focoproject.com

• Author: Miguel García Márquez
• Category: Fiction - Magical Realism/Drama

Not the first time I read the book, to be honest. My dad had actually recommended it to me back in High School and I had indeed picked it up and read it cover to cover, mostly during one long swim meet weekend, between heats. However, reading it now, almost fifteen years later, I wonder if I really read it the first time, or if I really knew what exactly it was that I was reading. Though certain concepts remained the same, there was a lot here I did not remember and which struck me as brand new. Certainly one can chuck it up to a forgetful memory, a lot of ish does happen in over a decade, but I was still struck by how this book took me by surprise all over again.

As the title implies, this book is about Solitude, one hundred years of it, in fact and all of it centered around the Buendia family, starting with Jose Aureliano Buendia and his wife, Ursula, who are part of the group of people that founded a tiny town named Macondo in the middle of the bog. Largely untouched by the outside world, Macondo develops under it’s own self imposed structure and law and the families grow. However, our point of view is always kept through the eyes of the Buendia’s.

Ironically enough the very concept of Solitude was entirely lost to me as a high school student. Probably because I was still submerged in an environment where the idea had not taken root. Reading it now, the entire story is soaked in it, solitude suffocates every character in a way that even with the humor, the tenderness, the beauty that this story encompasses, it is not enough to get past that melancholy feeling.

The book takes us over a whole century of the Buendia family, with Ursula Buendia being the only character that manages to tie it all together until close to the end. Me meet all the Jose’s and all the Arcadios that are born and are introduced to some very interesting women as well like Remedios, Rebeca and Amaranta, all characters fully fleshed out and quirky in their own way to help make of this story an epic.

I highly recommend this one, though be aware for some magical realism, which I guess is what they call this type of story which is set in a real world but where magical reasons for things are often taken as logical explanations for how things actually happen. It is a touch of spice that takes this story to a whole other level of enjoyment.

Rating: 5 out of 5
Notes: There is some adult content here, so be aware that there will be language infused here along with some ideas that are not exactly puritanical.