After having finished the book, I went through an odd and extensive afterthought period. Since the book was the longest I’ve read in a while and because within the plot it went through many, many years of life, and generations of people – it took a little while for me to collect all these thoughts and feelings. I can say now that it almost felt like some kind of biblical, ‘born-again’ whiplash. I can more wholly appreciate this infamous review:
“One Hundred Years of Solitude is the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race.”
I couldn’t quite put my finger on it while I was in the midst of reading it, but I can now say that One Hundred Years of Solitude felt very biblical. There’s definitely more exposition in Gabriel García Márquez’s writing than there is in the Bible, but the same atmosphere of the omni-present narrator and slow, but inevitable and impending doom. Something about the theme of technology, the advancement of human capability beyond its bounds, and cursed knowledge that felt so oddly familiar in my bones.
I think there is a connection to be drawn to magical realism and the Bible. The realistic magic of this book feels quite similarly to the Bible in some ways – the unexplainable phenomena that just so happens to occur, the politics of family and rule, and the ‘plagues’ are just a few examples from the top of my head. The plagues of insomnia, droughts, floods, and ever-persistent raining reminded me of the 10 plagues of Egypt. The generational family story and the conception & existence of Macondo reminded me of the 40 years of exile that was cursed upon an ‘unbelieving generation’ of Israelites. Macondo being wiped out in the end resembles the biblical and world-ending flood that happened during Noah’s Ark – both worlds were wiped out because it was ‘corrupt’ and ‘full of sin’. Even the characters’ constant and persistent misfortune reminded me of Job’s extremely devastating story of constant misery – although they had times of prosperity and success, it was always ended with a melancholic, solitary period or note.
I think it was the aspect of ‘cursed knowledge’ that really drove this connection. Melquíades’ parchments and its generations-long process of decoding its mystery language that contains some sort of secret, higher knowledge was, to me, in the form of a really long, twisted parable. This cursed quest of knowledge is spread across generations of Buendías men, almost like an all-consuming, damned inheritance. I kept thinking back to the story of ice, how the three Buendías men went to see this magical thing, how touching it was a (paid) privilege, how they thought it to be this thing full of unknown knowledge – but most notably, how similar that was to Adam and Eve’s story with the Snake, the Apple, and its cursed knowledge.
This book is like Genesis, Exodus, Job, and Revelations wrapped into one story, one lineage.
I think then, my question is do you think this applies? Did you have any afterthoughts of the book that change your perception of it?
2 replies on “week8. 100 years of solitude – the magical realism Bible”
This perspective seems very interesting to me: rather than looking for religious connections in the novel (which there are), understanding the biblical meaning of this narrative can be very productive. It’s true: “I think it was the aspect of ‘cursed knowledge’ that really drove this connection.” But in the novel the actual time of salvation is altered, and redemption remains permanently postponed. It is as if we went from the Old Testament directly to the book of Revelation. There is a collective sacrifice (the slaughter of the banana workers) but there is no memory of it, and a community cannot be rebuilt solely from oblivion.
I hadn’t thought of this book as written in a Biblical way before, but, now that I consider it, that’s a perfect description. They take a similarly neutral tone in describing a mix of mundane and miraculous events over a huge span of time, ending with a grand apocalyptic finale. It’s interesting there’s no equivalent to a Christ figure, however – it’s like it skips straight from the Old Testament to Revelation (I just typed this out then noticed Daniel had written almost the exact same thing – still going to leave it in)