One Hundred Years of Solitude

The story of seven generations of the Buendia family and of Macondo, the town they built. Though at first little more than a village in the shadow of a jungle and mountain, Macondo tastes in time bitter war and disaster, wonder and great miracle. But the deep secrets of this place and people were foreseen and written down long ago, and soon only Aureliano Buendia can begin to fathom its mystery.

Written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Colombian author and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, One Hundred Years of Solitude is set in the fictional village of Macondo. Inspired by Marquez's birthplace Aracataca, a village just south of Santa Marta with a river flowing through, there was even a referendum in 2006 to change the name of Aracataca to Macondo but it ultimately failed.

I don't think I went into this book with the correct mindset, I wasn't prepared to learn the new laws of the book's world. One Hundred Years of Solitude is described as an important piece in the magic realism movement, whereby the unbelievable is treated as normal and expected. My lack of mental preparation meant I constantly felt like I was on the back foot, I didn’t feel that I could acknowledge the qualities in what I was reading because I was just trying to keep up. Each chapter seemed to move quickly between characters and points in time so it took longer than normal to make my way through each page. It’s not the sort of book you can just pick up and read for ten minutes while there’s stuff going on in the background, I ended up spending over an hour each night trying to get through as much as I could. There wasn't necessarily a story to follow, at least not one that resembled anything linear, instead it expanded in all directions.

Having said that, there were parts where I did get into the rhythm of the book, and at those points it became fun to read, I enjoyed pushing my brain and making an effort. Anytime there was a focus on Ursula, the matriarch, I was riveted, she felt like a sort of guide through the book, inferring things about the family that I hadn’t quite figured out yet. She acknowledges the inherited traits of the men in the family, and how their parents and even names affect the lives they lead. The Aurelianos are ''withdrawn, but with lucid minds'' and the Arcadios are "impulsive and enterprising", this observation leads Ursula to realise that the fourth generation twins - Jose Arcadio Segundo and Aureliano Segundo - had at some point during childhood switched names.

Many of the characters believe that their fates are predetermined, they can tell when their death is near, some laying down to rest when they are ready to die. And in some ways they are, when Aureliano Babilonia is finally able to translate Melquiades' Sanskrit ramblings he reads the exact events of Macondo and the Buendia family, as far as predicting the point at which he is reading and the ensuing destruction of Macondo. This idea links back to what I just discussed regarding the way history repeats itself within the book, "children inherit their parents' madness". Each character seemed to have so much potential as a child, but failed to do anything good. The men abused power, were corrupt and even started wars all with a lack of familial responsibility. The women on the other hand were practical, they sustained life in Macondo, they built and rebuilt their home, kept the scorpions and the ants away. But they still suffered tragic ends, the outcomes of the final two women Meme and Amaranta Ursula especially disappointed me. Growing up as modern women, Amaranta Ursula travelling and studying in Europe, and Meme learning other languages and making friends with other communities. They still fell victim to the actions of their fathers and their brothers, taken advantage of by greed and sexual desire. The only character who I felt had a just end was Remedios the Beauty, so mesmerising and intimidating but someone not suited to the world she was in, "her nature rejected all manner of convention". She eventually "ascended to heaven in body and soul" and by heaven I hope that means a place that deserves her.

I’ll admit that I’m not sure I got what I wanted out of this book, I wanted to legitimately understand why this is so highly regarded and enjoy it the same way people do but unfortunately I didn’t. Finishing the book I couldn’t escape the feeling that I missed something, like the point went completely over my head. Maybe I lack the reading comprehension required to get it, but part of the aim of this space is to improve that skill. Sitting down to write this has made me realise that I maybe did enjoy it more than I thought.

I think I’ll revisit this book another time, there’s a tv series too that I’ll probably watch.