Robert M. (shotokanchef) reviewed on + 813 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
His second novel (1967) is one of myth and fantasy combined. It is the tale of a family and of a town from its founding, through revolution, violence, exploitation, and demise. About half way through its 450 plus pages I got bogged down and confused with the multitude of characters with the same, or similar, names (See note). Anyone attempting to absorb this novel should keep a copy of the genealogy chart handy. It is a tale that is steeped (minus the graphic details) with corruption, exploitation, greed (including a strong thread of alchemy), lust, adultery, fornication, incest, polygamy, rape, suicide, and murder. Or, as the announcer states in the opening lines of Chicago, All those things we all hold near and dear to our hearts. All this surrounded by a hint of devout Catholicism. In fact, one critic has postulated that it is a sequel to the Book of Genesis. The author, however, outdoes the bible. His great flood, that all but decimates the town, lasts for four years, eleven months, and two days, which is followed by ten years without rain. He also rivals Faulkner in the use of stream of consciousness and seemingly endless sentences and multipage paragraphs.
If you can muddle through all of the squalor, inbreeding, promiscuousness, executions, and massacres in this fetid jungle town, this is a book for you. Myself, while I can accept some proportion of the foregoing under the purview of fantasy (e.g., the portions concerning the gypsies), he carries it to the absurd. The book, however, must give birth to a multitude of allegories (real or imagined) upon which countless dissertations may be based. Thank goodness it finally ended!
Note: Five are named Jose Arcadio, or Arcadio; five are named Aureliano plus 17 other Aurelianos who do not figure significantly in the story; two are named Remedios; two are Amaranta, and two are Ursula.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.
If you can muddle through all of the squalor, inbreeding, promiscuousness, executions, and massacres in this fetid jungle town, this is a book for you. Myself, while I can accept some proportion of the foregoing under the purview of fantasy (e.g., the portions concerning the gypsies), he carries it to the absurd. The book, however, must give birth to a multitude of allegories (real or imagined) upon which countless dissertations may be based. Thank goodness it finally ended!
Note: Five are named Jose Arcadio, or Arcadio; five are named Aureliano plus 17 other Aurelianos who do not figure significantly in the story; two are named Remedios; two are Amaranta, and two are Ursula.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.
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