Hi everyone!
Wow, two weeks have flown by! I can’t believe we are already on our way to wrapping up with this book. I won’t lie, although I enjoyed this book, I have been DYING to get to Rigoberta Menchu’s book as I have always wanted to delve into that. But, for now! Let’s continue to unpack Maquez’s work:)
This past week was a bit of a struggle for me, so I had a hard time reading in larger chunks as per Jon’s recommendation because I came down with a nasty flu that made me bed-ridden–it sucked. So naturally, while reading it in smaller chunks, as some of my other peers had mentioned, it was much more difficult to keep up with all of the different characters–in fact, a bit overwhelming at times. I also love how this recurring theme of time throughout all books appears and reappears for us to investigate how the author uses it and makes meaning of it to contribute to a certain goal within their writing. In this book, we see how time breaks down not only Macondo, but everyone in it, including the Buendia family. More importantly, we see how time impacts that of memory. What was a town of memories and family and love and fun (with its bad parts, too) eventually becomes one of disillusion, lack of strength AND memories, and dullness after the massacre and plague. But with all this in mind, however you may try to change the trajectory of your own history or actions, or avoid making the same mistakes as the past, they will continue to haunt you–as seen in the book and as mentioned in lecture. We also see a search for eventual longing, Aureliano through the quote that says: “Aureliano did not understand until then how much he loved his friends, how much he missed them, and how much he would have given to be with them at that moment.” (329). Even though the past leaves memories behind, and that history may repeat itself, Aureliano finds himself missing what once was–something I could relate to.
Overall, despite feeling confused by this book at times, I am glad for the opportunity to have read it. I’m thoroughly excited to delve into the second half of this book in class on both Tuesday and Thursday! For now, I’ll leave you with a question:
I notice a lot of people saying the second half of the book was more difficult to follow than the first? What do you consider the main reason for that to be?
I really like that you are excited about reading Rigoberta Menchú’s book, you will see that it tells a painful story, but one that should be known. In any case, I think that in a certain way this novel prepares us to read that testimony. Several episodes in One Hundred Years… refer to the history of Latin America that led to the violence of the twentieth century. What to do with trauma? These works raise the question of oblivion and the persistence of memory.
Hello! I really enjoyed reading about your opinions. Answering to your question, I think there are a number of reasons that explain that the novel get more complicated and harder to follow. Firstly, as it happens with many other stories, character development if sometimes hard to understand and follow, especially for characters that suffer abrupt changes like Aureliano. Moreover, I noticed that as the story progresses, it contains more magical realism elements and shifts in time and perspective. The story and its narrative sometimes get more abstract, for instance, what happens to the character of Remedios when at the end she ascends to the heavens. Although from the beginning you notice magical elements in the story, these get more relevant towards the end of the novel.