"Η μεγαλοπρεπη κ σκυθρωπή γερόντισσα που παρακολουθούσε την είσοδο καθισμένη σε μια ψαθινη κουνιστή πολυθρόνα, ενιωσε πως ο χρόνος γύριζε πίσω στις αρχικές του πηγές, όταν ανάμεσα στους πέντε νέους που έρχονταν, ανακάλυψε εναν κοκκαλιαρη χλωμό με μογγολικά μήλα, σημαδεμένο για πάντα
κι απ την αρχή του κόσμου με την βλογιά της μοναξιάς
-Αχ, αναστέναξε, Αουρελιάνο!"

------
Όλα τ αστερια του goodreads δεν ειναι αρκετά γι αυτο το αριστούργημα.
Σκεφτομουν σχεδον καθ ολη τη διάρκεια της ανάγνωσής του πως πιθανότατα αυτο εδω είναι το ωραιότερο βιβλίο του κόσμου.
Και ειναι σιγουρα απο τα πιο πολυαγαπημένα. Ισως ΤΟ πιο αγαπημένο.
Ξέρω ανθρώπους που το διάβασαν 3 και 5 και 10 φορές, ανθρώπους, αναγνωστες που δεν εντάσσονται καν στην κατηγορία των βιβλιοφαγων, αλλά πώς να μείνεις ασυγκίνητος μπροστά σ' ολα τα μαγικά που εκτυλίσσονται μπροστά στα μάτια σου, απ τις τρελλες διηγησεις αυτου του μεγαλου παραμυθά Μάρκες, πώς να μη μείνεις άφωνος κ γοητευμένος απ' τη φαντασία, τη συγκίνηση, την παραφορά, την λατρεία;

Υπήρχαν στιγμές που το διαβαζα και χαμογελούσα χωρίς να έχει γραψει κατι αστείο.
Υπηρχαν στιγμές που μου ρχότανε να κλάψω χωρίς να συμβαίνει τίποτα λυπητερό,
με συγκινουσαν οι αποχρώσεις των λεξεων του, με παρέσυραν σαν βροχή κι ανεμοστροβιλοι οι συγκλονιστικές προτάσεις του, η συνταρακτική του αμεσότητα, ο μυθος που μπλέκει αμετάκλητα μεσα στην πραγματικότητα και ριζωνει και το πιστευεις βαθιά και θες να πιστεψεις στα θαύματα, γιατι ετσι ο κοσμος ειναι πιο ενδιαφέρων και πιο λυρικός και πιο γοητευτικός.
Θυμαμαι κατι ανάλογο ειχα πάθει και με τον Έρωτα στα χρόνια της χολέρας, δεν ξερω αν φταιει που εχουν περασει κανα δυο δεκαετιες, αλλά εχω μια αίσθηση ότι, τα 100 χρονια μοναξιά είναι ακόμη ανώτερο.

Δεν εχω να πω κάτι αλλο, βασικα εχω, πολλά, αλλα θα φλυαρήσω για την λατρεια μου προς τον Μάρκες και αυτο τον μαγικό τοπο της Λατινικής Αμερικης, οπου οι ανθρωποι ζουν περιπου εκατονσαρανταεξι χρονια, συνυπαρχουν με τους νεκρους τους, πετανε λιγο πιο πανω απο τη γη οταν χαιρονται, και αναλειφονται στους ουρανους, ψυχη τε και σωματι, οταν αποφασιζουν να εγκαταλειψουν τα εγκοσμια, και ολη η φυση συμπασχει. Με συνεπήρε.
Με πηρε απ το χέρι και με οδηγησε στο πυρετικό Μακοντο. Μ' επιασε απ τα μαλλιά και ανατριχιαζα.
Όποτε εκλεινα το βιβλιο ενιωθα σαν να βγαινω απο ονειρο.
Θεος, απλά.
Ένα δίκαιο Νόμπελ ❤


---------------

"Ήταν έτοιμος να πει τον πόνο του σ' οποιον θα έλυνε τους κομπους που βαραιναν το στηθος του, αλλα το μόνο που κατάφερε ήταν να ξεσπάσει σ' ενα αβίαστο, ζεστό κ ανακουφιστικό κλάμα στην αγκαλια της Πιλάρ Τερνέρα. Εκείνη τον άφησε να τελειώσει, ξυνοντας το κεφάλι του με τις ακρες των δαχτύλων της και, χωρίς να της έχει πει πως έκλαιγε απο ερωτα, εκείνη είχε αμέσως αναγνωρίσει το πιο αρχαιο κλάμα στην ιστορία του ανθρώπου. "

