Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Back to the Classics Challenge: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. “ This from One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most famous opening lines in literature. I mean, how can you not want to read on?

I opted to read this book for the category “Classic from the Americas or Caribbean” for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2019 hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate.  As an American, I really felt I needed to NOT read a U.S. author in this case and I had a copy of this one already, so it fit the bill.  Another reason I picked  this classic over any other North American, South American or Caribbean classic is because it is just so damn famous. I do read for pleasure of course. But I also read for enlightenment and out of curiosity which means I sometimes read books that I appreciate more than I adore and this was one of those.  I'm glad to have read it; I feel like the experience makes me a better reader over all, but I can't say I'll be seeking out more from any Garcia Marquez soon. Lo siento Gabriel.


So what is the book about? It is about the Buendia family that establishes the village of Macondo in the jungle of Columbia at some point prior to independence from Spain. The patriarch, José Arcadio Buendia, is looking for a paradise near the ocean but ends up settling near a swamp instead. If I understood the book correctly, José Arcadio is a descendant of the indigenous inhabitants of Columbia whereas his wife, Ursula, descends from Spanish colonialists. Their families have, however, been intermarrying for generations and the two are actually cousins.  Macando remains isolated for many years with little outside contact except from traveling gypsies. José Arcadio and Ursula have two sons: the eldest named for his father and  the younger named Aureliano and a daughter, Amaranta.  

The names Arcadio  and Aureliano will repeat through seven generations of the family as Macando becomes a town and then a city with contact via railway to the rest of the country and eventually the establishment of an American owned and operation banana plantation nearby. Some Buendias do leave Macando for other places, but they almost always come back until the last generation dies out and with it the town. The family is somehow, without realizing it,  trapped in this place where history seems to repeat every generation and the house originally built by José Arcadio Senior is built up and allowed to fall in to ruin over and over again. The theme of incest, starting with the two cousins marrying, also is repeated throughout the book.  And of course, there is the magic realism where people float up to heaven, live for 150 years or are born with pig tails and no character in the book is startled by it. As a reader, one isn't really startled either because the narration has the same tone through out. 

I know I am not doing the book justice here. And frankly there are hundreds of better sources than I to expound upon what the book "really means" and the use of magic realism in the text. I think the more familiar one is with Colombian and Central American history, the more one will get out of the book. I think I got some of it, like the cyclical trajectory of successes and failures of the Buendia family work as an allegory of the imposition of Spanish colonialism and subsequent American imperialism in Central America. However, for me personally, I suspect I need to have a better grasp on the historical background to best appreciate this kind of book and I just don't know enough in this case.   

13 comments:

  1. I tried this many years ago, soon after publication when it was getting so many rave reviews. I abandoned it for several reasons. I've liked a few magical realism books, but they have been lighter. One Hundred Years was simply too much for me in a number of ways. I admire your persistence, Ruthiella!

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    1. Thanks for the comment jenclair! It was a challenging book but I had to tackle it. I needed to know firsthand what the raves were about and if I agreed! :D

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  2. Hi Ruthiella, I really enjoyed your review and though I have never read One Hundred Years of Solitude my worries are about the magical realism aspects of the book. I sense that One Hundred Years of Solitude is a somewhat indecipherable book, similar to The Sound and the Fury and Ulysees but I could be wrong. I like what you say too about books we read for enjoyment and then the books we read for enlightenment. Sometimes we get lucky and a book fulfills both categories.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Kathy! I've not read The Sound and the Fury but I have read Ulysses. One Hundred Years of Solitude isn't indecipherable in that way, in my opinion. The surface story of the Buendias is easy to follow, although strange things happen. I guess the biggest challenge is the use of the same name throughout for different members of the family.

      You are so right that it is fantastic when a book is challenging, enlightening and enjoyable! And that does happen for sure. :D

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  3. I'm definitely with you on this: I admired it more than I adored it. It has that great opening sentence, but it did feel a bit too much one thing after another.

    I haven't read it, but I did see somewhere that those of us who didn't much care for One Hundred Years of Solitude might yet like Love In A Time Of Cholera, so I might give that a try sometime.

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    1. Thanks for the comment reese! Yes, I read the reviews from a few other bloggers who read this same title for the challenge who indicated that some of his other titles are very different. So perhaps I shouldn't write the author off so soon.

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  4. Such an accomplishment, though! The Buendías and Macondo will stay will you forever.

    I agree. All his short titles, ALL, are truly poignant and much easier to finish and get a whole picture of the type of people, and the type of culture and sense of place he's painting for us. Cronica de una muerte anunciada, or El coronel no tiene quien le escriba, (“Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, and “No One Writes to the Colonel”), are very tight and well crafted. And they are really short. Maybe the fact that these two short ones don't have magic realism makes them more straightforward for all of us.

    At the same time, I also don't adore it that much, it's also a relief to leave the place, it surely overwhelms. However, LOL, I'm going to be rereading it soon to see what I get from a second time. (I'm curious to see if the book gains or loses, we'll see, I'll report back to you!)

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    1. Thank you for the comment Silvia! I look forward to reading what you have to say when you re-read. I think you are right that the book overwhelms the reader and this must be intentional...all the repetition. So MAYBE I know more about Colombian culture and history now in as sensory way as a result of having read the book. Like I stated before, it was a challenge but I do not regret having read it at all. It was an experience! :D

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  5. I've always wondered about this one, but not enough to actually give it a go. Kudos to you for finishing another Back to the Classics category! :)

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    1. Thanks for the comment Lark! I'm happy to be able to tick this one off my list for the Back to the Classics Challenge. :D It was a win/win.

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  6. I've been meaning to reread this book, but now I'm not so sure I would be as swept away by it as I was as a young adult. Thanks for a good review--the books that leave you with mixed feelings are always the most challenging to write, I find.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Jane! It as a little hard to write, since I didn't particularly love the experience but still felt it was worth my while to read it. If you do re-read you might be swept away again!

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  7. Well, you got so much more out of this than I did the first time I read it; good for you! I was so lost and did not know what to say, except that it reminded me of a Frida Kahlo painting. LOL!

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