“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…”

Whoa, whoa, whoa, I’m not going to reinvent the wheel here by oohing and aahing at one of the best opening lines in history that has probably racked up tons of threads online dissecting its greatness already.

But if this line alone has not hooked you yet, how about this introductory infographic, as beautifully crafted as the book itself?

And if even this mind-blowingly marvelous video hasn’t helped you make up your mind, then by all means delve into what I have to say about the magnum opus of Gariel Marcía Márquez.

Book Blog #7: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gariel Marcía Márquez

A Spoiler-free Synopsis:

The novel spans seven generations of the Buendía family over 100 years, starting with the inbred couple José Arcadia Buendía and Úrsula Iguarán with their founding of the Columbian village Macondo. As we follow the lives of the Buendías, new events unfold: the rambunctious arrival of the gypsies, the insomnia plague (yes, there’s such a thing), civil wars, the new railway that brings both modern innovations and catastrophes to Macondo, the banana company, and so on. Though time passes and characters pass away, the new Buendías seemingly repeats the same habits and mistakes of the past, again and again in a full circle.

Personal opinion:

First and foremost, I won’t pretend that I understand everything, perhaps not even most of the novel. As an intricate tapestry of Latin American history, it is the type of book that is imbued with rich and subtle details and I know it will always guarantee some new findings for anyone on a reread – in both individual scenes as well as the overarching message. Though I’ve just read it once, I still want to give you my most comprehensive impression as follows:

To begin with… Magical realism! Magical realism! Magical realism! Important things must be said three times, or so goes a Vietnamese proverb. Here, fantastical happenings are treated like any mundane events, whereas mundane happenings are treated like fantastical events. For those like me who thought magic falls into the territory of Fantasy alone, well, we’re so wrong, boys. If I’m being honest here, this book feels more dazzlingly magical than most of the fantasy books I’ve read (I’m looking at you, The Well of Ascension). This genre, mingled with the vibrant, evocative details of Columbian culture, is a much welcome fresh air for me. By contrast, calamitous events, such as characters’ death, massacres, and ending of civil wars, is often portrayed in the most unceremonious ways to further ironically heightened the brutally common violence that Latin American people faced.

The book is also great for poignant morals that don’t sound moralistic at all. That’s one of its best features: Marquez religiously stuck to the “show don’t tell” rule, which admittedly creates rather much confusion at times, but helps readers think more critically about the meaning behind the lives of different Buendía. Notably, in dialogue, Marquez almost never adds adverbs to the word “said,” which would have been deemed lazy by many. Personally, I love when literature is open for interpretation, and even now there are still Reddit threads or academic papers trying to dissect the meaning of the story.

That being said, this book is rather dense for me and it’s probably the same for the average reader as well. The paragraphs are unpleasantly long, with many spanning more than a page whole. Plus, as a non-native speaker, I had to constantly look up words to picture the countless native plants and animals that popped up in the story: the flower geranium, the humongous lizard iguana, the banana dish plátano, etc. Of course, I had the option to simply gloss over words I don’t know, but that would be a crime to a Nobel-prize winning book (or any book, really), if we don’t at least try to live in the Colombian Caribbean atmosphere that Gabriel painstakingly painted for us. Additionally, some background knowledge, particularly in religion, is needed to get the full depth of many scenes. That being said, it is unequivocally true that this particular attention to details makes Gariel Marcía Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude a Latin American literature landmark.

To be sure, One Hundred Years of Solitude is certainly a rewarding read, albeit a difficult one. But if it still doesn’t sound like the book you want to read, then don’t try it. Cease, people, life is short.