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A review by sophphh
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
5.0
Where do I start trying to describe a book like this? Well, on its most basic level it's about a family whose patriarch - Jose Arcadio Buendia - founds a village that's far from civilisation. We follow one hundred years in the life of the town and seven generations of Jose Arcadio's family, as they experience almost everything it's possible for human beings to experience, as well as quite a few things that are completely impossible.
Over the years the village will grow into a prosperous town and the Buendia family will be right in the thick of things. They fall in love inappropriately, march off to war, have huge numbers of children, leave and return, and live their lives in glorious technicolour. The mainstay of the book for me was Ursula, Jose Arcadio's wife, who lives to such a great age that she's present throughout most of the novel. She keeps the house going - the house is almost a character in itself - she sees right into the hearts of all the members of her family, and she acts as the family's, and even the town's, memory.
From the very first page I was spellbound by this novel, like a little child peeking into Fairyland. It's incredibly strange, but it thrums with life like no other book I've read, and after reading it I feel like I've had an important experience. I could tell while reading it that there was a lot more going on than I was immediately able to grasp. Not being familar with Columbian history, it wasn't until after I'd finished the book and did a little delving into Wikipedia that I discovered the whole novel is a metaphor for that country's chequered past, and many of the book's plot points represent actual events in Columbia's history. It's very cleverly done, and discovering more about the novel's huge depth and complexity only made me love it more.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is not always an easy read. For a start, names are repeated over and over, as each generation of the family is named for the one before. All in all, there are five Arcadios, two Amarantas, three Remedios and twenty-two Aurelianos, so expect to be making use of the family tree that's helpfully included at the start of the book. But the repetition of names is all part of the book's message that history repeats itself and nothing in the world is ever entirely new, just a development of what's gone before. This a very vibrant novel, and you can't afford to skim a single sentence for fear of missing something important. For once, I was happy not to gallop along to the end, although I did find six hours could just disappear without me even noticing, so immersed I was in this fantastic tale.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is my new favourite book ever, and this faltering review doesn't even begin to do it justice. If you've never read it before, please rush out and get a copy - it thoroughly deserves its place as one of the finest novels ever written.
Over the years the village will grow into a prosperous town and the Buendia family will be right in the thick of things. They fall in love inappropriately, march off to war, have huge numbers of children, leave and return, and live their lives in glorious technicolour. The mainstay of the book for me was Ursula, Jose Arcadio's wife, who lives to such a great age that she's present throughout most of the novel. She keeps the house going - the house is almost a character in itself - she sees right into the hearts of all the members of her family, and she acts as the family's, and even the town's, memory.
From the very first page I was spellbound by this novel, like a little child peeking into Fairyland. It's incredibly strange, but it thrums with life like no other book I've read, and after reading it I feel like I've had an important experience. I could tell while reading it that there was a lot more going on than I was immediately able to grasp. Not being familar with Columbian history, it wasn't until after I'd finished the book and did a little delving into Wikipedia that I discovered the whole novel is a metaphor for that country's chequered past, and many of the book's plot points represent actual events in Columbia's history. It's very cleverly done, and discovering more about the novel's huge depth and complexity only made me love it more.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is not always an easy read. For a start, names are repeated over and over, as each generation of the family is named for the one before. All in all, there are five Arcadios, two Amarantas, three Remedios and twenty-two Aurelianos, so expect to be making use of the family tree that's helpfully included at the start of the book. But the repetition of names is all part of the book's message that history repeats itself and nothing in the world is ever entirely new, just a development of what's gone before. This a very vibrant novel, and you can't afford to skim a single sentence for fear of missing something important. For once, I was happy not to gallop along to the end, although I did find six hours could just disappear without me even noticing, so immersed I was in this fantastic tale.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is my new favourite book ever, and this faltering review doesn't even begin to do it justice. If you've never read it before, please rush out and get a copy - it thoroughly deserves its place as one of the finest novels ever written.