|
Marquez transfers you through the words and thoughts of the Buendia family of the development of a primal foraging community to a community self involved in taking and developing a new world order with man at the center.
A pleasure to hold and read. Everyman's Library edition of One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece of book publishing. Great binding, ribbon marker, typography and paper.
All of these are present to some extent in Jose Arcadio Buendia or Colonel Aureliano Buendia, but they are not definitive of and do not circumscribe their personalities as they do in the later Buendias. Although it is better than the Bible and the Iliad, by being crueler, the reader should beware: this novel is like a Toltec or Aztec statue, one with snakes for heads and hearts and severed hands for necklaces, unimpressive at first sight until you do a complete 360 survey of it and realize it fits right into the cruel landscape their sculptors inhabited. But at its surface (and the novel is entirely a surface phenomenon because of its literalness) there are levels of cruelty unimagined by any other writer, and maybe for this the novel deserves its distinction. And introducing vultures at his death just seemed to underscore the literalness and cruelty of the text as a whole. The book has no political, philosophical, or sociological agenda, moral or immoral. Multiple readings do not yield multiple levels of meaning. Every other Buendia after them is parodic of the modern man or woman. There isn't even a redemptive figure, like in the Bible.
The novel doesn't suffer from too much fantasy, it's mired in too much depressive reality. This is a hard book to read. And of these later Buendias Marquez depicts their downfall like roaches being stamped out, in the blackest of black humor, which is why readers complain about the unheroic qualities, the hollowness and boredom of succeeding generations, which is the whole point. There is a level of literalness here which is juvenile (e.g. Garcia-Marquez saves the worst cruelty for the son, Colonel Aureliano Buendia, who hopes for military glory and meaning to his life, but who instead is thrown back into the dark pit of memory and regret, dragging around military failure and indecision like a paralyzed limb, despising everything, women, ideals, etc. Loyalty is literally a laughing matter (the illegal painting of ballot cards being the spur for Aureliano to choose political sides, because one side is "trickier than the other"). Marquez detests his world (not in the beginning which is idyllic, but its later manifestations) and weaves his story with the cruelty this form of detestation takes: Locked in fatalistic moments as inescapable as Homer's, whether living tediously (usually the women) or dying early (usually the men) for they-don't-know-what. It is equally despising and depressing, and somewhat boring in its literalness of the biblical-style apocalyptic approach to the whole fiasco that is the comedy of Latin America.
The only point, foretold in the beginning and coming at the end, is eventual extinction, which is hardly a point. There is no redemptive value in this kind of fiction. The fantasy only leavens it a bit, but this doesn't distract from the cruelty being perpetrated. names as determinants of behavior), almost naïve for a modern novel, until you realize the meticulous stage-setting for destruction taking place. And there are no gods to lighten things up, like in the Iliad.
It doesn't extend outside itself. Everything is there on the surface. It means everything it says. And there is no way out. Jose Arcadio Buendia, a former god-believing man hoping to acquire science (because he doesn't want to "live like donkeys") then losing his faith (because the "daguerreotype proves god's inexistence") declares after extensive investigation that the earth is round ("like an orange") and ends with him going crazy (in the deadest of dead languages, Latin).
Sex is of course freely enjoyed (and that taboo, incestual sex) but this sensual mirage is only a distraction, for the characters and the reader, from what's happening right before their eyes. War is farcical (Ursula reminds them that although they are soldiers, their "mothers reserve the right to take down their pants and spank them"). Choose the degeneracy, and Marquez embodies it in a later Buendia: the libertine, the glutton, the free spirit, philanderer, the rake, the reprobrate, isolationist. The Buendia men utter stupid things before being executed and wholly misunderstand their existence.
Ursala, the matriarch, is a central central figure who lives over a hundred years, during which she works endlessly to care for the family throughout the generations. Lastly, I suggest that you buy one of the other editions of the book, because this one is rather flimsy and cheaply made. Fernanda, the wife whom Aureliano Segundo takes from a ruined aristocratic family in "the Highlands", never really fits in. I hope this helps. These developments, along with the growth and development of the Buendia's through generations, lead to unexpected and often bizarre and tragic results. Thumbs up to Gabriel Garcia Marquez' fantastical epic novel, "100 years of Solitude". It is the story of Macondo, a fictional South American town founded by the bold patriarch of the Buendia clan, Jose Arcadio Buendia. The style of the novel, "magical realism", means that the most freakish stories are told in the same matter-of-fact tone as the most prosaic ones.
The author does a good job of creating real and interesting characters, but I particularly enjoyed some of the female ones, as they were each quite different and extraordinary. The Oprah book club edition (which I have not seen) can be had for $7.00, including shipping, and the hardback for $11.12, if you click on the words "32 new". The overriding irony which also underlies the whole story is circular nature of time--the recurring personality types and their dysfunctional actions which they seem doomed to repeat. Enjoy. At times it seems tedious, but the author uses it to brilliant effect, and particularly at the end, where the story colmanates with one surprising final ironic twist.These are just a few ideas and reflections of mine from this monumental work. Marquez grew up in the home of his grandparents, natural story tellers, who related countless such tall-tales in such a way, blurring the boundaries of reality and unreality. This is an irony of tragic futility. Twenty households of folks subsist in peace and relative isolation, minding their own business, until hosts of visitors and newcomers, bringing new ideas--scientific, political, and economic--descend upon the sleepy village.
The best Fernanda scene is during the rainy season, when she drones on complaining at Aureliano for an incredible three pages with just one sentence.One of the many themes in the book that interest me is the strong sense of irony which pervades the novel on many levels. What they went through during that time was hilarious and outlandish.Another big theme is the recurring personalities of the male Buendias across five generations. Marquez' imagination seems to know no bounds, as he recounts story after incredible story in ridiculous detail, which are bound together with certain common recurring themes. My favorite of these tall tales is the part, toward the end of the book where it rains for "four years, eleven months, and two days".
I think all "magical realism" is. It hardly ranks with the likes of Shakespeare. Yes, this is a good book and I had no trouble following it. It takes you into a completely different world for a while.But calling it "required reading for the human race" and a "literary masterpiece" is going a bit too far. It is interesting reading if you enjoy this type of literature, so I recommend it. I've read quite a few books in this genre. It is pleasant escapism, nothing more and nothing less.
|
