I'm not going to write a full review of this book because where would I even start?! Also so many other people have written about this book before me, and I truly have no way to coherently explain my feelings about this book. It's a bizarre, magical story that feels cyclical and fresh all at the same time.

I won't lie and say it's easy to read, but at the same time, if you don't try and understand everything that is happening and you just take it chapter by chapter, you can absolutely make it through. Don't be alarmed by the repetition of character names in this story; at first it's intimidating but eventually you get a sense of who is who and how they refer to them by nicknames or other details. And since it is magical realism, you don't really need to understand what is really happening and what is not. It's much more about the experience of reading this novel than deciphering every element. There's just too much information on every single page for one reader to retain and understand it all, especially on just the first time reading it.

Is it a new all-time favorite? No. Am I glad I've finally read it? Absolutely! It was a definite bucket list book and I was worried I'd put it off forever, until years from now when it still sat on my shelf, taunting me to pick it up. I'm not sure if or when I'd ever revisit it, but I'm happy to have checked it off my list of books to read before I die. I'd encourage others to do the same if they are interested!

It is the only book that I consider essential, even if you only begin it. Legend says that within it, you can see the solitude in which you live.

It is the pinnacle of magic realism, but I believe in it more than in any "Bible".

*** 2023 reread -

In all of world literature there is a division: 1) One Hundred Years of Solitude and 2) all other books.

***

Mystical and captivating.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, first published in 1967 in his native Colombia and then first published in English in 1970, is a unique literary experience, overwhelming in its virtuosity and magnificent in scope.

I recall my review of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, trying to describe a book like it and realizing there are no other books like it; it is practically a genre unto itself. That said, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece of narrative ability, and is itself unique as a statement, but reminiscent of many other great books: Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, Lowry’s Under the Volcano, Buck’s The Good Earth, and Joyce’s Ulysses were the works that I thought of while reading, but no doubt this is a one of a kind.

Using all of the literary devices I have ever learned and making up many more as he went along, García Márquez established a new epoch of descriptive resonance. Magic realism and hyperbole abound in his fantastic history of the mythical town of Macondo separated by mountains and a swamp road from everything else and of the Buendía family, whose lifeblood was the dramatic heart of the village from inception until the fateful end.

García Márquez employs incestuous and repetitive family situations to emphasize his chronicle and a dynamic characterization that is labyrinthine in its complexity. Dark humor walks the ancient halls of the ancestral mansion home along with the ghosts of those who have come before. Incredibly García Márquez ties it all together into a complete and prophetically sound ending that breathes like poetry to the finish.

Finally I must concede that this review is wholly inadequate. This is a book that must be read.

**** 2018 - I had a conversation about this book recently and I was asked "what was the big deal?why was this so special?" It had been a while since I had read but my response was that after turning the last page I was struck dumb, had to walk the earth metaphorically for a few days to gather my thoughts on what I had read - really more than that, what I had experienced. I read alot of books and a book that smacks me like that deserves some reflection.

Another indicator to me, and this is also subjective - is that I have thought about this book frequently since. I read a book and enjoy it, was entertained and escaped for a while into the writer's world, and then I finish and write a review, slap a 3 star on it and go to the next book. There are some books, years later that I have to refresh my memory: who wrote that? what was it about? Not so with 100 years. Like so many other five star ratings, this one has stayed with me and I think about Macondo sometimes and can see the weeds and vines growing up through the hardwood floors.

This is a special book.

ما الذي كنت تنتظره؟- تنهدت أورسولا، وأضافت :- إن الــزمـــن يـمـضـي

الـزمـن وقسوة مروره، هو بالنسبة لي التيمة الأساسية بهذه الرواية
دورة حياة زوجين واطفالهم، تحولهم لشباب ثم للكبر والعجز. وتوالي الأجيال مع الكثير من الحب والشغف..السحر والعجب

وهذا السطر من الأم هو أول ما بث فيّ قشعريرة غير متوقعة بعد ربع الرواية، وأخترته لأبدأ به حكايتي مع تلك المدينة التي ابتدعها جابريل جارسيا ماركيز -رحمه الله- في عزلة من الزمن
مــاكــونـدو

أولا: أزاي تستمتع بهذه الرواية

**ابعد تماما عن اي افكار مسبقة عنها، الفصل حوالي 25 صفحة، تحتاج لما لايقل عن 45 دقيقة إلي ساعة لقراءته، فالرواية لا تصلح مطـلقـا للقراءة السريعة
-"ملحوظة: النسخة التي قرأتها للمترجم المبدع صالح علماني "505 صفحة
-ولا تقرأ أساسا الرواية سوي بترجمته-

**لا تعتمد علي "تحدي" أو أيام معينة لأنهاء الرواية، بدأتها ..أذن اعتبر نفسك في ماكوندو لمدة مائة عام مع الأولين الذين حضروا إليها مع خوسيه اركاديو بوينديا وزوجته أورسولا

