Like it or lump it, this modern classic is considered essential reading for any lover of language. And, unlike some of those highbrow classics out there, it doesn't take 100 years and as many migraines to read (take a bow, James Joyce).
After reading Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, I felt like Magical Realism was going right over my head. I considered never bothering with it again. But then, like an idiot, I thought I’d throw myself back in the magical realm with Gabriel García Márquez’s 100 Years of Solitude.
Let’s just say I’m glad I’m an idiot.
After a few chapters in, you recognise that Marquez writes in an almost dreamlike flow. I read the translated English version and the prose is like watching an oil painting being brought to life in front of your eyes. It reads like a song. His similes are never conventional or cliché still feel completely connected to the subject every time. He never misses the target. He leans on nature as a comparative tool, making even the darkest scenes in the book still beautiful to read. This keeps his style fresh, alive and innovative. I can only imagine how it reads in his native tongue.
I also found something I want to steal from him. His ability to use an adjective about the previous subject, even though the sentence in which the adjective is being used has nothing to do with the previous topic. My explanation was terrible, let me just give you an example.
“In an instant he discovered the scratches, welts, bruises, ulcers and scars that more than half a century of daily life had left on her, and found that these ravages did not arouse in him even a feeling of pity. He then made a last effort to search his heart for the place where his affections had rotted, and he could not find it."
The word "rotted" is the perfect word to use as a follow-on from the topic of living for over a half century and the effects of damage to a person's body. Though the word "rotted" is not a direct remark to the previous statement, it still feels connected.
It makes the prose flow from one subject to the next so subtly that it took me about a hundred pages to have a “wait a minute, he's doing a thing!” moment. It has blown my mind. I'm taking it.
I mentioned his style as innovative, which might be a weird word to use for a book set in the early 1800s to mid-1900s, so this would be a good place to split style from story.
The book follows the Buendía family over multiple generations where the patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, forms the fictitious town of Macondo. It takes us through each generation’s existence in the town, facing both internal and external challenges. I’ll keep the outline very brief because there are a million summaries of this book out there if that's what you're looking for instead.
I didn’t feel as though there was a traditional protagonist in this book. Through each family generation, there was a main character, but once that character died, left Macondo, or just faded into the background, another more prominent character would take their place. The biggest constant was Ursula, the matriarch of the family, because she lived for a very long time. However, there were large sections of the book where she did not play a major role. This gave me the feeling that the protagonist was something else, something less human and more conceptual - Time? Macondo? The idea of the family unit?
Nevertheless, it was remarkable how so many prominent characters could comfortably exist in one book and with such colourful personalities. Each character stood out in its own right, earning space in the mind of the reader to ensure they would not be forgotten. I never felt crowded or overwhelmed by names and their roles. Marquez even made space for crucial characters outside the immediate family (some of my favourite characters), such as the magical Melquiades, the prostitute Pilar Ternera, and Italian musician Pietro Crespi.
I will admit that about two-thirds into the book, I found myself struggling to concentrate on where the story was at and where it was heading. I don’t know if this was because it takes a little more effort to follow a multi-generational saga with so many leading characters rather than one singular protagonist throughout the book, or maybe there was a point where the story threads were getting a little loose, and I needed to reign them in. But, by the final 70 pages or so, Marquez had me back where he wanted me, rooting for the family to finally succeed, but kinda knowing they wouldn’t.
I do wonder if I missed a message this book was trying to send to me. I often think of these things with the “classics”. Does it have a moral meaning? A biblical overtone? A fable attached? But then I wonder if this is just me putting pressure on myself to find something "profound" that isn't there and that I should instead just enjoy the book on the level at which I enjoy it and not try to dissect every little element. Meh, go figure.
All in all, it is stunningly written (and translated) work of art about a kinda shitty family. But for some reason, I didn't want them to fail.
Bravo, Marquez. Bravo. I still have to read Love in the Time of Cholera, which sounds like a laugh, so might give that a go next.
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