One Hundred Years of Solitude

By Gabriel García Márquez

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

The story covers a hundred years (shockingly) of a family living in Macondo, a fictional village nestled in the rainforests of Columbia. The family changes through its generations, yet its members keep running into the same problems. It’s a difficult book to summarize because of its vast scope; many things happen to many people, and yet, the same things keep taking place, over and over again. The repetition is part of its magical realism.

I bought this book because it was on my sister’s list of “books to read”. Rather than stumbling onto it, I sought it out at Powell’s. My copy has a family tree in the beginning, and yours should too. If not, print one out and turn it into a book mark because you will need it. I read this book in 2020, mainly while sitting on my back porch, or lying on the floor of a room, trying to relax in the hour between my babysitting jobs every day. When I started it, it took me a while to get into it. The narrative voice is always detached, there is almost always some distance between the narration and the characters. This choice is certainly necessary, given the scope of the book, but it also means it took time for me to immerse myself in it.

Once I was able to do that, however, it began to feel like it’s own magnificent price of art it’s a book that feels complete in itself. If this book was a shape, it would be an arch. Everything leans on itself, and what appears odd or unrelated at first later reveals itself to be central for the book to hold its shape. It is beautiful in the ways it binds itself together. The themes, the setting, the cyclical nature of the family and

their problems, all are woven together into a perfect construct.

I would recommend this book to anyone good with names and who believes in an inherently mystical universe.

---

My Copy: Gabriel, García Márquez. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Everyman’s Library, 1995. Get it Here!