One Hundred Years of Solitude (P.S.) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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Book Reviews of One Hundred Years of Solitude (P.S.)
Book Review: More than a love story, this is a work of art
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my second favorite book of all time (the first is One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien Años de Soledad Spanish Version) by the same author). It tells the story of lovesick Florentino, who has waited for the love of his life, Fermina, for 50 years. Fermina was married to Dr. Juvenal Urbino and therefore unavailable. Their love story began through letters. But then Fermina rejects Florentino because she feels their relationship was naive. She is forced to marry Dr. Urbino by her father. When Dr. Urbino dies, Florentino comes back into Fermina's life and tells her he has waited for her all these years. Then, their correspondence continues and their love grows again.
Garcia Marquez has written an amazing love story that employs elements of magical realism. This only make the story better and even more amazing. This love story is as no other, and only Garcia Marquez could have written such an amzing book. The characters are so well written that they come alive in the pages of this book.
I read the book in Spanish and I reccommend that if you understand Spanish, to read this book in its original language. Although the English translation is good, I feel the Garcia Marquez touch, the "it" that makes this story what it is may get lost in the translation.
This is a book that everyone should read and I cannot reccommend it enough.
Book Review: Colombian Gold
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great work of the imagination and one of the best novels I've ever read.
The Influence of William Faulkner is apparent in only the best way -- Garcia Marquez has his own original vision and an endless amount of creativity, but he obviously took inspiration for his mythical town of Macondo from Faulkner's invention of Yoknapatawpha County, to create his own microcosmic South America on a biblical scale populated with brutally real people in fantastic situations born of 'the human heart in conflict with itself', which bluntly reveal man (and woman) struggling with and against nature, tradition, family ties, their own secrets including incest (both imagined and acted upon), repetition of family names symbolically conjuring cycles of family flaws and curses, country, God, and various related antagonists; though Garcia Marquez adds an element of magic that Faulkner did not indulge in, and is much more willing to directly explore the nature of women and sexuality, and is more judicious than Faulkner in his use of endlessly rambling sentences, which Garcia Marquez uses sparingly but to great effect in the last five chapters, particularly for a long rant against her lazy husband by the character Fernanda which goes on a couple of hilarious pages.
Keeping up with the names and characters can be a little confusing, but if you liked Faulkner's 'Absalom, Absalom!' you will love this book.
Breathtaking and unpredictable to the very last word.
Book Review: Magical Realism versus Fantasy
Summary: 5 Stars
What is it that gives One Hundred Years of Solitude its critical acclaim, where many high mimetic fantasies go unrecognized? This book kept me delightfully shocked and appalled with its depravity and bleakness, but what makes it more `literary' and likely to be studied in a high school English class then the charming tale of a wizard going off to defeat his arch-enemy? Is fantasy silly and childish? Because the Buendia family is reminiscent of a never-ending chain of eight-year-olds playing in a sandbox and fighting like savages over whatever their hearts desire. Harry Potter is more mature than Jose Arcadio. This is the story of the lost boys never growing up, but in this story their bodies mature and they have adult desires that they gratify however they can.
Is realism just more literary than magic? What about the striking contrast between the verisimilitude of Maconda and the sudden appearance of magical phenomena? One Hundred Years of Solitude is deliberate, artistic and crafty, but it is also ridiculous, over-the-top and at times childish. It really speaks to the human condition that this kind of debauchery is what we value over an imaginative epic of good versus evil.
By the way, One Hundred Years of Solitude was a great read. It deserves every bit of positive critical acclaim it has received. It's incredibly engrossing and just taps into the darkness in humanity that we love to watch from afar.
Book Review: A book for all people.
Summary: 5 Stars
One Hundred Years of Solitude is said to be a work so wonderful, It should be required reading for the entire human race, and I must say I completely agree. The novel follows the progression of the Buenida family and Macondo, the town that grows along with the people in it. As I read I felt as if I was with the family and was experiencing the same things the town was going through. Garcia Marquez's magical realism and writing style make this novel one of a kind.
My favorite thing through out the novel was the magical realism that was always evident. I think this gives the novel its own special touch. I also enjoyed Garcia Marquez's writing style and method. Seen in this novel, as in many other works of Latin American literature is the ever present circle of fate that exists within the lives of every one. If you don't respect and learn from history, it will come back and to get you, repeat itself, and normally have negative consequences.
On thing I noticed throughout One Hundred Years of Solitude were the similarities between this novel and The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. Both follow generations of a family as they grow and change. They touch on the political situations of the time adding an interesting connection to reality.
Overall, I feel that this novel is one of the best I have read so far. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a life changing novel.
Book Review: A novel to read, and not to learn
Summary: 5 Stars
I read this book during a summer break because a close friend recommended it to me. "You may want to keep a chart," he warned, referring to the daunting number of recurring names in the novel. Well, I didn't keep a chart, but I quickly realized it's easy to confuse specific characters with one another. It seems those who dislike this book are often people who read it for a class, where memory of precise details of plot and sequence is more important.
One could argue that the confusion of names is an intended effect, and says something about the relationship between the characters, family, or maybe humankind in general. But regardless of all that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and not at all for the details of the plot. Rather, I enjoyed the novel for Garcia-Marquez's writing style and his incredible ability to create entertaining, intense, and provocative scenes and stories, which are cleverly interwoven to produce the novel's whole. I found I lost myself in all the small stories throughout the read, yet after I finished the book the connection between all of the scenes and characters and stories left me with an array of impressions that came together in an intense and beautiful way. So basically, the novel was an enjoyable and thought-provoking experience, even if I mixed up a name here and there.