لا يكفيها نوبل فقط فهى من أعظم الاعمال الادبيه فى التاريخ

" آول آلسلآله مربوط إلى شجره وآخرهمـ يأكله آلنمل "

آولآ مش دى آلروآية آللى تـآخذ منهـآ مجموعة من آلمقتبسآت عشـآن تنشرهـآ على الفيس بوك وتشآركهـآ مع آصدقـآئكـ ! ومش آلنوع من آلروآيات التي تتعلق بها لقربها ومسهـآ آلمشآعر آختبرتهـآ يومـآ أو تجربة شخصية خضتهـآ !
لا هى الانبهار ! الانبهار بالقدرة المذهلة على خلق العالم المجنون ده ! آلكـآتب خلق حياةً بأكملها هنا وليس "قصة" فقط على غير المعتاد في أغلب الأعمال الروائية

خوسيه آركـآديو بوينديا مؤسس ماكوندو ومليكاديس والرقائق بتاعتة !

عن قريه بدأت معزولة عن العالمـ بفعل آلطبيعة وآنتهت معزولة عنه بفعل آلمصيـر آلمأساوي لأفرآدهآ عبر مائة عـآمـ آو تزيد مـن آلحرب وآلحب آلحلال وآلمحرمـ وآلجنس ومن آللعنـة آللى توآرثتهـآ سلآلة خوسيه اركاديو بوينديا مؤسس آلقرية وآلجد الأكبر لمئات من آلشخصيـآت آلمتشآبهـه أسماء وجموحا وشهوة ولعنة !

من آكـتر آلشخصـآت آللى آتعلقت بيهـآ آلكولونيل آوريليانيو بوينديا !

من آلروآيـآت آلقليله آللى زعلت لمـآ خلصتهـآ ! ومستحيل آنسـآهـآ !

n  n
Your quest for one of the best books ever published will end here. The story of the Buendia family is narrated in one of the best ways we have ever seen by Márquez. The magical realism in it is simply spectacular and is the best I have seen in any book.
n  n

n  روزی که قرار شود بَشری در کوپه درجه یک سفر کند و ادبیات در واگنِ کالا، دخلِ دنیا آمده است
صفحه 394n

n  یکمn
چه جای آن است که سخن از این رمان را، با تاکیدِ بر شهرتِ مارکز و آمارِ فروشِ "صد سال تنهایی" آغاز کنم؟!. مگر نَه اینست که فقره یِ تکرارِ مُکررات، نباید و نشاید که جایی در یک ریویویِ مطلوب داشته باشد. بگذارید از حس و حالم در دوران سکونتم در دهکده یِ صد سال تنهایی بگویم. این رُمان مرا پیر کرد، بدین صورت که ابتدا، یادم آورد که چقدر پیر شده ام، بَعدش تازه وقتی این را فهمیدم، واقعاََ پیرتَرهَم شدم. در این داستان صدساله، "زمان"، بازیچه ای مبهم می نماید. وسیله ای برای تکرارِ هزارباره یِ یک نام در چند کالبد و چندین نسلِ پیاپی، در جغرافیائی واحد و عجیب، و البته منزوی از دنیایِ اطراف، با مردمانی شدید در طغیان، تاریخی نحیف، خاطراتی باورناپذیر و خَمودگیِ پی در پیِ جان هایِ جوان که در روستایِ کوچکِ داستان-"ماکوندو"-، که خود جهانی ست بَس بزرگ، رُخ می دهد. "بوئندیا" هائی که شش نسلِ پی در پی، داستان بر مدارِ زیستِ جادویی آن ها می چرخد، همه می دانند وقتی روزگارِ صد ساله یِ شان، یکایک، همه را به شلاق "گُذرِ عمر" می نوازد، هیچکدامشان نمی تواند از این چاله یِ زمان بنُیاد به سلامت بِجَهد. گرچه چند نفرشان هم، به ظَنِ خویش، تحتِ پوششِ ابداع و ابتکار، داد و ستد، مهاجرت و مشارکت و حتی انقلاب و شورش، گام هائی بلندتر از زمان بَرمی دارد تا از ثانیه پیشین سبقت بگیرد، غافل از این اَند که، "ثانیه"، پیشین و پَسین ندارد، نشان به آن نشان که، ما داریم دور می زنیم، یعنی راستش را بخواهید، "زمان" دارد ما را دور می زند

