried for centuries, resulting in children born with pigs tails or looking like lizards. Determined to end this cycle of incest, Buendia and a group of pioneers crossed the mountains and founded the village of Macondo. In the mid 1800s, Macondo was a fledging community, with Buendia, an alchemist, its most respected member. Jose Arcadio and Ursula went on to have three children: Aureliano, Jose Arcadio, and Amaranta. These names and the personality traits that distinguished the original bearers of these names repeated themselves over the course of a century.

Throughout the novel and the century of change to Macondo, all the Jose Arcadios were solitary individuals and inventors. Determined to decipher the gypsies secret to the universe, they holed themselves up in an alchemist's lab, rarely seen by the outside world. The Aurelianos, on the other hand, were leaders of revolution. Colonel Aureliano Buendia started thirty two civil wars yet lost all of them. A relic who fathered seventeen sons of the same name and grew to become Macondo's most respected citizen, his spirit of adventure and discovery repeated itself in the descendants who bore his name.

Women held the family together. First Ursula who lived to be 122 years old and then her daughter Amaranta, the women expanded the family home and raised successive generations so that new Jose Arcadios and Aurelianos would not repeat the mistakes of their namesakes. Yet the same mistakes and characteristics occur: rejected love, spirit of adventure, lone soles willing to live for one hundred years in solitary confinement. Additionally, the two characters who predicted all the events of the novel were not even members of the Buendia family: Pilar Ternera, a card reader who specialized in fates and could look at a Buendia to know his future; and Melquiades, a gypsy who befriended the original Jose Arcadio, leading all the successive generations to a life of solitude.

At first Marquez equates solitude with death. Later on he includes individuals happy to live out their days alone. In order to make a point of his examples of solitude, he interjects countless examples of magical realism: a man bleeding to death down a street, yellow butterflies announcing a man's presence, a rain of epic proportions that would not end. With these and other countless examples throughout the text, Marquez created a magical realism genre that is still widely in use by Latino writers and others around the world today.

While used to the magical realism genre, Marquez usage and prose were a treat for me to read. His writing is so captivating, I read the entire novel over the course of a day because I desired to know how the Buendias cyclical existence would either repeat itself or change once and for all. Between the prose and magical realism and a memorable story for the ages, One Hundred Years of Solitude is an epic, genre changing, extraordinary novel. Authors of the last fifty years can credit Marquez' influence in their own work. I feel privileged to have finally read this saga deserving of its numerous awards and top ratings that eventually lead Marquez to earn a Nobel Prize. One Hundred Years of Solitude, a novel for the ages, meriting 5 wonderful stars.

Finally I am trying to write a review for this book after completing it a month ago and still don’t have many words to describe this book, I mean the words that can do justice to the beauty of this book.

Basically this is the story of start to end of Buendia family. Buendia family has a tradition to repeat name in the family even if they think it was a bad omen yet they follow the tradition and keep this ritual alive. And that’s why it is hard for me to recount what happens in the book in terms of story. Even if I end up mixing the names, I still remember the characters by way of their actions. And it is there, for me, lies the beauty of this tale. These characters were so same and yet so different from each other.

Marquez has blended old and new so nicely that it was hard for me to point out where one starts and the other ends. His characters embraced new things with open arms but also stayed true to their roots and kept old traditions alive till the very end. I simply can’t stop myself but marvel upon the ability of Marquez at how he kept so many threads alive at the same time. It is so difficult to do, not to mention with the same set of names. It never felt out of place. No matter how far you go, he would bring you back to the core, the Buendia family.

This book is like abstract art where you find it hard to get the meaning (don’t know about others but I am one of them) but once you get it, it just hard not to admire and cherish it.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is an absolute ground-breaking book; it is intelligent, creative and full of powerful anecdotal wisdom. It deservedly won the noble prize for literature. But how enjoyable is it? How readable is it?

