Book: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. ~Haruki Murakami


First, a word about the Kindle version of this book which I found to be disappointing. Not disappointing because of the story but because of the errors throughout the electronic document. Punctuation was messed up in numerous places where a period was placed either where a comma should have been or placed at random points in the sentence. There were also places where the wrong word was used. Not in the sense that is was mistranslated but an actual word was used that made the sentence unreadable. Now, on to the story.

The book is written in the The magical realist style. The style blends magical elements with real world happenings in a straight forward, matter of fact way. The characters in the story accept these magical happenings as if they are a normal aspect of every day life. To my knowledge, this is the first book in this style ever to pass before my eyes. I found the style enjoyable in much the way a science fiction fantasy with it's own magical happenings is enjoyable. The magical events happen in a very plausible way without disrupting the flow of the story.

The book chronicles the history of the Buendia clan from the time the mythical town of Macondo was founded by José Arcadio Buendia, the elder statesman of the Buendia clan, through the death of the last member of the family, Aureliano Babilonia Buendia II, and the corresponding end of the town itself.

The book held my attention from beginning to end. I enjoyed the many characters that were members of the Buendia clan or members associated with the clan as friends, confidants, and harlots. They were developed to a fine level of detail and were, for the most part, believable. The family had a continuity through all seven generations, a continuity that saw the passing of character flaws through the male lineage.

The book was originally written in Spanish by a Colombian author before being translated into English. I have read that it contains much symbolism associated with Latin American countries in the 1960s but that symbolism escaped me in much the same way Monty Python humor was more biting to the English than to Americans. Not understanding the symbolism did not, for me, detract from the story line.

This is a book I highly recommend. However, I would recommend reading it with a companion book that explains the symbolism so the full richness of Gabriel García Márquez's story can be experienced.