n  دومn
صد سالِ پیش-کَمی پیش و پَس-، پدربزرگ و مادر بزرگِ مارکز نامی، درون ذهنشان آرزوییِ شهوانی-غریزی و البته با نتایجی 100ساله پروراندند. همین مارکز هم، صد سال بعد از آن روزِ کَذا، محصول این یکی شدنِ تَن+هایِ سابقاََ تَنها شد. بعد، همین مارکز، یادش آورد 100سالِ پیش نبوده و باید می بوده، خواست با جادویِ "ملکیادس" ادبیات، برود به صد سالِ بعد و چون بنایِ تنها سفر کردن داشت، در و پنجره بَر خود بست و "صد سال تنهایی" را نوشت تا در 100 سالِ بعد از اتمامِ رمان، آنانی که در یک و یا چند روز، به اندازه صد سالِ تمام، تنهایی کشیده اَند، از آن تنهاییِ استخوان سوز، به "صد سال تنهایی" یِ مارکز پناه برند

من در سطر سطرِ "صد سال تنهایی"، هر قَدمی و آنی، مارکز را دیدم که مشتاقانه آرزومندِ سبقت از زمانِ حال بود، پیشی گرفتنی رئال و جادویی!. از همین رو، مارکز در رمانَش، خواست تا که داستانی صد سال و یک ثانیه ای بگوید و آن یک ثانیه یِ آخری، مال خودش باشد، درکش کند، در خودِ آن یک ثانیه با علمِ به بودن در آن ثانیه، و با عشقِ بدانِ ثانیه زیست کند، غافل از ناممکن بودنِ سبقت از زمان!. نهایتاََ او سخت باخت، و البته مُعترف به باختَش
هم بود. اعتراف نامه اَش را که نامِ صد سال تنهایی به خود گرفت، بِسالِ 1353 و توسطِ جاویدنام "بهمن فرزانه"، به فارسی ترجمه شد. نیم قرن بعد، نوبتِ من رسید، رمان را خواندم و 100 سال تنها شدم. خواندنی که در فاصله یک تَک ثانیه و صد سالِ تمام اتفاق افتاد

: رمان صد سال تنهائی، در صفحه 407، در سطرَکی کوتاه، چنین خلاصه می شود
n  اولینِ آن ها را به درختی بستند و آخرینِ آن ها طعمه مورچگان می شودn

مارکز، آئینه یِ سخن گوئی است که شما را بهn  "یادآوریِ زمانِ از دست رفته"n نائل می گرداند اگر که مردِ رَه بوده و توشه ای بر دوش و کفشَکی آهنی بر پای داشته باشید، با او در مسیرِ رئالیسم جادوئی-این دیوانه ترین سبکِ رمان!-، دست در دستِ ذوقِ او پیش خواهید رفت. کافی ست 100سال را در 400صفحه تورق کنید. نپرسید چطور، چون می شود زمان را هم تورق کرد. آری!. مارکز بخوانید، هَمو که بعد از یادآوریِ زمانی که از دست مان رفته، می رِساندِمان به "جست و جویِ زمانِ از دست رفته". منطقش هم اینست که، هر گُم شده ای، ابتدا باید فقدان و نبودَش به یاد آورده شود، وَبعد آنگاه، می توانبه جست و جویِ این گُم شده رفت. اینی را که وصفش رفت، اوئی که شرحَش گفتم، یاد من آورد. جایِ شلاقِ گُذرِ زمان بر روحم را و مارکز را می گویم که دومی، اولی را یاد آورد. یادِ من یکی که آورده، شما را نمی دانم. یادم آورده که من خیلی پیر شده ام. زودتر از آن "دیرزمانی" که انتظارش را می کشیدم