Gabriel García Márquez, plays around with reality itself; he plays around with the limitations of fiction; he uses elements of magic, of the fantastic, to give voice to things that could never be said quite as effectively in normal terms: he breaks through realism and establishes his own original style. He did nothing short of launching a new mode of literary address: magical realism. He wasn’t the first writer to do such a thing, though his writing was the first to attract criticism which, in effect, allowed for it to be defined and recognised.

For me, the strongest element of the book resides in its inherent pessimism, with its unfortunate understanding that history can (and will) repeat itself. All good intentions go awry, indeed, One Hundred Years of Solitude challenges the progress (or lack thereof) of society. It creates a self-contained history in its isolated framework, which, arguably, reflects the nature of mankind or, at least, it echoes Columbian history with its liberal history in the face of imperialism. No matter how much we want to change the world (or how much we believe in a revolution or a new political ideal) these good intentions often become warped when faced with the horrors of war and bloodshed. Nothing really changes.

There’s no denying the success of Márquez’s epic; there’s no denying its ingenuity. I really enjoyed parts of the novel but it was awfully difficult to read, uncomfortably so. The prose is extremely loose and free flowing to the point where it feels like thought; it’s like a torrent of verbal diarrhoea that feels like it will never end. Characters die, eerily similar characters take their place within the story and the narrative continues until the well has completely run dry of any actual life. It is pushed so terribly far, one hundred years to be precise.

And that’s my biggest problem. I’m a sentimentalist. I like to feel when I read. I like to be moved either to anger or excitement. I want to invest in the characters. I want to care about their lives and I want to be provoked by their actions. Márquez’s approach meant that this was impossible to do so. It’s a huge story, told in just a few hundred pages. It’s sweeps across the lives of the characters, some exceedingly important characters in the story are introduced and die a very short time after to establish the sheer futility of human existence and effort Márquez tried to demonstrate.

Márquez writes against European tradition and the legacy of colonialism; he creates something totally new, which is becoming increasingly hard to do. Although I do appreciate this novel, I did not enjoy reading it as much as I could have done.

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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 tragicomedy laced heavily with fantasy. It’s just way too heavily laced for me.

An incredible Classic that you will never forget once you have completed this amazing book. Magical Realism is not something I would particularly choose to read, but because this is first of it’s kind, I wanted to venture down the road to history to see the little village of Macondo.

I’m glad this book included a family tree at the beginning as it was a useful reference point to find my way through the maze of the first few Chapters.

There are 22 different Aurelianos!!…….Alas, don’t worry it’s not as difficult as you may think.

The writing and descriptions of the Characters, Personalities, Places and Imagination is just so spell binding. The language is richer than a Euro Millions lottery winner and you will be reading in awe as your jaw scrapes along the concrete floor disturbing the ants.

The family story spans over 100 years and the amount of detail that is crammed into this given Century, is like a suitcase you need to reopen at the Airport desk to get through Customs.

There is a reason why certain books are deemed as Classics and I’m glad I’m venturing into this genre from time to time.

Salman Rushdie did quote “The greatest novel in any language of the last fifty years’.

Who am I to argue? I’m just little book reader minding my own business.

I’d love to buy a raffle ticket to win a pig.

Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

This long phrase is so full of life and humor that although I mentioned Márquez yesterday, I couldn't help but mention it again. First off, to start off the novel with a firing squad on the subject of the sentence, time is thrown into a loop which winds and weaves its way through generations of Buendías throughout the novel. The magic of discovering ice is also one of the fine touches that Márquez is so known for: taking the ordinary and turning into something spectacular. The fact that the character and his father are both mentioned here foreshadows the complex and rambling family tree that the reader will get intimately familiar with (and confused by) throughout the book. I read this one in high school (kind of a jab at the anti-Columbian attitude of Cuban Miami by my forward thinking AP English teacher - the best professor or teacher that I ever had) and have probably re-read it about eight or nine times, each being more enjoyable than the last.

