Book Review
One Hundred Years of Solitude (by Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
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- Second, and somewhat more importantly, its depth and breadth. A reviewer from the NYT writes that GGM has described “all that is profound, meaningful, and meaningless in life.” I think that’s largely accurate. The diversity of characters is breath-taking: there are revolutionaries (Colonel Aurelio Buendia), intellectuals (Aureliano), womanizers (Jose Arcadio), quacks, lunatics, students, immigrants, magicians, entrepreneurs, and more. There are haunting interactions, like when Colonel Buendia condemns his best friend to the firing squad, or Amaranta’s lover kills himself out of the pain of unrequited love. There is the sense that time passes, and that “it goes on” — that the world is greater than one or two individuals. There is the theme that change is permanent, but also that history will repeat itself. There is the disillusionment of warfare but the absurdity of preserving society as-is, for example, by manufacturing goldfish.
- This book has changed the way I think about writing. It has driven home the importance of creating vivid imagery.