**هل تريد ان تتعرف أكثر علي الزوجين الذين ستصطحبهم وذريتهم لمائة عام وعن تاريخهم واسباب نشأتهم لتلك المدينة؟..الفصل الثاني سيمنحك هذا التاريخ

اذا ما فعلت كل هذا، ستجد نفسك تعيش بالأحداث وتتعرف علي أجيال خوسية من الـ-'أوريليانو'-ات و ال-'خوسيهـ'-ات دون الحاجة لتكرار العودة الي شجرة العائلة، والتي ستجدها في أخر صفحة بالرواية، حيث ستجد أنك تتعرف علي الأجيال كأنهم أفراد من عائلة تعيش معها

ففي اكبر بيوت مدينة ماكوندو الصغيرة ستعيش اياما وشهور واعوام مع تلك العائلة

ستعيش معهم منذ بداية ولادة ،خوسيه أركاديو الابن البكري لخوسيه اركاديو بوينديا وخوف أمه أورسولا من أن يكون بذيل خنزير لتخوفها من حقيقة انها وزوجها ابناء عمومة, وستفرح لأن الله استجاب دعائها ورزقها بخوسيه طفلا كامل الصحة

وابنهما الثاني ،أوريليانو المولود بعيون مفتوحة علي العالم يريد ان يتعرف علي كل مابه ويعيشه
يندهش كوالده بالأختراعات التي يجلبها الغجر معهم من كل ارجاء العالم , بالاخص الغجري ميلكليادس الساحر الذي يذكرني بـجاندلف من ملك الخواتم

ستعيش شغف الأب بتجاربه الخيميائية مع ميلكليادس، وانبهار بلدة ماكوندو الصغيرة بالبساط السحري وستتذوق حلوي سكاكر الحيوانات التي تعدها اورسولا وستتعرف علي الضحكة المجلجلة لـبيلار تيرنيرا والتي ستلهب شباب عائلة خوسيه كأمرأة كاملة النضج وتكون اسهاماتها الغير شرعية سببا في زيادة افراد العائلة

وستأتي ريبيكا بكرسيها الهزاز واصبعها في فمها منذ صغرها وحتي وفاتها، معها جوال من القماش به عظام مقرقعة هي كل ماتبقي من والديها، ليتبناها خوسيه أركاديو بوينديا ، ولتشعل غيرة لا تنطفئ بقلب  أمارانتا بعدها بسنوات لتصارعهما علي الفوز بقلب رجل واحد

غجر ، سحر ، انبهار ، استكشافات واختراعات ، سفينة علي مبعدة كبيرة عن البحر ، بساط سحري ، سكاكر علي شكل حيوانات ، ذهب محروق ، حجر الفيلسوف ، جليد ، شهوة ، حب ، غيرة ، موسيقي البيانولا ، وأفراح ستعيشها في ماكوندو مع تلك العائلة



ولكن كل شئ بدأ في التغير عندما قررت أورسولا دهان واجهة بيتها بعد التوسعات إلي الابيض

فبالرغم من وباء الأرق -الذي هربت منه أميرة هندية وأخيها من بلدهم ليعملوا كخدم ببيت خوسيه أركاديو بوينديا- بل وأي أمراض بالدنيا أصابت ماكندو لا تقارن أبدا بأقذر الأمراض والتي تسببت في موت الكثيرين من اهل القرية
السياسة
والتي بمجرد أن دخلت بواقعيتها وقذارتها، ظهر الموت والدماء في ماكوندو
النظاميون الذي يقتلون من اجل حفظ النظام بالقمع ، والليبراليون الذين يقتلون -ايضا- من اجل الحرية ونبذ القمع
وبمجرد الأعلان عن تمثيل في البرلمان ، تنصل الليبراليون الثوار عن كولونيلهم و ثوارهم وثورتهم..وبدأت حملات الأعدام للثوار..وبدأت تظهر معالم الزمن والشيخوخة علي ماكوندو ، بمجرد دخولها نطاق السياسة القذرة

وهنا فعلا شعرت بقسوة الزمن بهذا المشهد العبقري عندما تزور أورسولا ابنها الثوري الذي تنصل عنه الجميع

والحقيقة أنه ظل مستغرقا في أفكاره، مذهولا من الطريقة التي شاخت بها القرية خلال سنوات قليلة، كانت أوراق أشجار اللوز بالية. والبيوت المطلية باللون الأزرق، ثم بالأحمر، والتي أعيد طلاؤها بالأزرق ثانية، فقد انتهت إلي لون غير محدود
ما الذي كنت تنتظره؟- تنهدت أورسولا، وأضافت :- إن الــزمـــن يـمـضـي
-وهو كذلك -وافقها أوريليانو -، ولكن ليس إلي هذا الحد
وهكذا، فإن المقابلة المنتظرة منذ وقت طويل، والتي أعد لها كل منهما الأسئلة، بل وتوقع الأجوبة عنها، تحولت إلي حديث يومي عادي

