A review by hadeanstars
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

4.0

Well, what can one say? This is not a work one can easily criticise, after all, it is certainly penned by a genius, and who am I to criticise such transcendant work. Nonetheless, compared to the only other Marquez novel I have read (Love in the Time of Cholera), this was not quite at the same level. Certainly the prose is unmatched, and the characters are both remarkable and strange in a most beautiful way, but this novel lacked the simple storytelling of the other, and seemed to me to be more of a series of pastiches that meandered their way to an uncertain conclusion. I did love it, because the wonderful strangeness and richness of the characters, the sense of a world apart, the strength and power of the writing itself that at the same time was haunting and yearning, combined to cast a remarkable and enrapturing spell. This work had less narrative power for me, and so, while I greatly enjoyed it, it was the lesser work.