n  سومn
راستی برایِ خودم -به درست یا غلط-، n  رئالیسم جادوییn را چنین تمثیل کردم
انگاری در رودخانه ای که دیگران در آن آبِ سهمگینِ چون سیل جاری را می بینند که بر بستری از سنگ و شن می تازد، با رئالیسمِ جادوئی، می توان بستری از پنبه نرم و نازکی دید، ابریشمی نوازشگر، که بادِ هوا مستانه و کودک وار بجایِ آبِ تازان، در آن می رقصد و پیش و پَس رفتنش هم در هاله ای از ابهام است. ابهامِی شبیه شنیدنِ این جمله معروف و غریب، n  من گُنگِ خواب دیده و عالَم همه کَرn

n  چهارمn
توصیه می کنم رمان را بی وقفه بخوانید. شجره نامه اول کتاب را همیشه کنار دست داشته باشید. در اواخر رمان، یک طلاقِ عاطفی میان این شاهکارو شما محتمل است، اگرکه چنین شد، از بهرِ حلِ فراق، روزی سه یا چهار صفحه، چشمانِ نازدارتان را مهمانِ ذوقِ مارکز کنید تا شاید وصالی مجدد حاصل گردد و این مسیرپیمائیِ فراموشی دوست با مارکزِ عزیز، در ذهن تان آبی پاشی شود. من کتاب را با ترجمه "بهمن فرزانه" خواندم. خیلی خوب بود. ترجمه "کاوه میر عباسی" از انتشاراتِ کتابسرای نیک را هم گرفته اَم، بخوانمش، حتماََ باز دستی بر سرو رویِ این ریویو می کِشَم. مقایسه ترجمه ها بماند برای صد سالِ دیگر. n  صد سالی که خیلی زودتر از زمانی که فکرش را می کنید، فرا می رسدn

welcome to...ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AUGUSTUDE!

while logically i know that is far from my best month / title pun, and is also actually among the worst, and in point of fact that's even worse than it sounds because my puns have never been good...

i like it. and that's that.

we are back for another exciting round of Project Long Classics, in which elle and i find it within our cowardly hearts to brave long books from old times only by dividing them up into teeny-tiny chunks for four entire weeks.

if it works, it works.

i have been putting off reading this for a long time, and i am still very scared, but i do have this joke to get off: one hundred years of solitude? sounds like quarantine, am i right?

buh dum ch!

okay. i'm ready to get started.

we're also reading this for our book club -
join the discussion here
follow on instagram here

let's go.

DAY 1: PAGES 1-15
it's august 3, i won't lie to you. i could never. my nose would grow. pinocchio was based on a true story from the future about a human woman who writes book reviews.

okay, i'm procrastinating. i'm scared and i have to read 50 pages today!!! sue me!

all right. couple of things: this is beautiful; i have a used copy, acquired at an unknown time but probably 5+ years ago, and it smells good as hell; i'm not catching up today.


DAY 2: PAGES 16-30
okay. honesty hour: it's day 7, and i'm 15 pages into this book. folks...i am SLUMPED. (also i've been busy and i have trouble prioritizing these projects NOTORIOUSLY when i'm busy, but who cares about that part.)

anyway, i've decided i'm ignoring it in order to indulge in my favorite way to spend a sunday: bringing 5-10 books in bed with me and alternating chapters all day, absolutely refusing to so much as make eye contact with another human being. so hopefully we catch up!


DAY 3: PAGES 31-45
okay...dare i say...i'm starting to have fun with this.

i'm definitely liking it more than a good number of the collected stories, i'll say that much.


DAY 4: PAGES 46-60
so far this is giving very much no plot just vibes, and i can't say i'm not into it. and it's a collected stories crossover episode!


DAY 5: PAGES 61-75
the drama!!! sheesh. although you have to respect a classic that just comes right out and admits that nothing in life is more interesting or important than love and sex.

most old books are always pretending it's something boring, like politics, or accounting, or blood feuds.


DAY 6: PAGES 76-90
maybe it's just me, but personally if i were selecting a wife out of everybody i knew, i'd probably pick someone who wasn't still literally wetting the bed. genuinely. not metaphorically.

but that's just my pref.


DAY 7: PAGES 91-105
caught up!!! in our third consecutive hour of reading!!! alternating with 6 other books!!! is there nothing a project cannot do!!!

there is just...so much going on here.


