Search - One Hundred Years of Solitude

If read slowly and with great attention, this will be one of the best books you've ever read. If you are in the mood for a fast and fun book, put this one down and choose something else. This book will not be enjoyed if read one or two pages here, one or two pages there. It requires time and dedication, but the pay-off is great. When things get slow in the middle, find encouragement that the last 50 pages are worth the wait.

Very different, interesting...though a difficult read. I was glad they had a family tree in the front since most of the men in the book shared the same names. Fantasy-type story of a family in Mexico, with characters that live over 150 years, live tied to trees, and survive firing squads. Not the book if you're looking for an easy, quick read.

This book was interesting. Garcia Marquez has a very distinctive voice and I liked the allusions to Latin American literature, the magical realism and how Garcia Marquez so eloquently puts the meaning of life into his novel. That being said, it was also a little long winded, despite the course of the novel being over 150 years and his naming system was very confusing. I realize his point that the family was running in continuous cycles that they couldn't break out of, but I had a really hard time keeping the men straight and when I have to refer to a chart it ruins the magic for me. However if you are looking for a book that you can chew over and can provide interesting points, not a beach read, but a piece of art, than 100 Years of Solitude is an amazing book.

Steeped in magical realism, the saga of the family Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguarian is woven with village life through the mythical town of Macondo which they founded in a swampy, isolated area. Garcia Marquez eloquently defines the meaning of life interweaving it with cultural beliefs and everyday family life. The author's writing style is based on the way his grandmother told stories during his childhood. One of the most memorable characters is Colonel Aureliano Buendia whose zest for war culminates always in battle defeats yet he is highly respected by his men and peers. Time and time again he avoids death, living a full life and fathering 17 sons named Aureliano. Ursula, Jose's wife, lives a long life though she loses her sight managing to conceal this fact from family members. She warns of babies born with a pig's tale when family members fall in love with other family members. A man named Melquiades appears again and again to family members stimulating experiments and scientific exploration which is sometimes based on fact and sometimes not and summarize the family story. As the years pass the isolation of the town diminishes and family members travel and become acquainted with the progress of the world around them. It's a most interesting read.

Originally published in the 1960′s in the Spanish language with the title Cien Anos del Soledad, Marquez recounts the rise and fall of the mythic town of Macondo, and with it, the line of Buendia family. The story follows Jose Arcadio Buendia, the patriarch of the Buendia clan and his wife into the swamps to build a town and a family, and their struggle to keep the town going while avoiding the tendency of their family’s children to be born with pig’s tails. Periodic visits by bands of gypsys early in the story incite creativity and madness in the town’s forefather. The madness continues to consume the family one by one, and we follow all the different tastes of solitude that plague the Buendias, down to the last Aureliano, who becomes the first -and last- to decipher the parchments of the immortal gypsy Melquiades.

Early on in the story, it becomes clear that the fabric of the story is of the whimsical sort. However, Marquez tells the wild tale in a completely natural voice, as though the book merely told the story of why the sky is blue. Initially this style of writing threw me for a bit of a loop, but once I got used to it, I came to see that the writing style absolutely makes this story.

The unfortunate point of the book is the family’s penchant for recycling names. At first I wondered why Jose Arcadio Buendia was always called by his full name, but as the story wore on I discovered that it was to keep the reader from going insane trying to track all the Jose Arcadios and Aurelianos (of which there end up being roughly 20)! Even with the trick of using different combinations of first, middle and last names and nicknames, I still found myself wondering which who was what at times. All this aside, I found the book a very interesting and amusing read. I’ve seen this book listed as one of the “1001 books to read before you die” and I’d have to say I agree with that judgement.

While the book was interesting to read, it was very confusing due to a lot of the characters having similar names and too many being talked about at the same time. I wish that I had read this as part of a class, I think that I would've gotten a lot more out of it! I guess reading along with Cliffnotes or something would be helpful just to keep everything straight.