I have since read all of Mario Vargas Llosa's work who is probably the most comparable South American writer of the same period and have to say that I was seduced by his writing quite a bit. One Hundred Years still stands out as a monumental piece of literature, and if you enjoy it, I would suggest trying The War at the End of the World by MVL as well.

إنها لَمدعاة إلى الدهشة... حقاً!!!
ظننت في البداية بأن الموضوع عبارة عن اختلاف في الآراء و الأذواق...
و لكنه الآن بات جلياً واضحاً... إنه حتماً ليس كذلك!!!
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المسألة و ما فيها أنني كلما اخترت كتاباً حائزاً على جائزة خرافية لأقرأه... أتفاجأ بأنه لا يرقى حتى لمستوى النشر!!!
ما هذا التناقض الجبّار؟؟!!
في البداية "لا أحد يعرف ما أريده" و الآن "مئة عام من العزلة" ...
كتب حصدت جوائز قيمة... الأخيرة منهما حصلت على أرقى الجوائز الأدبية التي من الممكن أن تُحصد في هذا العالم... جائزة نوبل للآداب!!!
أعزيت ذلك في البداية إلى أن هذه الكتب ليست من النمط الذي أحبّذه... و لكن و كما بات واضحاً لجميع أصدقائي و زملائي... فإن تلكما الكتابان لم يلقيا إقبلاً بينكم... إذا أنا لست الوحيد!!!
و إذاً... فهو قرار بالإجماع!!!
و لكن السؤال المحير هنا... كيف حصدت تلك الكتب تلك الجوائز؟!
و كما قلت في البداية... إنها ليست مسألة ذوق أو رأي... فالاجماع يضحد هذه النظرية... ... ما هو الجواب إذاً؟؟؟!!!
هل هنالك شي ما خفي... استطاع أعضاء لجنات التحكيم أن تجده و تفهمه و تستوعبه... و لم نستطع نحن؟
إنني أقف حائراً أمام هذا التناقض الرهيب... أمام هذه الأُعجوبة.
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بالنسبة لــ" مئة عام... إلخ" حتى العنوان طويل!!!
بغض النظر عن الشذوذ النفسي و الجنسي و الأخلاقي المستفز و المُتعمد من الكاتب...
ذلك الكتاب لم يشدني... إنه أمامي هنالك ملقىً على المنضدة... عقلي يطلب مني أن أنهيه... و لكّن هواي يرفض ذلك... و كيف لا يرفضه هواي... و أنا عالق في منتصفها تماماً... أعلم أن أمامي نصف رواية... أي ما يعدل 250 صفحة من الملل و الأسماء المتشابهة المزعجة و الحوادث السخيفة التي لا تشد... ناهيك عن غياب عقدة رئيسية و عنصر تشويق... بل هي عقيدات صغيرة ما تفتأ أن تُعقد حتى تُحل من فورها... أو يحرقها الكاتب مباشرة عند عقدها!!!
شخصيات و شخصيات و شخصيات تدخل الرواية في كل صفحة... لا هدف لها و لا ماضي... سرد وسرد وسرد... و لا حوار... تباً لك يا ماركيز!!!
قد يكون السبب هو الترجمة... و لكنني قرأت كتاب "الأرض الطيبة" و هو رواية على نفس نمط "مئة... إلخ" و قد كان رائعاً... شد انتباهي و جذب يدي و عيناي إليه... ... لا... لا أظن أن للترجمة أيضاً دوراً ما هنا...
على كلٍ أنا لم و لن اصدر حكمي النهائي عن هذا الكتاب... هذا لا يجوز... فأنا لم أقرأها كاملة...
لــــكم أتمنى أن أكملها و أكتب رأي الكامل عنها... و لكن هيهات
لا... بل سأدعها معلّقة في خانة "أقرأه حالياً" متجمدة في منتصفها تماماً... في الصفحة 250 ... و ذلك لتذكرني بهذه الأُعجوبة!!!
أعجوبة "كتاب حائز على جائزة لا يروق للقراء" !!!


