Magical Realism at its Finest

books:


	• One Hundred Years of Solitude (P.S.) Gabriel Garcia Marquez Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006 - 448 pages average customer review:based on 47 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Crammed full of life

I recall reading, in Harold Bloom's analysis of OHYS, a phrase that sums the book up more solidly than any other of which I can think: "crammed full of life." This is a novel so full of life that it seems to exude from the pages, dripping into your mind and creating a beautiful, complex tale.

Garcia Marquez is a master. I make my allegiances clear and unabashed with that simple sentence; the reader of this review must take into account that I absolutely love Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and I have read almost everything he has written. This is the crowning point of it all; it is the book that made him famous, and for good reason. OHYS is full of vibrant characters and sometimes-fantastic events (such as the plague of insomnia in the beginning, or the invasion and disappearance of the banana company), cycling through generation after generation of the Buenia family and the town of Macondo at large.

There is humour aplenty, moments of drama, moments of sorrow, and scenes that are representative of nigh every human emotion and feeling of which I can think. Some may be turned off the surrealism of the book at certain times; for instance, when a character floats up into the heavens and disappears. These strange events occur in the middle of the story, with almost no incredulous reaction from the other characters, and they are why Garcia Marquez is called a magic realist. Magic Realism isn't peculiar to Garcia Marquez, but he is probably the most well known writer within the loose genre, and contends with Jorge Luis Borges as the best. I recommend, if this style turns you off (if you love it, reading the following is even more necessary!), that you read a few works as sort of primers for it: "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka, and any of the short stories of Borges--THE ALEPH and FICCIONES are the best two compendiums of his stories. Both authors are precursors of the magic realist genre that culminates in Garcia Marquez and his contemporaries, and, though they are actually significantly stranger, are somewhat more believable in the "realistic" sense of the word.

Many have noted or complained about the characters names--this is a fair point. Many characters, over the some hundred and twenty years the book covers, share the same name or very similar names, and, especially for us English speakers, these names can be very difficult to keep track of. You will almost assuredly have to refer back to the family tree from time to time, so it is best to mark this page. I do not think this is a negative, as many families, could we see them in their generations, would have similar circumstances; it is simply a difficulty that requires more attention. Remember: this is a work of literature (and a great one at that), not a romance novel.

Garcia Marquez is, along with Borges and Dostoevsky, tied for second place among my favourite prose authors; only Tolstoy ranks above them (this does not speak to their weakness, only to the latter's power!). OHYS is his best work, and sits alongside CRIME AND PUNISHMENT as my favourite novel besides WAR AND PEACE. Read it, and you will be infinitely rewarded.

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Magical Realism at its Finest

One Hundred Years of Solitude is the novel we compare all attempts at Latin American magical realism to. In this book Marquez perfectly executes the requirements of the genre, making sure that the more unrealistic elements are used purposefully, not just to shock or confuse (although I do understand some readers' initial disgust with several incestuous encounters and with the scene in which red ants are carrying away an infant). Nothing is done randomly is this novel, the characters, events, stories and dialogue tie together to prove the strength of the Buendia family bond.

Just about everyone should be able to find thematic elements to interest them in this dense, lengthy novel. Violence and war, success and defeat, love and loss, friends and enemies, loyalty and betrayal, tradition and innovation and, above all else, the role of the family. Marquez's style allows for humor to coincide with very serious, grave emotions and events.

A novel everyone who considers themselves "a reader" should read.

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To make of a family chronicle compelling drama is a feat of genius many have tried but only a few have managed to make it one's worthwhile to go on about it like this. All of man's folly is swiftly conveyed by a turn of a phrase or a twist of the plot here. Not a word is out of place.

It would seem to me the detractors object as the book offers no character with whom the reader might empathize with, i.e. every character seems to be created within a paragraph and just as easily dispensed with in the next, making the reader wonder "Is human life so cheap that a mere paragraph is enough to encapsulate his life?"

Pity the reader who reads in this fashion. Inventions and creations of an author's fancy oughtn't to warrant such emotional involvement which isn't to say that Amaranta Buendia's plight as a spurned woman isn't as moving as any event I've witnessed or been a party to real life.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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