Reviews

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

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blancarosa's review

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

rudzmaksim's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

mikarala's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I wanted to like this so bad, considering how often I've seen it named the greatest novel of all time, but I'm slightly embarrassed and frustrated to say I don't understand that at all. There were moments of stunning prose, but my overall impression of this novel is that it's confusing as hell. I could not keep track of who the different Jose Arcadio's and Aureliano's were. They started blending together and I just stopped caring at a certain point. Also, I didn't really understand the point of all the incest. :/

sofiasilva6's review against another edition

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4.0

The rise and fall of an entire city, an entire family. The ups and downs and the constant struggles that filled the same house for 100 years. From heroes to villains, new people entering and leaving the story every chapter, over 5 generations blending in with each other and a permanent desire to know more about these characters.
Although I loved it, it took me a long time to finish this book because it isn’t the easiest to keep up with, multiple characters with the same names and relationships between people in different generations make the story great but also a bit hard to follow.

Definitely a great classic and very worthy of your time, I can just advise you to be as foccused as you can while reading so that you can make the most of it.

bbrassfield's review against another edition

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4.0

If this novel were a painting, it might look like something out of Bosch. One hundred years of Solitude is such an interesting book in that the construction reads to me as largely plotless vast tapestry of splendid impossible characters. The final chapter proceeds along more traditional lines and I found myself troubling over which sections I preferred? Honestly, unsure. The book reminds me in parts of both the Decameron and of Joyce's Ulysses. What Ulysses accomplishes over the course of a day in Dublin, I think Marquez writes over the course of a century in the incredible town of Macondo. There are many memorable scenes and I read this novel straight through in an effort to take in the entirely of the incredible canvas of life love and longing that the writer has created. Some characters are more memorable than others but if I had to point to a favorite it might be Remedios the beautiful (her name made me think of Reeking Lizavetta) who as a child paints figures on the wall with an instrument she dips in her own excrement. Of course, there are many beautiful passages where the magical and unbelievable coexist and I found myself earmarking many passages. Taken on the whole, the entire text reads like a long poem that this reader could imagine being written entirely without punctuation, like the last chapter of Ulysses. Early on the mind might struggle to take in all of the names and faces. It's best to treat the prose like a great rushing river where you dive in and let it carry you along. The ride is worth the occasional frustration. Like other great books that transcend time and space, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a book that will hold up to repeated readings.

My favorite part of the reading experience was discovering at the end of the novel that Melquíades manuscript that is discovered is actually the narrative with the history we have just read having already been written. I found this to be a brilliant move and not one that I saw coming. Perhaps I should have suspected a character with a name that means 'yahweh is my god' might possess the gift of foresight.