One Hundred Years of Solitude in 101 Books to Read Before You Die

Apr 29, 2008 Kressel Housman rated it it was ok

Shelves: world-culture, classics, fiction, fantasy

I love it when my Goodreads groups overlap thematically, so I was pleased when 101 Books chose this book for May just after I’d finished The Last Days of the Incas with the History group. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is from Colombia, not Peru, but I figured that even if the book would be set centuries after Spanish colonization, I’d still learn about its effects. But as it turns out, the book has no time setting at all. It really wasn’t much of a follow-up.

I knew the term “magical realism” before I love it when my Goodreads groups overlap thematically, so I was pleased when 101 Books chose this book for May just after I’d finished The Last Days of the Incas with the History group. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is from Colombia, not Peru, but I figured that even if the book would be set centuries after Spanish colonization, I’d still learn about its effects. But as it turns out, the book has no time setting at all. It really wasn’t much of a follow-up.

I knew the term “magical realism” before going into this book, but I’d never read any of the genre before, so I didn’t know exactly what to expect. The first fifty or so pages seemed realistic enough. There were some jumps back and forth in time, and the father of the family had an interest in alchemy and gypsy lore, but it wasn’t until the first ghost appeared that I thought, “Huh?” and then “Ohhh.” After that, the magical elements started coming fast and furious. And then, just as suddenly, they stopped again.

Another Goodreads reviewer posted Picasso’s “Guernica” and another painting by Salvador Dali for his review with the words, “Very nice, but what does it mean?” That pretty much sums it up for me. Magical realism is a lot like a Dali painting. By themselves, the elements in the painting are not abstract and are recognizable, but as a whole, it’s surreal.

I was open to the novelty of it for the first half or so, but the final hundred pages were a torturous bore. Most of the characters are too cold-hearted to sympathize with. Sometimes, their motivations and actions are as bizarre as any of the supernatural elements. The character Fernanda got to go on a recognizably human rant, but that was only part of the second half that really held my attention. The rest was just a blur, probably because all the male characters at that point are named Aureliano.

This might be one of those books that is best read with a teacher to help interpret it. I sure don’t know what it means. And though I understand it’s a classic and that the author won the Nobel Prize, I can’t give it more than a 2. I liked the beginning, but there’s only so much Dadaism I can take.
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Jul 01, 2016 Alana rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: boxall-s-1001-books, classics, foreign-culture, historical-fiction, magic-realism

I listened to this on audio over the weekend, and I liked it, but I didn't. I wanted to give it four stars for writing quality, but because there is no way I would force myself through this story again, I have to give it a three, maybe 3.5.

Early on, I decided he was taking a similar vein to a lot of other Latin American authors (or maybe he started the vein, since he was one of the earlier ones) in kind of blending a Western sense of linear time with an Eastern storytelling style of making ever ...more

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Jan 09, 2009 Irene rated it liked it

This classic novel, which brought its author literary fame and eventually a Nobel Prize in Literature, is often credited with launching the literary form of “magical realism”. The seven generations of the family at the heart of this book serve as a loose allegory of Columbia. The City of Mirrors founded by the family patriarch is also a city of mirages. Reality is a function of perception. The past haunts the present in a deterministic fashion. In the final lines we are told that the entire hist ...more

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Nov 25, 2012 Claudio rated it it was ok

Boring

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Jan 29, 2015 Ankit Singh rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: list

Amazing. The solitude that lingered through six generations. And the ending could not have been better. Loved it, but a little gloomy, so if you are a happy go lucky person, or not that sentimental or introvertish, you might find this boring. But I would say you find that out for yourself. Definitely worth reading.

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