وهنا شعرت وكأنها ليست أورسولا من يقول هذا، بل سمعته من جدتي، من أمي... كلما ترك الزمان آثار مروره القاسية علينا وكل ماحولنا.. هنا شعرت فعلا بقسوة الزمان متجسدا في آثاره علي المدينة التي شهدت أنشاءها وحتي نهايتها

بل ولاحظ مدي حنق -الطبيعي الواقعي والذي أتفق معاه تماما- الماركيز من لعبة السياسة القذرة

~~~~~~~~~~~

وتتوالي الأجيال والأحداث بصورة أسرع، المزيد من الجنون والعزلة، المزيد من سكاكر الحيوانات، حفلات و رقص و رخاء، عزلة و أنغلاق و تماثيل قديسين ومخطوطات ميلكليادس الغجري التي لم يصل أحد لتفسيرها بعد

قلب عذراء أحترق بالحب يمنعه خوفه من الأعتراف به و تقبله ، ضحكات قارئة أوراق الطالع العجوز مازالت تثير الشباب ، روح الجميلة البريئة تصعد لبارئها ، سمكات ذهبية و أكفان تصنع و تغزل مرة تلو أخري
و تتوالي اﻷجيال في ماكوندو و بيت عائلة الفقيد جوسيه آركاديو بوينديا الذي قاوم الأنغلاق رغم تقلبات الحياة


ستشهد دخول الأستثمار اﻷجنبي وشركة الموز مدينتك الصغيرة و ستدرك من خلال الأحداث كيف صور قبح واقع الاستغلال الأجنبي ... ولن تملك سوي التعجب من تشابهه بواقعنا كما صوره هذا المشهد

خرج خوسيه آركاديو الثاني من الغفلة وتخلي عن موقعه كرئيس فريق عمل في شركة الموز ووقف إلي جانب العمال. وسرعان ما اتهم بأنه عميل لإحدي المؤامرات العالمية ضد النظام

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وتتوالي مرة أخري الأجيال .. والضحايا
ضحايا وشهداء الأستعمار الأجنبي يتم التغطية عليهم بتعتيم اعلامي ، قطار محمل بالموتي ، حلم بالبابويه ، ورغبات مكبوتة وابناء حرام أخري ، ومحاولات أخري لتفسير مخطوطات ميلكليادس

ويدور الزمن في دائرته المغلقة كما ستلاحظ مع أورسولا في ذلك المشهد المؤثر العبقري

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حرك رأسه بإتجاه الباب، وحاول الأبتسام، وكرر دون معرفه مسبقة، جملة قديمة لأورسولا، إذ قال مدمدما
-ماذا تريدين، فالزمن يمضي
-صحيح - قالت أورسولا- ولكن ليس إلي هذا الحد
وما أن قالت ذلك حتي أنتبهت إلي أنها تقدم الجواب نفسه الذي تلقته من الكولونيل أوريليانو بوينديا في زنزانته، وأحست بالقشعريرة وهي تتأكد مجددا من أن الزمن لا يمضي وإنما يلتف دائريا
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فراشات صفراء ، وفيات غير مفاجأة وشجن متوقع ، مطر غزير يستمر لأربع سنوات ، خراب ونمل ابيض وأحمر... والــزمن يمضي ، وإن كان بشكل أسرع كما ستلاحظ مع أورسولا ايضا بهذا المشهد

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"السنون الآن لا تأتي مثل السنوات من قبل"

اعتادت ان تقول ذلك، شاعرة بأن الواقع اليومي يفلت من بين يديها. فمن قبل -فكرت- كان الأطفال يتأخرون طويلا في النمو. وليس عليها ��لا أن تتذكر كل الزمن الذي أنقضي قبل أن يذهب أبنها البكر خوسيه أركاديو مع الغجر، وكل ماجري قبل أن يعود ملونا كحية، ومتحدثا مثل فلكي ; والأشياء التي حدثت في البيت قبل أن ينسي آركاديو وآمارانتا لغة الهنود، ويتعلما القشتالية. ولا بد من رؤية أيام الشمس والصحو التي تحملها خوسيه أركاديو المسكين، تحت شجرة الكستناء، وكم كان عليها أن تبكي موته، قبل أن يحملوا إليها كولونيلا يحتضر اسمه آوريليانو بوينديا لتجد أنه بعد كثير من الحروب، وبعد كل ما عانته من أجله، لم يبلغ الخمسين من عمره بعد

ففي زمن آخر، وبعد أن تمضي النهار بطوله في صنع حيوانات من السكر، كانت تجد فائضا من الوقت للعناية بالأطفال. أما الآن بالمقابل، عندما لم يعد لديها شئ تفعله، تضطرها نوعية الزمن الردئ إلي ترك الأمور غير ناجزة بالكامل
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لقد قام العبقري بتلخيص كثير من الأحداث منذ بداية الرواية في تلك السطور القليلة بربعها الأخير من وجهه نظر أقوي بطلاته أورسولا
كم مرة شعرت بأن هذا الكلام سمعته في الحقيقة من احد الكبار؟ بل كم مرة انت نفسك شعرت بصحته فعلا؟
الزمن الغادر
~~~~~~~~~

