One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

There is only one word that I could use to describe this novel and it's "soaring." The novel soars as the reader progresses through a story that takes place well over the course of a hundred years and probably comes closer to covering around 160-180 years (it's hard to accurately keep track of.) The truth of the matter is that the author wants such details to be shrouded in doubt, mystery, and even a bit of magic.

It's very hard to describe exactly what is so special about this novel or even exactly what it is about. It would be much easier if you just read the book and experience it yourselves without any sort of pre-knowledge of what the book is. If what I could write here about the novel could contain even a 1/100 of the poetry and mastery of literary techniques that tricks the reader into a sense of wonder I'd be well on my way to being a award-winning author. Even in translation the delight Marquez has in language is clear and his writing comes off as playful.

"Magical realism," is a term that is often used to describe this novel and is a sub-genre of literature that has it's origin in Latin American writers. "OHYOS" is the finest realization of that style of storytelling. Marquez himself attributes this to the way his grandmother told him stories when he was a child; blending supernatural elements with real history completely seriously. Marquez in an interview mentions he tried to write the novel without believing the magical moments himself and it just didn't work as a story. When he started to believe the magical elements (like a character floating up to heaven with linen sheets, flowers that rained from the skies for months after a character died, or ants that could carry people, just to name a few) did the novel take on the form of a natural history that blends the fantastical with the mundane which acts to give significance and meaning to just about every line of the novel.

Look at the over-the-top reviews that some critics have given the novel. A New York Times review called the book, “the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race.” I would imagine most writers would kill to have a novel of theirs be described as the most important story since the Bible. But I think the praises are pretty spot on, and while hyperbolic, they begin to do the novel justice.

Although not quite as long as what would normally be considered an "Epic," such as Homer's Odyssey or James Joyce's Ulysses. The story of OHYSOS is epic and sprawling. With the sort of world building that is often only seen in fantasy and sci fi stories it truly is something special when a writer brings that ability to juggle storylines and family lineages that would give George R.R Martin a run for his money.

If you are a fan of the HBO show "True Detective" then you know that "time is a flat circle." In the novel time is presented as cyclical and the past has a tendency to repeat itself. Although the plot follows a fairly traditional plot line that moves forward in time like a line the themes of the novel keep coming back full circle with each new generation in the Buendia family. The ending bespeaks the very act of reading and writing itself and how it's all wrapped up in a grand human drama. Through the act of reading we created the town of Macondo from our imaginations and when we are done it too must dissapear as the words literally end when Marques writes,

"He had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth."

The novel has a quality of making me feel a sense of strange joy by showing the beauty of human nature. Many times I would have to pause in my reading and really reflect on the signifigance of what was being said. An epic focused on human nature would not be complete without including all the sadness, misfortune, and, pain that exists in the world. In fact the title of the novel refers not only to the timeline of the family over seven generations but also the family's tendency toward solitude and closing themselves off from one another. Many characters have tragedy strike them and it colors the rest of their lives as they withdraw into themselves. The irony is that living together in one house the Buendias do not share in each others' solitude for the most part.

Again I would highly recommend this book to any reader and it's level is probably moderate to difficult. The language is not particularly challenging but distinguishing what is based in fantasy and reality requires a pretty attuned sense of literary analysis, requiring the ability to distinguish Marquez's straight-faced satire, comedy, and irony as it's intermingled with an equally fantastical sadness and musings on the more somber aspects of human life.

Books like this : David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, One Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zot; Dave Egger's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius ; David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest; All of Haruki Murakami's novels; Michael Chabon's Incredible Adventures of Cavalier and Clay; Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses