Did anyone in this forum read this book?One of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world, and the ultimate achievement of a Nobel Prize winning career.
The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.
Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility -- the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth -- these universal themes dominate the novel. Whether he is describing an affair of passion or the voracity of capitalism and the corruption of government, Gabriel Garcia Marquez always writes with the simplicity, ease, and purity that are the mark of a master.
Alternately reverential and comical, One Hundred Years of Solitude weaves the political, personal, and spiritual to bring a new consciousness to storytelling. Translated into dozens of languages, this stunning work is no less than an accounting of the history of the human race.
I looked for a thread for this book but I found none.
This is absolutely my favorite book ever and I doubt I will ever will find a book so beautifully and magically written.
Here's a review in Goodreads:
There have been times when I came across the question - both asked by other people as well as myself - about what would be my favorite book. I always thought it as one obnoxious question because it is so difficult to have only one book as the chosen one among so many wonderful others.
However, when I started reading this book during the weekend, little did I know that was holding in my hands what would be the first book I could say that:
1. It changed my life;
2. Really would become my favorite book;
3. Henceforward books would never be faced the same way again.
I feel that, regardless of how many more books I read, there will be not a single one that has left such a great impression on my avid reader's heart, so that I said to my husband: For the first time in my life I feel sad for finishing a book.
In most cases when I start reaching the book's closure I almost pray that I get there faster in order to move on to another, hopefully more interesting, but with this one, the more I read the sadder I felt because I knew what would eventually happen to the characters, what would eventually happen to Macondo and although this story was publicly known in 1982 for me it was the first time, and, later or sooner, I would have to stop reading.
I'll have to reread once, twice, as many times as necessary to relieve the nostalgia that the book carries and which marks as red-hot iron.
I know I can read many books from now on, but the bittersweet taste of this novel will never leave my memory: the savory taste mixed with bittersweetness of nostalgia that resembles my own childhood memories, the fruity taste of romantic descriptions and the vision of a great family that never would necer seem to wither in the silence of the rainforest.
This is a work with which everyone can identify. To me it made me very reminiscent of my childhood: I grew up in a small village in a very similar way, and in these times, everything seemed more colorful and cheerful, as in Macondo in the first generations.
I know I sound overwhelmed in the way I describe what I have read the book and what made me feel, but I can not turn my back without letting people really understand how special this book truly is. I could leave here an excerpt so readers coul understand this sort of literary illness, but I cannot carve a part of the work because the masterpiece only works in all its entirety, and only then it can be embraced.
Syntax-wise I just have to say that, as in the plot all characters maintain very close blood ties (incest, generations that last many years) and since they name their descendents after their ascendents, it is sometimes easy to feel confused and forget who is who.
My favorite character was without a doubt, Ursula Buendia: her strong, resilient, stubborn, charitable and caring personality defined the course of many actions in the novel, although sometimes seemed to have a secondary role. She kept the family together and, in a way, gave everyone a seamless way that forced all family members to follow her coordinates as dancers.
The writing is brilliant, impeccable and if I could, wished only that Marquez could hear my deep appreciation for creating a work that changed the way I look at the world.