وتتوالي الأحداث أسرع بتسارع حركة الزمان القاسية.. ستزداد عزلتك وتعايشك حتي تلمس شيخوختك مع شيخوخة المدينة بالرغم من صغر سن أخر اجيالها.. والذي سيفك رموز رقائق ميلكيادس الغجري التي كتبت من مائة عام من تاريخ ماكوندو

حتي تصل للنهاية

مائه عام من السحر ، الحب ، الجو الأسري ، حب الاستكشاف ، الخوف ، العشق ، الخطيئة ، القداسة ، السياسة ، كرم الضيافة ، الأنغلاق ، قراءة الطالع والنبوءات
مائه عام من قسوة الزمان ، من الخلود ومن الفناء،, من السياسة ومن البراءة ، مائه عام من العزلة

***************************************

نقطة هامة أخيرة
أعتقد أن من سلبيات الرواية هي بعض أحداث الجنس بين اﻷقارب بطريقة شاذة أحيانا وإن كانت اللغة هنا ليست ببذاءة البعض وليست حتي كشطحات زيدان أو الأسواني أو حتي أسلوب مراد المستفز
ولكن قد لا تنتبه لمخاوف أورسولا حول ذيل الخنزير التي ذكرت بالبداية، ولكنك بالتأكيد عند إنتهائك من الرواية ستدرك المغزي الراقي للرواية وأنة كان دائما بها منذ البداية... عن اختلاط الأنساب

حدثه الخمار عن نكبة ذراعه, فقد كانت متيبسة وشبه محروقة,لأنه رفعها علي أمه. وحدثه أوريليانو عن نكبة قلبه المتيبس وشبه المحروق, لأنه رفعه علي أخته

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وستدرك أن ما ظننته مجرد سلبيات هي حكمة أخري يقدمها جابريل جارسيا ماركيز باسلوبه الراقي -وايضا بالتأكيد المترجم الرائع صالح علماني- وبحرفية غريبة متميزة

فأسلوب سرد جابرييل جارسيا ماركيز الغريب سيغرقك في الأحداث الواقعية الممزوجة بسحر غريب
كأسلوب حكايات الجدات مع بعض حرارة الشباب ليخلق جوا عجيبا من السرد يخلط فيه بين أحداث لاحقة و احداث مضت 'فلاش باك و فلاش فوروارد' بطريقة عجيبة لن تقلل من استماعك و إنما قد تزيد شغفك و أثارتك لمصير تلك العائلة والمدينة

ستصارع مع أورسولا أيجواران زوجة خوسيه أركاديو بويندا الزمن في مائة عام .. تهزم السياسة الفاسدة والاستثمار،بل الاستعمار، الاجنبي المستغل ..ولكن إلا الزمن... فلا هازم للزمن

ستظل متشبثا معها ببيت المجانين، بيت تلك العائلة الغريبة وتفهمه وتتتعاطف معه وتحاول ان تجعله مفتوحا دائما للزوار ليقضي علي العزلة التي يفرضها علينا الزمن

ستشفق علي تلك المهمة الجليلة الحزينة التي ستتحملها أمارانتا قبل وفاتها... وفي نفس الوقت ستجد نفسك ايضا متعاطفا مع اورليانو الثاني الذي جاهد الزمن ليستمتع بالحياة القصيرة

أبتعدي ايتها الابقار ..فالحياة قصيرة

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وفي رأيي فعلا أورسولا من أجمل الشخصيات النسائية التي قرأتها ، رأيت فيها شيئا ألفته جدا ، شعرت معها بأحساس الأمومة وربة الدار ، من أكثر الشخصيات التي أثرت في فعلا

بصراحه من الاشياء التي دائما تجعلني اعيش بالرواية هو اني دائما ما اقوم بتوزيع الشخصيات والادوار علي فنانين في بالي كي اري تعبيراتهم وهم يمثلونها اثناء قرائتي في خيالي.. وهذا يفيد كثيرا
وبالرغم الاختيار العشوائي الي حد ما لـ"إيفا لونجوريا" بطلة ربات البيوت اليائسات قد تخوفت منه عندما وجدت دور أورسولا ليس بصغير
إلا أن رسم الشخصية فعلا اعجبني واجادت الدور في خيالي وتليق به فعلا

ما الذي كنت تنتظره؟- تنهدت أورسولا, وأضافت :- إن الــزمـــن يـمـضـي

ستظل ماكوندو حلما جميلا مهما غزته الكوابيس في بعض محطاته..وسيظل حنيني اليها كأنها ماض عشته
وبالرغم من أتفاقي شيئا ما مع موقف صاحب المكتبة بماكوندو عندما قال في الاحداث

