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_rg's review against another edition
5.0
One of the best books that have ever been written, in any language.
lexiefolkerts's review against another edition
I can barely follow what’s happening and I’m not very interested. Just seems like misogynists taking advantage of women and being possible colonizers.
argenterie4's review against another edition
5.0
One of the most intense reading experiences I had as a teenager. Truly a masterpiece. One of my all-time favorite books.
sidharthvardhan's review against another edition
5.0
One Hundred Years of Solitude
You know what is common between "One hundred years of solitude', Pride and Prejudice' and 'Twilight'?
.
.
.
You either love them or make fun of them. This one fell in the first category for me.
The things that make this book so special to some are also the things that make it boring top others. The theme of time moving in circles with names and events repeating is both beautiful and boring. Look at names for example. There are twenty-two Aurlianos in it, four Arcadeos and three Remodeos. There is an Ursula, an Amranta and an Amranta Ursula.
The actual narration is fast enough to justice to the title – and you could see the events of a hundred years packed in those four hundred pages. If the author was to slow down and try to write in traditional style - in dialogues or scenes, the book would have filled several volumes. I think it best to read it in short spells - like episodes of a television or It may start to be confusing. The narration keeps shifting from one character to other and is able to do them and many others justice (with the exception of 17 of illegitimate Aurianos) as far as possible. The theme – of everything existing at the same time and so on, of repetition of events, makes the reading a bit tiring.
Before making up your mind to read the book, read the first chapter and continue only if you like it. It is not as if it would get better later - it is not so much about a story but about writing style. If you were to like it, you would like the beginning the best.
It is one of the first novels that made use of magical realism. From the very beginning, the novel is full of magical realism and it is taken as if it is no big deal.
To take an example, there is this girl Remodias the beauty – the most beautiful one and the miracle of purity, who has a mind so simple that you would believe she belongs to heavens. Guess what! One of those days she flies to heaven. You know, figuratively.
It is just one of several examples of magical realism that dominates the story and is passed as if it wasn't something extraordinary. It is like that in the above example Remodios' mother would be telling their neighbors, "You know what! last day our remo flew away with laundry" and the neighbor would react, "Oh, well! I know a new shop in the market where you can find the new clothes."
The book is full of similar remarkable characters, chasing after their destinies –the ghost of people who died and those of people who refuse to die are present too; saying weird things like:
Besides time, another theme that keeps recurring is solitude – almost all characters end up finding themselves in solitude – to the extremist levels.
The whole city is no better, cut off from the world and its developments; so much that this is how a woman told her first ever sight of train:
One of the effects of this solitude is that characters continue to lose themselves in the world of books and stories or, well,start making goldfishes.
Another effect is incest – a sub-theme which kept recurring from first chapter till the last one.
It takes very brave effort at thinking to see the genius of the book – don't read it casually or you will only waste your time and end up hating it.
“How are you, Colonel?" he asked in passing. "Right here," he answered. "Waiting for my funeral procession to pass .....”
“The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point”
“He really had been through death, but he had returned because he could not bear the solitude.”
You know what is common between "One hundred years of solitude', Pride and Prejudice' and 'Twilight'?
.
.
.
You either love them or make fun of them. This one fell in the first category for me.
The things that make this book so special to some are also the things that make it boring top others. The theme of time moving in circles with names and events repeating is both beautiful and boring. Look at names for example. There are twenty-two Aurlianos in it, four Arcadeos and three Remodeos. There is an Ursula, an Amranta and an Amranta Ursula.
The actual narration is fast enough to justice to the title – and you could see the events of a hundred years packed in those four hundred pages. If the author was to slow down and try to write in traditional style - in dialogues or scenes, the book would have filled several volumes. I think it best to read it in short spells - like episodes of a television or It may start to be confusing. The narration keeps shifting from one character to other and is able to do them and many others justice (with the exception of 17 of illegitimate Aurianos) as far as possible. The theme – of everything existing at the same time and so on, of repetition of events, makes the reading a bit tiring.
Before making up your mind to read the book, read the first chapter and continue only if you like it. It is not as if it would get better later - it is not so much about a story but about writing style. If you were to like it, you would like the beginning the best.
It is one of the first novels that made use of magical realism. From the very beginning, the novel is full of magical realism and it is taken as if it is no big deal.
To take an example, there is this girl Remodias the beauty – the most beautiful one and the miracle of purity, who has a mind so simple that you would believe she belongs to heavens. Guess what! One of those days she flies to heaven. You know, figuratively.
It is just one of several examples of magical realism that dominates the story and is passed as if it wasn't something extraordinary. It is like that in the above example Remodios' mother would be telling their neighbors, "You know what! last day our remo flew away with laundry" and the neighbor would react, "Oh, well! I know a new shop in the market where you can find the new clothes."
The book is full of similar remarkable characters, chasing after their destinies –the ghost of people who died and those of people who refuse to die are present too; saying weird things like:
"The best friend a person has is one who has just died."
"We won't call her Ursula because a person suffers too much· with that name."
“A person doesn't die when he should but when he can."
Besides time, another theme that keeps recurring is solitude – almost all characters end up finding themselves in solitude – to the extremist levels.
The whole city is no better, cut off from the world and its developments; so much that this is how a woman told her first ever sight of train:
“It’s coming,” she finally explained. “Something frightful, like a kitchen dragging a village behind it."
One of the effects of this solitude is that characters continue to lose themselves in the world of books and stories or, well,start making goldfishes.
Another effect is incest – a sub-theme which kept recurring from first chapter till the last one.
It takes very brave effort at thinking to see the genius of the book – don't read it casually or you will only waste your time and end up hating it.
shelbymarie516's review against another edition
3.0
Listened after seeing Gabriel Garcia Marquez art on display at The Frist a few weeks ago.
fwykle99's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
abhaykrishnanr's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
kari_f's review against another edition
I was very much looking forward this book, as the author is considered to be one of the great forerunners of magical realism, which is one of my favorite genres to read. The magical realism parts of the book were excellent, and I appreciated the writing style. It’s clear the author knows how to write beautifully, and the magical realism elements were chaotic and brilliant. Alchemy and contagious insomnia and arising from the dead… I was living for all of these elements!
But.
I could not get over the trash men in this book, who all seem to have the same name and the same misogynistic viewpoints. I wasn’t digging the incest, the child prostitution, the child marriage trafficking, the literal big dick energy that meant an arrogant man could do whatever he wanted with no consequences, and the stereotypical simpering females fawning over him because of his physical endowments.
I typically give a book 100 pages before I decide not to finish it, and it’s rare I decide not to finish. But this book induced one hundred pages of anger and disgust, and we were only a few years into the solitude.
I’m a bit devastated about this, because I really did love his writing style. I wish we’d gotten more insight into Ursula, because she’s the character I truly cared about while reading this book.
taylorjayne's review against another edition
No absolutely not. I cannot read about literal children who's bodies are sold and who are married when they literally don't know how to clean themselves. Where's the brain bleach? DNF'd
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Infidelity, and Pedophilia