One Hundred Years of Solitude
Ratings607
Average rating4.1
Favourite book of all time. A masterpiece of magical proportions.
I'm giving the book three stars because the writing is beautiful, and that's the only reason I could finish reading it. In terms of the plot, it's just not my cup of tea. I found it very dull and I was losing interest every 5 minutes. Truly a struggle to read. I can see why others would like it. But I place the novel up there with The Great Gatsby: beautifully written, but no substantial plot that could hold my interest. I was just bored the entire time.
So, whether you enjoy this book will come down to if you like the writing and if the plot is interesting to you. I only enjoyed the writing, but I wanted to read the novel before Netflix makes it a film. But now I'm even debating if the film would interest me since the writing is taken away.
Either way, I think everyone should at least try reading it since it is a classic and the writing is worth reading, at least for a few chapters.
The analogies the author makes are somewhat strange when you first read them, but totally spot on.
This book is so strange and unique, but at the same time it was such a drag to read... like honestly, what did I just read lol.
The fact that almost everyone had the same name added to the strangeness of the story, but at the same time, I had to stop multiple times in the book to look back at the family tree and remind myself which Aureliano he was talking about. It was also filled with so much sex, and more than once it happened between family members... which is just gross. It also happened between people with massive age gaps (e.g. old man with teenage girl), which is also gross. And let's not forget about the 17 Aurelianos.
García Márquez's personal style of writing definitely shines through this book, and it's what makes it really interesting to read. The writing is beautiful. But also, why did you have to make each paragraph are so long?! It's not uncommon to find paragraphs that are 2 pages long. Heck, there was an entire sentence that spanned 2 pages!
Overall it was an interesting read, and I probably wouldn't have picked it up if I hadn't found it in the “English books” isle of a bookstore of Mexico City. I've also read 3 García Márquez books in the past month alone, and I think that's enough García Márquez for me lol.
This book is so strange and unique, but at the same time it was such a drag to read... like honestly, what did I just read lol.
The fact that almost everyone had the same name added to the strangeness of the story, but at the same time, I had to stop multiple times in the book to look back at the family tree and remind myself which Aureliano he was talking about. It was also filled with so much sex, and more than once it happened between family members... which is just gross. It also happened between people with massive age gaps (e.g. old man with teenage girl), which is also gross. And let's not forget about the 17 Aurelianos.
García Márquez's personal style of writing definitely shines through this book, and it's what makes it really interesting to read. The writing is beautiful. But also, why did you have to make each paragraph are so long?! It's not uncommon to find paragraphs that are 2 pages long. Heck, there was an entire sentence that spanned 2 pages!
Overall it was an interesting read, and I probably wouldn't have picked it up if I hadn't found it in the “English books” isle of a bookstore of Mexico City. I've also read 3 García Márquez books in the past month alone, and I think that's enough García Márquez for me lol.
Well written, except for writing the the full 3 names of every character every time their mentioned. The book tells the story of a city and its main inhabitants, from the time it was founded. It reads as a diary of the city, mentioning mildly interesting events of everyday life, mixing some fantasy with it, as in impossible events. Examples: everyone in town loosing their memories, flying carpet.
There is no plot or content, so this is a big no for me.
Read 2:23/14:04 17%
I've read this several times, yet somehow never recorded it in Goodreads. Here it is, and it's amazing every time.
“time was not passing...it was turning in a circle...” ― Gabriel García Márquez
It was certainly an experience to read this family saga, but it wasn't easy. Garcia Marquez packs tons of occurrences into one paragraph, so blink and you might miss something. It's not a book for skimmers or for anyone looking for a quick read. It's challenging.
The book goes through multiple generations of characters with the same or similar names: Jose Arcacio, Auraliano, Remedios, etc. Some of the characters are very long-lived and it's hard to tell at times which character is featured in a particular event in a story. Since “passing of time” is one of the themes of the book, I'm guessing this was as intended. You become disoriented as to where you are in the family history. (There was a handy family tree in the front of my copy though!)
The other unique thing is the plot; it's not one long through-line, but rather a lot of mini stories spread throughout the book. I especially enjoyed the tale of Remedios the Beauty and her ascension into the sky and the sad love story of Renata Remedios and Mauricio. If there is a overarching story, it is the fall of the town and the demise of the Buendia family, which are intertwined. They succumb to fate, which is another theme.
I'm guessing a thorough knowledge of Latin American history would enhance reading the book. This is something I don't have but I still found it engaging. Garcia Marquez passes through events so quickly and you don't get a chance to become emotionally involved with anyone very deeply. Good to have read it but, it was certainly not the most accessible book.
après avoir vu la hype autour de ce livre et étant une amoureuse du réalisme magique j'avais vraiment hâte de commencer ma lecture.
ce fut une aventure beaucoup trop confuse, que je me dois donc d'arrêter.
life's too short to force myself to finish books i'm clearly not enjoying reading.
a big let down.