أن الماضي ما هو إلا كذبة، وأنه ليس للذاكرة من دروب للعودة، وأن كل ربيع قديم لا يستعاد، وأن أشد الغراميات جموحا، وأكثرها رسوخا، ليست في نهاية المطاف إلا حقيقة زائلة

إلا أن كما قال جابريل جارسيا ماركيز نفسه انه لا يهم ما حدث في الماضي، وانما كيف نتذكره هذا هو المهم
كما في تلك المقولة التي وضعتها في الريفيو المبدئي

وأقل مايمكن ان نحول ذكري هذا الرجل بآحياء الواقعية السحرية ، حكايات الجدات الجذابة الغريبة التي تعود بنا لذكريات ايام الصبا... الواقعية السحرية التي إن ظلت وعاشت بقلوبنا فلن ينجح اي ركاكة أو بذاءة أو قتامة ينسب لها الواقع الحالي في إظلام قلوبنا.. لنقرأ واقعيته السحرية..الحالمة

ويعيش السحر في قلوبنا ، لنتذكره للأبد



R I P Gabriel Marcus
Your Magical Realism will always enchanting and illuminating our hearts , will defeat the dirty realism that we unfortunately stuck in..
Your magical words and novels will be read....forever
you're enchanted


محمد العربي
من 24 ابريل 2014
الي 2 مايو 2014

اشكر جدا كل من رشح الرواية لي من الأصدقاء ، وأشكر أيضا دعم الأصدقاء في انتظار رايي في الرواية بتعليقاتكم واتمني أن تعجبكم كما اعجبتني ، واتمني ان يكون رايي -الذي حاولت اختصاره والله- أن يكون واضحا وملائما

I must admit that this is the book I have spent the most time reading in, forever - nearly three months - and I have been deeply moved, filled with a sense of heaviness, and unable to put it down. I know that I am not well-read, and writing notes for such a novel may seem a bit presumptuous, but not writing would be a disservice to myself for reading such a good book. Fortunately, notes are just personal notes. Those who like this book will read it and move on, and those who haven't read it and are not interested, please stop here for now.

First of all, I am used to reading a book from the preface. If I remember correctly, this is the second book I have read without a preface. No preface means no guidance from the author, and you have to rely on your own understanding to understand the novel. I felt a little bizarre, but for the sake of the name of the novel, I decided to give it a try.

Many critics say that this is a magnum opus, an epitome of Latin America's century-long history. A magnum opus? That's for sure. An epitome? I don't know much about Latin American history, except that some of the development history can be compared, but more is not so tragic, right? The first 50 pages - I almost read them over and over again, the similar names of the Buendía family made me dizzy. It took me almost a whole day to read the first 50 pages. Many times, I had to go back and forth to see who this person was, and more often than not, I had to go back to the previous pages to figure it out. However, the suffocating plot did not allow me to relax my emotions in the slightest.

Guess what, this is what concluded from my reading: The first member of the family was tied to a tree, and the last was eaten by ants. Yes, that is it.

So how should we view the Buendia family? They had some really smart and talented people. They were brave, hardworking, and good-looking. They were strong and didn't give up easily. They could charm anyone.

But even though they were great, they only lasted a little over 100 years. Then they were gone, like the wind. It's strange, but I don't feel sad about it.

The next question is how should we approach this novel One Hundred Years of Solitude? I didn't feel super excited or sad while reading it. It was like watching water flow. The story jumped around a lot, and it was hard to follow sometimes. But I just kept reading. It was like a nap. I didn't do anything, just read.

But it was weird because I felt happy while reading this sad story. It's like knowing you will get old and die, but still smiling.

This book is about being alone, but it's also about love. Everyone in the book is trying to not be lonely. They do different things, but they all want the same thing.

People often say they feel lonely in big cities. But we are always alone. We are alone when we are born, and we are alone when we die. We are alone with our thoughts and feelings.

But being alone doesn't have to be bad. It can help us understand ourselves better. It can make us stronger. It can help us appreciate the good things in life.

So, we should not fight loneliness. We need to accept it. It's part of life. And maybe, just maybe, it can help us live a better life.

4.2 / 5 stars

This book went from 5, to 4, to 3 stars. It went from brilliant & zany, to unique & amusing, to overworked & predictable. Magical realism--the sine qua non of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the archetype, the empyreal novel that pioneered the outburst of this type of South American writing. I would not re-read this novel, but I would recommend it to all who savor the radial expanse of genre in literature. To be considered a comprehensive reader at life's end, you will had to have read magical realism, and One Hundred Years of Solitude won the Nobel Prize.