عذراً على الإطالة و تقبلّو رأي...
يمكن لو ماركييز قرأ اللي أنا كاتبو رح يقلي: " لقد حُزت نوبل و هذا الذي يهم... مُت بغيظك"
^ــــــــــــــــــ^
هنيئاً لك نوبل... و هنيئاً لنا عقولنا...

He naufragado en un mar de páginas entre Arcadios y Aurelianos sin saber muy bien quién era quién, a mi hija casi le cambio el nombre por Alba Amaranta y hasta he perdonado la vida a las malditas hormigas que invaden mi baño.
Pero qué maravilla.

Nada de lo que escriba va a estar a la altura de este gran libro (bueno, de este y de ninguno), lleno de párrafos descomunales de prácticamente tres páginas, la prosa de Márquez te atrapa, te sumerge en un siglo de soledad que parece una superstición sobre la familia Buendía. Desde el primer José Arcadio hasta el último Aureliano, te cuenta las andanzas de toda una generación. Y cuando llegas a la última página te sientes como un Buendía más, completamente sola. Sola, pero satisfecha por haber disfrutado de una magnífica historia.

i was a kid watching an episode of thundercats in which a few of the cats were trapped in some kind of superbubble thing and it hit me that, being cartoons, the characters could just be erased and redrawn outside the bubble or could just fly away or tunnel their way out. or teleport. or just do whatever they wanted. i mean, they were line and color in a world of line and color. now this applies to any work of fiction but it just felt different with a lowest-common-denominator cartoon. adherence to reality (reality as defined within the world of the cartoon) wasn’t a top priority. this ended my cartoon watching days. was it a lack of, or too much, imagination? dunno.

i had a similar experience with One Hundred Years of Solitude. gypsies bring items to Macondo, a village hidden away from mass civilization by miles of swamp and mountain. these everyday items (magnets, ice, etc.) are interpreted as ‘magic’ by people who have never seen them and it forces the reader to reconfigure her perception of much of what she formerly found ordinary. amazing. and then the gypsies bring a magic carpet. a real one. one that works. and there is no distinction b/t magnets and the magic carpet. this, i guess, is magical realism. and i had a Thundercats moment in that i found the magic carpet to immediately render all that preceded it as irrelevant. are ice and magnets the same as magic carpets? what is the relation between magic and science? how can i trust and believe in a character who takes such pains to understand ice and magnets and who, using the most primitive scientific means, works day and night to discover that the earth is round -- but then blindly accepts that carpets can fly? or that people can instantaneously increase their body weight sevenfold by pure will? or that human blood can twist and turn through streets to find a specific person? fuck the characters, how can i trust the writer if the world is totally undefined? if people can refuse to die (and it’s not explained who or how or why) where are the stakes? how can i care about any situation if I can't trust Garcia Marquez not to simply make the persons involved sprout wings and fly away?

so i’m at page 200. and i’m gonna push on. but it’s tough. do i care when someone dies if death isn’t permanent? how do i give a fuk about characters who have seen death reversed but don’t freak the fuck out (which is inconsistent with what does make them freak the fuck out) and who also continue to cry when someone dies? yeah, there are some gems along the way, but i think had Solitude been structured as a large collection of interconnected short stories (kinda like a magical realism Winesberg, Ohio?) it would've worked much better.

should the book be read as fairy-tale? myth? allegory? no, i’d label anyone a fraud who tried to explain away this 500 page book as mere allegory. i don’t believe Garcia Marquez has as fertile an imagination as Borges or Cervantes or Mutis –- three chaps who could pull something like this off on storytelling power alone; but three chaps who, though they may dabble in this stuff, clearly define the world their characters inhabit.

this is one of the most beloved books of all time and i’m not so arrogant (damn close) to discount the word of all these people (although I do have gothboy, DFJ, and Borges on my side--a strong argument for or against anything), and not so blind to see the joy this brings to so many people. but i don’t get it. and i aggressively recommend The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll to any and all who find Solitude to be the end all and be all.