DAY 8: PAGES 106-120
pretty badass behavior happening here...i love it when women


DAY 9: PAGES 121-135 i took major advantage of the included family tree today, i'll say that. hoo boy.


DAY 10: PAGES 136-150
this is like. Intense to read. it never gets natural or easy in the way that most books do, even really old timey ones of major significance.

but it is so damn good.


DAY 11: PAGES 151-165
a lot of these fellas up to no damn good...


DAY 12: PAGES 166-180
did anyone else notice that i accidentally started numbering the days in decreasing order. (now fixed.)

how did that happen?! am i being pranked?? if someone hacked my account, please go to my messages and see how funny it is when men send desperate DMs to faceless book reviewers. i don't wanna be alone in the humor anymore.

anyway. amaranta pulls.


DAY 13: PAGES 181-195
another weekend, another two days i accidentally took off from reading in their entirety.

this is the first time that my 15 page intervals have actually lined up with a chapter. this is the height of luxury!!


DAY 14: PAGES 196-210
this is such a fever-dream way to read a fever-dream book - cut up into senseless little chunks like this. it's already such a discombobulated and nonlinear read, and absolutely refusing to acknowledge chapters or page breaks of any kind is insane!

but fun.


DAY 15: PAGES 211-225
all the women in this book slay...they are very sexualized but also very badass. it's very fun to read about.

caught up!


DAY 16: PAGES 226-240
HOW is ursula still alive. we're on, like, our 8th aureliano.


DAY 17: PAGES 241-255
imagine being so hot it kills literally any man who doesn't leave you alone...

goals.


DAY 18: PAGES 256-270
make that like. 25 aurelianos.

back to 8 again.


DAY 19: PAGES 271-285
URSULA!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU DON'T GO!!!!!!!

i know you're like 200 years old and i just took you for granted like 3 days ago. but still.


DAY 20: PAGES 286-300
since my mourning cry for ursula, multiple people have died but she is not among them?? what a rollercoaster of emotions.

there is a girl whose name is truly Meme in this and she is just as wonderful as her name would indicate. anyway generally the women in this remain discernible and one of a kind and interesting through this whole crazy book, while the men continue to bore me and be absolutely impossible to keep straight.


DAY 21: PAGES 301-315
folks, we're behind again.

because even when my weekends are extremely lazy (read: indoors and conducted in solitude, as is my wont), and even when my weeks consist of little to no reading, something in my soul says that i should take at LEAST one saturday or sunday off entirely.

i can't help it.


DAY 22: PAGES 316-330
there are like 200 characters in this book and 196 of them have been publicly executed.


DAY 23: PAGES 331-345
ursula somehow still alive and kicking. i love when magical realism is just like..."it rained for four years straight and this woman is like 180 years old."


DAY 24: PAGES 346-360
under 100 pages to go and i feel confident stating there will never be a plot! and for that reason i have to stan.

i cannot keep these men straight for even one second and yet i could summarize each female character in a paragraph by first name alone. it's the misandrist in me. also the fact that every man has one of two names. but still.


DAY 25: PAGES 361-375
aaaand it's an almost-no-paragraph-breaks day. of course. on a morning when my entire operating system feels like it's been replaced by a rube goldberg machine, which i just almost called a lou gehrig's machine.

did i say morning? it's 12:48 p.m.

onward and upward. anyway. intense chapter!


DAY 26: PAGES 376-390
how does a book with no plot conclude? not sure. seems like a lot of death but that's also par for the course for the most part.


DAY 27: PAGES 391-405
goddamn this is one cursed family.


DAY 28: PAGES 406-420
seems pretty late to be introducing new major characters but what do i know! this book plays by its own rules.


DAY 29: PAGES 421-435
the penultimate day! and we've reached the Sweeping Statements About Love And Decline And Meaning section. i'll miss reading this book but i'm so excited to see how it concludes.


DAY 30: PAGES 436-448
whoa.


OVERALL
this book is wild, lovely, and weird, conveying in a completely unique way themes about family and time and suffering and love. i can't decide whether reading it in arbitrary doses over a month is the best or worst way to do so, but i had a good time!
rating: 3.5

Raz po spożyciu pewnej substancji przez 40 minut gapiłem się na mrowisko, a potem przez kolejne 15 na kolegę, który usiadł obok mnie i też zaczął się gapić na mrowisko.