Ofttimes you experience works of art just to be exposed to something culture holds worthy, no matter the medium; music; painting; literature; dance; theater; technology. ***BEGIN SOAPBOX***So you don't like Western movies; you still need to watch Unforgiven, the Best Movie of the Year 1992. So you don't like broad brush strokes; you still need to see in person a flower painted by Van Gogh. So you don't like 20th century plays; you still need to see enacted the vicious realism of Eugene O'Neal's A Long Day's Journey Into Night. So you don't like Rock-n-Roll; you still need to listen to the perfect album by Guns and Roses, Appetite For Destruction. You don't like warfare; you still need to take a tour of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, considered the most complicated man made structure ever. So you don't like jazz; you still......get the point.***END SOAPBOX***

One Hundred Years of Solitude needs to be experienced, then put back on the library rack. You've just been exposed to something the literary world holds worthy. It may not have been exactly my taste (like Garcia Marquez's 5 star Love in the Time of Cholera), but it was worthwhile in all its strangeness.

Strangeness. How to define what I consider a strange novel? Let me try a visual representation or a visual transcription of how I would draw this novel. Why you ask? Well, why the hell not.

Contour drawing--also known as continuous-line drawing, is an artistic technique used in the field of art in which the artist sketches the contour of a subject by drawing continuous lines that result in a drawing that is contorted and/or abstracted (wikipedia). 'Contorted and abstracted.' That's the key. Contour drawing is a type of art that uses one single line without lifting the pen from the paper, thereby creating a visual effect that is sometimes representative, sometimes complex, and sometimes contorted and/or abstracted. Blind contour drawing, a subset, is done without ever looking at the paper until the subject is complete, and is usually even more contorted and/or abstracted.

To me, Marquez was creating a literary version of contour drawing. One Hundred Years of Solitude has the rudimentary look and feel of a novel. It's got all the right components, an epic story that follows 100 years of the Buendia family in the remote town of Macondo, Columbia. I believe Marquez sat at his typewriter, wrote the first sentence, took about 400 coffee breaks, but didn't stop until 417 pages later with the last sentence. The story is a single line never lifted from the paper.

I don't think magical realism needs to be edited. It's a non-stop, brute-force narrative that keeps pushing forward, relentlessly, interminably, without a slack in pace. But this is not to say that the story is perfectly chronological. It isn't. Instead, like contour drawing, One Hundred Years of Solitude, is pages full of overlapping spirals and squiggles that keep moving slightly to the right, so that there's intersecting lines in a rhythmic doodle, always moving forward but causing us to cross through previous story over and over again, repeatedly, but never edited; a single line. You move forward in time, then move back in time, forward and back in circles. It's a brilliant & zany technique that captures the same kind of storyline fable your grandmother may have told you when you were 7. Anything's possible in magical realism, but if you slow down and question the finer points, then you lose the bigger picture. Consequently, the story has a breathless quality. It's almost as if grandma slows down and thinks about the subject she's covered, then she will have lifted the pencil from the paper, and she will have lost her way, unable to recover any sense of the story; the magic will have dissipated.

So, the story was pretty decent. But, after a couple hundred pages, the breathless, right-handed, overlapping spirals of storyline became overworked, as if every time grandma took a sip from her white wine, pushing way past bedtime, you could tell exactly how the story was about to continue. Not what the story was going to be, or what words were going to come from her mouth, but you could tell closely how she was going to say it.

I recommend you read One Hundred Years of Solitude in the largest installments you can. If you read it over several weeks, or only a few pages at a time, you will absolutely--I guarantee--lose the gist. You'll find yourself going back and trying to figure out which of the 3 Jose Arcadios or 6 Aurelianos the story is discussing, and in which spiral. I had a permanent bookmark on page 0 that outlined the family genealogy.

New words: organdy, joie de vivre, Babrant, proboscidian

Then he made one last effort to search in his heart for the place where his affection had rotted away, and he could not find it.
One Hundred Years of Solitude ~~ Gabriel García Márquez


One Hundred Years of Solitude has been on my Must Read List for quite some time. So many of my friends here are passionate about this book ~~ several consider it their favorite book. My amazing friend, Srdjan says, nothing I say will ever be able to explain how complex, rich, heartbreaking, fascinating and blissful every aspect of this book is. While Sumit says OOH! It's so good. Everyone should read this book. Lastly, there is my friend Matthew, who says, Unforgettable. A book I will remember until I die, without a doubt. A new favourite and a new book I will scream at the top of my lungs, you haven't read One Hundred Years of Solitude? And then beg and beg them to, until they do. All three of these amazing friends & readers begged, & I listened ~~ boy am I glad I listened ...

One Hundred Years of Solitude is unlike anything I have ever read before. It is magical realism on DMT ~~ potent stuff that is.



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.

Brilliant first line ~~ and it only gets better ...

One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of seven generations of the Buendía Family in the town of Macondo in Columbia. The story opens with the family patriarch, Arcadio Buendía, facing the firing squad for crimes against the Government. The narrative then takes the reader back to the founding of Macondo by the Buendía family. Initially Macondo is isolated from the outside world, apart from an annual visit by a band of gypsies, who show the townspeople technology such as magnets, telescopes, and ice. Melquíades, the gypsy king, becomes a recurring figure in the novel & the key to its final resolution. When Macondo becomes involved in the affairs of the wider world its troubles begin. A rigged election inspires Aureliano Buendía to join the rebellion against the Conservative government.