J'attendais peut-être trop de ce roman salué unanimement par la critique et par les critiques ici. J'ai bien aimé le début de cette fresque familiale, mais j'ai fini par me lasser de ces personnages qui se ressemblent tous et dont les vies elle-mêmes se ressemblent beaucoup. J'ai terminé un peu déçu, tout en reconnaissant la qualité du style et l'ambition de l'oeuvre.
Listened as an audiobook. I would have done better reading it ‘cause of all the names. That's just how my brain works. Otherwise, enjoyed it.
Try to read it quickly since everyone has the same name. This isn't too difficult since it's a very good book.
I don't know how to rate this.
My Colombia Book Around the World
The plot was...weird. BUT, the writing was strong. And beautiful. This author inspired Isabel Allende—who is perfect. The themes explored of fate and the family you're born into and generational dysfunction is also interesting. His very quick delve into race and ethnicity and how that also may determine your life course at the end also is an interesting statement to explore and I enjoyed that theme. I guess I just didn't really like the method he chose to explore these important themes.... but then again I don't think I'm supposed to :).
“If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself!”Like [b:Dune 44767458 Dune (Dune, #1) Frank Herbert https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1555447414l/44767458.SY75.jpg 3634639] from last year, this book had been on my TBR list for the longest time, because I always felt like it was one of those books I should read, but never made time to actually do so. It probably would've stayed there forever (like Dune, actually) if my book club friends hadn't picked it for the book to read this month and I stopped running out of reasons to tell myself to not read it. I've tackled literary vegetables before (books I don't normally read but should) with mixed results, but mostly the experiences have been positive. This book was not a positive experience for me.This review will be a drop in the bucket of reviews for this book, so I'll keep things brief. The book is a generational look at a family living in the fictitious village/town/city of Macondo, sort of a train wreck into a tire fire that you can't help but not look away from. There's incest. There's pedophilia. There's infidelity. There's bestiality. There's even more incest. Seriously, their family tree is less a branching tree and more like a straight stick. You get to watch Macondo develop from basically this tiny village into something more developed, watch the family revolve around its own debasement, watch the townsfolk essentially forget they exist (willfully, probably), and then have a satisfying conclusion when the family house (where only a single family member remains at this point) gets wiped off its foundation and the book ends. I think even the God they believed in got fed up with the amount of incest in that family.There's positive aspects of the book. The writing style is fantastic, really evocative in places, but a bit inconsistent. We spent an inordinate amount of time on the most minor of events, and then speed through things that I felt like needed more than a casual byline. I really liked Ursula, the matriarch of the family who manages to outlive most of them in her fervent quest to try and bring some order and semblance to the carnage she hath wrought. There's plenty of amusing moments as well, both intentionally and unintentionally. Remedios' death was probably meant to be sad, but imagining her literally flying away with the bedsheets to heaven had me giggling for a while. I'm no stranger to magical realism, I love a good Haruki Murakami book, for instance. I just didn't get the same feeling here as I do from his books. The chapters felt long and tedious, and I felt like there was just too much included for the sake of inclusion that didn't really add to the book at all. We're constantly hit over the head with the themes of history repeating itself and solitude/loneliness (and the color yellow), it just felt very repetitive by the time I got halfway through. So, my low review stands. I can at least cross it off my list of books I should read, but I'd have a hard time recommending it to people. I don't even know the sort of person I could look at and go, "yeah, you look like an incest/One Hundred Years of Solitude kind of person..."
GGM isn't for everyone or anytime. I've been fortunate to read him at times when I've been able to savour the richness, the weird liquidness of his prose. Cien Años delighted me again. It took me a month, and it may take me longer next time, but that's the thing: there will be a next time. This isn't a book you're done with; it's a story you sort of relish.
Maybe this was amazing in its time, but I found it really bizarre. I don't quite understand why it's on the must-reads list.
DNF. Made it to page 163. There were things I should like about this book and it was really hyped up, but I just couldn't get myself to care about any of the characters or plot enough to continue. It was super meandering, which I like sometimes, but this was frustrating. Just not for me, I guess!
Not my cup of tea. Why... For starter, it's a well known fact that I ain't good with names and only god knows how many names this novel includes. I hardly could repeat after the names, let alone remember or distinguish whether the characters are male or female. There were different characters with same name which make it way more confusing for me... Yea yea I took a look at family tree... couldn't read the names either :D
Aside naming which is quite important element within this novel, I find the pace of story pretty fast, I fell behind several times, could get sync back for a while and fall behind again and again. The very advance literature of the book was another factor to make it harder to comprehend. The story was so fast by the time I was about to grasp the idea what is going on it took me to whole new world.
No Thank you!!! I'm not going to try this again...
I'm afraid this famous book didn't work well for me. Perhaps if I read it stoned it would resonate with me, but ... I gave up weed decades ago.
Sigh. I suppose I can shelve it over there with Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow and some other celebrated literary works.