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bibliotecabecca's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
lloaiza's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
fcty's review against another edition
5.0
i wasn’t sure how much i was going to like this when i started reading it and realised how much incest and pedophilia is in this book, but this book honestly took my breath away. the further into the book i got the more things started to click into place in my brain and i read the last page with an ache in my heart. i don’t think any other book that features magical realism, generational trauma and the cyclical nature of history can be fairly compared to this, because i thought the elements of magical realism were so well-woven into the story that it felt natural to hear that a random character can shit diamonds (though i acknowledge that i need to read more LatAm lit since ‘magical realism’ is more akin to a way of viewing the world). all this alongside astute critique of Columbian and Latin American governance, the military, the complicity of imperialist first world nations in exploiting the third world for capitalistic gains and the subsequent loss of a unique culture to the forces of globalisation, and finally, a warning against nostalgia.
(side note: gabriel garcía márquez could conceive of almost every member of the Buendia family being incestuous, with some of them being pedophiles and one offhand implication of bestiality, but couldn’t conceive of any of them engaging in homosexuality?? come on)
(side note: gabriel garcía márquez could conceive of almost every member of the Buendia family being incestuous, with some of them being pedophiles and one offhand implication of bestiality, but couldn’t conceive of any of them engaging in homosexuality?? come on)
jerushae's review against another edition
3.0
I knew going into this that Magical Realism wasn’t for me, but if it’s your thing, this is the book for you. I found if I couldn’t read for at least 45 minutes at a time, I had trouble getting into the book. It bounces all over the place and in some instances, an interaction takes up several pages while in others months pass in a single sentence. All that said, I was still invested in the characters and interested to see where the story took them.
frodolives's review against another edition
dark
reflective
4.0
I initially picked this up because I see it on a lot of “the greatest books ever written” lists (sometimes in the no. 1 spot). Perhaps that gave me overly high expectations because I struggled to enjoy it that much—it’s no War and Peace or anything—but it’s still an undoubtedly great book.
One Hundred Years of Solitude follows the history of the Buendía family in the fictional village of Macondo. Each generation is eerily similar to the last and repeat the mistakes of their forebears. Time is more cyclical than linear. The similar names can be confusing, but my edition of the book came with a family tree at the beginning so I didn’t find it too difficult to follow.
I did struggle to get fully invested in the book and didn't find it that personally relatable/compelling (I imagine a lot of the themes are more accessible to Latin Americans), but I did appreciate the imaginative writing style and the engagement with history, literature, and memory itself. I think this was Marquez’s attempt at writing a kind of Genesis for modern Colombia, using biblical allusions and storytelling methods but in a modernist writing style that mythologies not-distant history from an atheistic point of view. Like Genesis, it follows the lineage of a special family (treated as fact but with fantastical elements) and is best read, not as a straightforward narrative, but as a collection of many random beautiful moments that are memorable and profound and come together to tell the story of how modernity came to be. While obviously not factually accurate, it accurately conveys the feeling of just how fast and relentless modernity happened and how quick colonialism and war bring ruin and how easily people are transformed. Real-world historical events get mythologized, most notably the long conflict between the Conservative and Liberals in Colombia and the Banana Massacre (which was really the best and most haunting part of the book, I think).
It’s also not like a regular book where you can get intimate with the characters because of how fast they come and go. Again, like the Bible, it’s more about what the characters represent. None of them are moral or relatable, not really, but they still mean something deeply human and you watch them as they inevitably commit sins from generation to generation until everything is destroyed by a flood. There’s beauty and despair, hope and nostalgia, life and death, love and war, reproduction and destruction. The contrasts leave this book with a very bittersweet feeling.
I have to say though... one of the most overt barriers in my full enjoyment of this book has to do with the unfortunate way women and sexuality are written (not unlike Genesis, I suppose…) Pretty much all the female characters are heavily sexualized stereotypes and there’s a lot of pedophilia, incest and rape (but conveniently in every rape scene it turns out the woman actually liked it). I feel a bit silly giving feminist critiques to a noble prize winner, I usually don’t care about this sort of thing in fiction, especially in books like this that are supposed to reflect the pessimistic and icky sides of life, but it was just so incessant that after a certain point you have to seriously wonder about the author. So yeah, the over-emphasis on male sexuality just didn’t do it for me.