Gdybym spożył tego z sześć razy więcej, to musiałbym wejść na poziom fazy, jaką miał Marquez, pisząc tę powieść. Niepowtarzalna rzecz.

A tu recenzja na YT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3utX9...

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.

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.

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.

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!

n  The world is so unpredictable. Things happen suddenly, unexpectedly. We want to feel we are in control of our own existence. In some ways we are, in some ways we're not. We are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence.
-Paul Auster 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. At that time Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. The World was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.


Life starts again after every stroke of death. ‘Nihilo ex Nihilo’, the philosophical expression comes to my mind as soon as finished the book; the expression translates into ‘nothing out of nothing’ which means that there is no break in-between a world that did not exist and one that did, since it could not be created ex nihilo in the first place. Macondo recreates the history of universe/ s in such a way that when existence of one universe reduces to nill, the other universe takes shape out of nothing however the rules in the new universe may not conform to the laws of the first one. Eventually, we come across the solitude of existence, though we may develop myths- which become tradition/ culture over the years- but we may not be able to overcome it. Solitude and Freedom are two such themes which have been very close to human heart after being ‘civilized’. Human beings may have indefinite degrees of freedom which allow them to act or define their life in infinite ways but eventually solitude of existence curbs their degrees of freedom. Or we may say that existence is solitude- since we crawl in nothingness. Every act of life is like a fast revolving axis on which all the possibilities or probabilities- including imaginations- throw themselves and some of those strike sometimes and others some other times, and those probabilities manifest themselves in the form of hope, myths, dreams, fears, madness and imaginations. There is perhaps one thing which is common between different universes- the endurance of life, the endurance to keep moving no matter what and that’s what underlines One Hundred Years of Solitude.




It is the second time I read this epic jewel of literature. One Hundred of Solitude, surely one of the most entertaining books ever written in Latin America, does not reveal what it conceals beyond simple text in first reading which may provide entertainment and recognition; rather it demands a second reading which is in effect the ‘real’ reading. And this demand is the essential secret of this great mythic and ‘simultaneist’ novel. It demands multiple readings probably because it supposes multiple authorships. The first reading may be straight forward, having facts of founding family of Mocando, sequentially, chronologically, with a biblical and Rabelaisian hyberbole: Aureliano son of Jose Aureliano son of Aureliano son of Jose Aureliano- which also underlines the tradition of Latin America. The second reading begins the moment the first ends: the reader feels that the miracle-working gypsy Melquiades has already written the events of Mocando and he is revealed as the narrator of the book one hundred years later. The second reading did something unimaginable – it combines in a peculiar form, the order of the actual events with the order of the probable events so that the former destiny is liberated by latter wish. At that instant, you may realize that two things occur simultaneously: the book begins again, but this time the chronological history runs simultaneously as a mythic historicity, and perhaps that’s where the world famous- but least understood- genre of Magic Realism took its steps of adulthood and the whole world marvel at this ingenious literary achievement.

She finally mixed up the past with the present in such a way that in the two or three waves of lucidity that she had before she died, no one knew for certain whether she was speaking about what she felt or what she remembered. Little by little she was shrinking, turning into a foetus, becoming mummified in life to the point that in her last months she was a cherry raisin lost inside of her nightgown, and the arm that she always kept raised looked like the paw of a marimonda monkey.

The profusion and meticulous vagueness of the information seemed to Aureliano Segundo so similar to the tales of spiritualists that he kept on with his enterprise in spite of the fact that they were in August and they would have to wait at least three years in order to satisfy the conditions of the prediction.





The book is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America. Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility - the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth -- these universal themes dominate the novel. Whether he is describing an affair of passion or the voracity of capitalism and the corruption of government, Gabriel García Márquez always writes with the simplicity, ease, and purity that are the mark of a master. The survivors of the epic saga of Macondo- Aureliano and Amaranta Ursula, ‘secluded by solitude and love and by the solitude of love in a house where then begins to unfold the mythic, whose simultaneous and renewable character will not be made clear until the final pages, when the reader realizes that whole story has been written already by the gypsy Melquiades, the seer who was present at the foundation of Macondo and who, to keep it in existence, had to resort to the same trick as Jose Arcadio Buendia: writing. There lies the profound paradox of the second reading of One Hundred Years of Solitude: everything was known, before it happened, by the sacred, utopian, mythic, founding prophecies of Melquiades, but nothing will be known if Melquiades does not record it in writing. Like Cervantes, Garcia Marquez establishes the frontiers of reality within a book and the frontiers of a book within a reality.