The Buendia family saga is complicated. The large cast of characters grow up, or not, fall in love, or not, then die, or not, to be succeeded steadily by the next generation with their own challenges & successes & failures. As complex as this book was, thru the march time, I had no trouble engaging with the characters. They leapt off the page for me. This was a fun world to inhabit.

Random Question ~~ Was Gabriel Garcia Marquez sane? I seriously wonder ... how could he be? This book embodies what it means to be not of this world.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is so beautifully depicted that you become completely entangled in the absurdities of this magical world of the Buendía family.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a hard read; the characters are complex with mostly the same names. But stick with this. I promise you this will be an amazing reading experience.



One Hundred Years of Solitude explores the preconception of realities among each character. Garcia Marquez dives deep into each character's personalities and consciousness & their reactions to the world around them.

He goes on to illustrate the mysterious importance of reading & language. Each action here is initiated with learning through reading. There are multiple languages introduced to each of the characters, especially when it leads most to the solitude of translating the mysterious papers of Melquadies.

One Hundred Years of Solitude blends time in a cyclical manner. As the past & future always find their way into the present. Associating the longing for the future in our early days & longing for the past once the future we long for arrives. Many intense romances blur the boundaries between true love & obsession & sanity & insanity.



One Hundred Years of Solitude is filled with reflections of Latin American history, cultural magic, absurdities that feel real, and a roller coaster of emotions.

We follow a most unpredictable & treasured family, the Buendías, for over one hundred years; you’ll enter the locked rooms of those eating paint off the walls. You’ll hear absurdities & innocent ramblings. You’ll learn how years of solitude making, unmaking, then making again led to the unmaking of a family, or did they? You’ll learn to love & hate each of these multifaceted creatures. You’ll learn to pay attention to the wishes & omens of the cards. You’ll learn that when it rains, it pours. You’ll learn that we long for the future, and once the future comes, we long for the past, filtered by nostalgia.

And yet, thru all the muck & mire the Buendías family endures, they hold onto hope. One Hundred Years of Solitude is filled with hope.

As I read One Hundred Years of Solitude, I felt myself sitting in a garden on a warm summer day, and I know that it is the Buendía’s garden. I’m at their home, with their family, & in the city of Macondo. The Buendías family became woven into my life. We had a shared humanity. Perhaps this is the most magical spell One Hundred Years of Solitude weaves.

I must have missed something. Either that, or some wicked hypnotist has tricked the world (and quite a few of my friends, it would seem) into believing that One Hundred Years of Solitude is a great novel. How did this happen? One Hundred Years of Solitude is not a great novel. In fact, I'm not even sure it qualifies as a novel at all. Rather it reads like a 450-page outline for a novel which accidentally got published instead of the finished product. Oops.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not disputing that Marquez has an imaginative mind. He does, unquestionably. Nor am I disputing that he knows how to come up with an interesting story. He obviously does, or this wouldn't be the hugely popular book it is. As far as I'm concerned, though, he forgot to put the finishing touches to his story. In his rush to get the bare bones on paper, he forgot to add the things which bring a story alive. Such as, you know, dialogue. Emotions. Motivations. Character arcs. Pretty basic things, really. By focusing on the external side of things, and by never allowing his characters to speak for themselves (the dialogue in the book amounts to about five pages, if that), Marquez keeps his reader from getting to know his characters, and from understanding why they do the things they do. The lack of characterisation is such that the story basically reads like an unchronological chronicle of deeds and events that go on for ever without any attempt at an explanation or psychological depth. And yes, they're interesting events, I'll grant you that, but they're told with such emotional detachment that I honestly didn't care for any of the characters who experienced them. I kept waiting for Marquez to focus on one character long enough to make me care about what happened to him or her, but he never did, choosing instead to introduce new characters (more Aurelianos... sigh) and move on. I wish to all the gods of fiction he had left out some twenty Aurelianos and focused on the remaining four instead. With three-dimensional characters rather than two-dimensional ones, this could have been a fabulous book. As it is, it's just a shell.

What a waste of a perfectly good story.

Mr. Márquez, or may I call you Gabriel?, how you dream and with your dreams carry us with you through an epic world so magical, so delicious that I can forget my old pains. Old realities take over and remind me that the past is here with us, years pass and time stands still, and the perception is of solitude mixed with love. Yes, I found your tale mesmerizingly beautiful – what is more, it is a story of overpowering and eternal love! How could I not be enthralled?
n  

'Intrigued by that enigma, he dug so deeply into her sentiments that in search of interest he found love, because by trying to make her love him he ended up falling in love with her.'

n
Is that how you conceived this hundred years in your mind?
n  

'Thus they went on living in a reality that was slipping away, momentarily captured by words, but which would escape irremediably when they forgot the values of the written letters.'