Still, this is an overall great book. It's just the type of book I can only admire from a distance than something I can fully invest myself into at this point in my life, which stops it short of 5 stars for me.
One Hundred Years of Solitude follows the history of the Buendía family in the fictional village of Macondo. Each generation is eerily similar to the last and repeat the mistakes of their forebears. Time is more cyclical than linear. The similar names can be confusing, but my edition of the book came with a family tree at the beginning so I didn’t find it too difficult to follow.
I did struggle to get fully invested in the book and didn't find it that personally relatable/compelling (I imagine a lot of the themes are more accessible to Latin Americans), but I did appreciate the imaginative writing style and the engagement with history, literature, and memory itself. I think this was Marquez’s attempt at writing a kind of Genesis for modern Colombia, using biblical allusions and storytelling methods but in a modernist writing style that mythologies not-distant history from an atheistic point of view. Like Genesis, it follows the lineage of a special family (treated as fact but with fantastical elements) and is best read, not as a straightforward narrative, but as a collection of many random beautiful moments that are memorable and profound and come together to tell the story of how modernity came to be. While obviously not factually accurate, it accurately conveys the feeling of just how fast and relentless modernity happened and how quick colonialism and war bring ruin and how easily people are transformed. Real-world historical events get mythologized, most notably the long conflict between the Conservative and Liberals in Colombia and the Banana Massacre (which was really the best and most haunting part of the book, I think).
It’s also not like a regular book where you can get intimate with the characters because of how fast they come and go. Again, like the Bible, it’s more about what the characters represent. None of them are moral or relatable, not really, but they still mean something deeply human and you watch them as they inevitably commit sins from generation to generation until everything is destroyed by a flood. There’s beauty and despair, hope and nostalgia, life and death, love and war, reproduction and destruction. The contrasts leave this book with a very bittersweet feeling.
I have to say though... one of the most overt barriers in my full enjoyment of this book has to do with the unfortunate way women and sexuality are written (not unlike Genesis, I suppose…) Pretty much all the female characters are heavily sexualized stereotypes and there’s a lot of pedophilia, incest and rape (but conveniently in every rape scene it turns out the woman actually liked it). I feel a bit silly giving feminist critiques to a noble prize winner, I usually don’t care about this sort of thing in fiction, especially in books like this that are supposed to reflect the pessimistic and icky sides of life, but it was just so incessant that after a certain point you have to seriously wonder about the author. So yeah, the over-emphasis on male sexuality just didn’t do it for me.
Still, this is an overall great book. It's just the type of book I can only admire from a distance than something I can fully invest myself into at this point in my life, which stops it short of 5 stars for me.
iconvergara's review against another edition
2.0
I'd rather drink oil than read this book again.
I have always made a habit of listening to my gut, but ignored it because this book is part of the reason the author won a Nobel prize. But reading this book feels like eating earth and wall paint. The words of the pages are hot urine sprinked on your face. Its sentences a sonorous belch that brings back the taste of acid on your palate.
It would have been fine if this book helps me sleep if it had any use at all but it failed even in that because instead of inducing me to sleep due to absolute boredom, with the absurd realization of the waste of time this book is, it boiled my blood enough to wake me up.
Who would enjoy this book? People living with scorpions and fire ants.
In the end, I have benefitted in finishing this by strengthening my resolve to endure crawling through a mile of shit and learning how to craft sentences like running through the hallway undressed while balancing a beer bottle on my inconceivable maleness.
I have always made a habit of listening to my gut, but ignored it because this book is part of the reason the author won a Nobel prize. But reading this book feels like eating earth and wall paint. The words of the pages are hot urine sprinked on your face. Its sentences a sonorous belch that brings back the taste of acid on your palate.
It would have been fine if this book helps me sleep if it had any use at all but it failed even in that because instead of inducing me to sleep due to absolute boredom, with the absurd realization of the waste of time this book is, it boiled my blood enough to wake me up.
Who would enjoy this book? People living with scorpions and fire ants.
In the end, I have benefitted in finishing this by strengthening my resolve to endure crawling through a mile of shit and learning how to craft sentences like running through the hallway undressed while balancing a beer bottle on my inconceivable maleness.
kukkaruukku's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
danielaa13's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0