The final protection, which Aureliano had begun to glimpse when he let himself be confused by the love of Amaranta Ursula, was based on the fact that Melquiades had not put events in the order of man's conventional time, but had concentrated a century of daily episodes, in such a way that they coexisted in one instant.

Ursula's lucidity, her ability to be sufficient unto herself made one think that she was naturally conquered by the weight of her hundred years, but even though it was obvious that she was having trouble seeing, no one suspected that she was totally blind. She had so much time at her disposal then and so much interior silence to watch over the life of the house that she was the first to notice Meme's silent tribulation.




The legends, stories which have been told us over generations through ancestors, society and other pillars of civilized society, become myths over long period of time, time plays important role in amalgamation of reality and myth. Memory also plays important role in creation and re creation of Macondo. Memory repeats the models, the matrixes of the beginning, in the same way as Colonel Buendia, again and again, makes gold fishes which he remelts to make them again….to be continually reborn, to ensure with strict, ritual, heartfelt acts the permanence of the cosmos. Macondo itself tell all its ‘real’ history and all its ‘fictional’ history, all the notary’s evidence and all the rumors, legends, slanders, pious lies, exaggerations and inventions that no one written down, that the old have told to the children, that the village women have whispered to the priest, that the sorcerers have invoked in the middle of the night and the street vendors cried out in the square.



What are we up to now? Myth or reality. Myth denies reality or where there is reality, no scope for myth. Perhaps myth deny history but the dead, oppressive, factual history which Marquez sheds off in order to bring about, in this very book, a dream like mix of different Latin Americas set in different times. A meeting with the living past, the matrix, which is tradition of severance and risk: each generation of Buendia will know the death of one son in a revolution- a movement- that will never end. After which, we have meeting with imaginative- Utopian world: ice reaches the torrid jungle of Macondo for the first time casing the surprise of the supernatural: the magic will be inextricably linked to usefulness. And eventually, a meeting with the absolute present in which we remember and want: a vivid novel like the long chronicle of a century of solitude in Columbia, but read as an invention committed, precariously, to the peripatetic papers of Melaquiades. Macondo- A place that will hold everyone, that will hold all of us: the seat of time, the enshrinement of all times, the meeting ground of memory and a desire, a common place where everything can begin again: a book. Marquez transforms the evil in his work into beauty and humour- dark humour. Marquez realizes that our history is not only destined: in an obscure way, we have also wanted it. Garcia Marquez weaves a universe wherein a right to the imagination is able to distinguish between mystifications in which a dead past wants to pass for the living present and mystifications in which a living present reclaims the life of the past.

Upset by two nostalgias facing each other like two mirrors, he lost his marvellous sense of unreality and he ended up recommending to all of them that they leave Macondo, that they forget everything he had taught them about the world and the human heart, that they shit on Horace, and that wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end .

It was then that she understood the vicious circle of Colonel Aureliano Buendia's little gold fishes. The world was reduced to the surface of her skin and her inner self was safe from all bitterness. It pained her not to have had that revelation many years before when it would have still been possible to purify memories and reconstruct the universe under a new light and evoke without trembling Pietro Crespi's smell of lavender at dusk and rescue Rebecca from her slough of misery, not out of hatred or out of love but because of the measureless understanding of solitude.



The books leaves you with a hollowness in your heart- the kind of hollowness you feel when you happens to encounter end of life- even in some other forms, a sense of exhaustion surrounds your mind and you find it hard to gather your thoughts and put them into words. I am feeling the same right now as I am writing this review, but life takes birth again and time moves on, that is also theme of the book. The book is must for everyone who wants to leave mundane and experience magic of life.

n  n    5/5n  n

*edited on 29.05.18

Oh. Thank. God.! I thought I was the only one who couldn't finish reading this book because it was SO bizarre! I thought I should try reading it again because it's supposed to be a great novel; however, I believe that with so many good books out there waiting to be read, why should I waste precious time trying (again!) to tackle this one? Such a disappointment, considering that I enjoyed Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera.