The Read: “100 Years of Solitude”

“100 Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garc­a M¡rquez – $8.14

Reading “100 Years of Solitude” by Nobel prize-winning author Gabriel Garc­a M¡rquez for the second time, I was astounded how much I had missed the first time around.  I began to feel that the book had rearranged itself between readings, editing out old material and introducing new.  It has a density and richness unmatched in most other works, the pages overflowing with humor and sadness, victories and defeats, insanity, murder, and sex.

This is a book that defies easy categorization and summary.  It begins in a mythic time when the things of world were still without names, and rapidly moves through to the modern era of science and industrialization.  It follows multiple generations of the Buend­a family, and with them the rise and fall of the fictional city of Maconda and the history of Colombia.  More than that (as if that’s not much at all) it’s a book about personal histories, the lies we tell ourselves and each other.

Garc­a M¡rquez evokes a world that is fantastic and mysterious while still very grounded in the passions of everyday life.  It is almost as if the book was written from the straightforward perspective of a child: common-place objects and events take on magical qualities, and the strange becomes perfectly ordinary.  Fact and fiction intermingle as the members of the Buend­a family give shape to their lives.

This is a masterpiece of literature, and with it Garc­a M¡rquez captures a universal humanity with finely-wrought detail and poetic grace.

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