n
Is this a fable or simple memories that came back to you? You tell us of a love story, or many as the years go by, and it leaves us spellbound. Is it a myth you remembered? As I read your One Hundred Years of Solitude my brain forgot to breathe and I almost died. 'He really had been through death, but he had returned because he could not bear the solitude.' You might seem sometimes nonsensical, but your feelings permeate through the pages and infect us so deliciously. Do you think we are a little crazy together to love so much this way of dreaming? Familial insanity; endearing love; out of this world moments as when your people eat mud, or your thunderstorms are made up of yellow flowers. For me the idea of mass forgetfulness was particularly unique:
n  

'In all the houses keys to memorizing objects and feelings had been written. But the system demanded so much vigilance and moral strength that many succumbed to the spell of an imaginary reality, one invented by themselves, which was less practical for them but more comforting.'

n
And you present it all in a way so natural and light that we have to believe you believe in it all. 'Of course. Of course he grows aquatic plants in his false teeth. Now why wouldn't he?' If you could imagine the epitome of unique, I would say it was your writing. I know, not all uncommon writings are delightful, amazing like yours. Not all are as beautiful.
n  

'Thinking that it would console him, she took a piece of charcoal and erased the innumerable loves that he still owed her for, and she voluntarily brought up her own most solitary sadnesses so as not to leave him alone in his weeping.'

n
Sure, it's an epic tragedy following a long line of familial insanity. But even you could not stop from creating people suffering a spreading plague of contagious insomnia, but above all of loving eternally. It's all presented in such a natural light that we may think: does Macambo exist somewhere? Do you believe that we could find it if we searched for it? Maybe simply through our imagination, just like you did it.
n  

'He sank into the rocking chair, the same one in which Rebecca had sat during the early days of the house to give embroidery lessons, and in which Amaranta had played Chinese checkers with Colonel Gerineldo Marquez, and in which Amarana Ursula had sewn the tiny clothing for the child, and in that flash of lucidity he became aware that he was unable to bear in his soul the crushing weight of so much past.'

n
Yes, Gabriel, I loved all the memories of honor, magic, high hopes, love, death, revolution, futility and sadness you created for us. There may not be a happy ending, but there are love and hope despite the sufferings. 'Death really did not matter to him but life did, and therefore the sensation he felt when they gave their decision was not a feeling of fear but of nostalgia.'
____

La idea de este libro es fascinante. Especialmente porque Gabo describe a Macondo de una forma fenomenal, hace que el lector se lo imagine, incluso yo mismo viviendo ahí con todas las aventuras que el libro cuenta.
Por otro lado, y para mí lo más importante, es que hay demasiados personajes. Primero hablan de la familia Buendía, después se amplía, amplía, amplía y amplía. Luego aparecen otros personajes que vienen del extranjero o son del mismo Macondo. Ya como en la mitad del libro, la lectura se hace muy pesada, tratando de enlazar personajes, de recordarlos, de saber quién murió, de saber quién estaba con quién, el parentesco de este con este otro.
La verdad es que me demoré casi 2 meses en leer el libro completo, y eso no tiene nada de malo, pero lo que me hostigó un poco, es que tenías que leer más de 2 o 3 veces una misma parte para seguir enlazando la historia. A veces me concentraba más en seguir el hilo del libro que disfrutarlo, y eso, en mi opinión no es bueno.
En lo personal, creo que es un excelente libro, pero pudo haber sido contado de una forma un poco más simple, y sobre todo, no con tantos personajes, que al final terminan cansando (por lo menos a mí).
En mi opinión como lector totalmente amateur y subjetivo este libro es un poco sobre-valorado, ya que se habla de un clásico universal, que no te puedes morir sin leerlo, etc. Pero la verdad es que me esperaba una historia igual de buena, pero más simple y amigable de digerir.

Can you appreciate a book and dislike it at the same time? This book reminded me of Lincoln at the Bardo, although certainly not in content. Both are written by obviously brilliant writers. Both are inventive, creative. Both stretch the conventional boundaries of the novel (something only great writers try, and something I appreciate in any art form). Both are amazing, and yet, I didn't love either book. Sometimes originality works and sometimes it doesn't, at least for some.

I understood what Marquez was saying: war is senseless, events, like names, repeat throughout history, families are complicated, political parties are all guilty of the same things, the past often blends with the present, progress often has unwanted results, capitalism can be corrupt and on and on. These are all important aspects in the history of Colombia during the 100 year period 1820-1920. I also think the author intentionally wanted the characters to be blurry, for after all, weren't they the same characters through the generations? Only the matriarch was a player with depth. I need to feel something for characters, not necessarily compassion or love, just something.

100 Years of Solitude might have been palatable if I had known the history of Colombia during that time period. But even so, it was repetitious, yawn producing. I often groaned as I picked it back up. It was like being in a fevered dream, bizarre events with moments of clarity.

Am I glad I read it? Yes. Did I enjoy parts, especially the humorous parts? Yes. I'm actually fonder of it the farther I get away from the drudgery of reading it. Did I enjoy the experience? No. I am just thankful Marquez didn't write 200 Years of Solitude!

Wow. I loved this