As someone who speaks Spanish and was aware of the difficulty and often complication that tags along this book, I needed to prepare. Of course, I had heard that it was a complex book to write, and I attribute most of it to the fact that most characters often share the same names. Having a genealogical tree did not help as much as you would think. It is an intentional and cunning way of trapping a reader into a story. It not only becomes a personality trait or a defining characteristic that follows a book but compels them t be more present and more enrolled with the text when reading it. Failing to be attentive can cause the reader to miss the plotline entirely.
Something I will say that got me is that for a couple of seconds, I was not sure if incest was occurring. It was such a confusion that I had going with these names that the more I thought about it, the more it started to make more and more sense that there was incest in Moncado.
Something I found interesting about the book was the contrast that you get at the beginning of the book when Maconado is portrayed as this isolated magical place that only knows the things and people within its borders. And then it becomes just like anything else, and depending on where you’re standing, you could say that Maconado was either a better or a worse place because of it.
That seems like a metaphor, either intentionally or accidentally. It’s meant to mirror aspects of more modern society. Whether you want to look at it as Maconado being an unglobalized world or a technologically lacking one, I presume it takes a dig either at globalization or the advancements in technology and how it not only “facilitates” life but also creates more and more complex, out of scale complex just as the civil war fell upon Mancado. Because yes, before the little town mingled with the rest of society, their artefacts and knowledge were limited and scarce, but they were not in the middle of a civil war.
At some point, I questioned the purpose of making a novel or a book so purposefully hard, following that line of thought. My question for you this week is as follows.
What literary purpose or meaning do you find for Gabriel Garcia Marquez to write Cien Años de Soledad in such a complicated manner?
Chiko Yamamoto
February 25, 2023 — 4:38 pm
Hi Montserrat!
I also needed to prepare for a hard, long read 🙁
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a truly gifted storyteller, and his ability to find metaphors and illustrate mundane events charmingly and attractively! I suppose this book has a plot drawn with metaphors and rhetoric representing Latin American history/story, such as political violence, sexuality, rebellion, and Columbian Civil War. This is certainly the book for university English and Hispanic culture courses, as he is metaphorically talking about Columbian-Hispanic political issues.
julia gomez-coronado dominguez
February 26, 2023 — 7:17 pm
Hello Montse, I loved your post and reflections about the plot of the novel. As you pointed out, I also sometimes found it complicated to follow the story and got confused with the characters. However, perhaps this challenge to the reader is the “magical” essence behind “One Hundred Years of Solitude”. I think that Marquez’s use of non-linear narrative and multiple perspectives create a sense of ambiguity and uncertainty, which encourages readers to engage more actively in the story. Moreover, generally, the style used and the themes of magical realism and mystery present throughout the novel contribute to making it more complex.
Jon
February 27, 2023 — 4:17 pm
“It is an intentional and cunning way of trapping a reader into a story.”
Like the idea of getting “lost” in a book (as I mention in my lecture), the notion of being “trapped” into a story is also double-edged. On the one hand, it can mean “tricked” or “caught”; but on the other hand, it can mean “captivated” or “beguiled.” I wonder which you felt more?!
And as for whether it is “complicated,” I’m not sure… on one level, no doubt it is. But part of the way in which (I think) it draws you in is that it can also seem very simply. A family, a house, a village. Everyone’s a bit of a character, a bit quirky, a bit odd. Some strange things happen. It’s only gradually that you perhaps notice patterns, and begin to wonder where all this is taking you… and perhaps by then you’re already trapped?!
Julia Tatham
February 28, 2023 — 11:12 am
Hi Monserrat, Thank you for sharing your perspective as a Spanish speaker. I find it funny how even in its native language we can never escape the confusion Marquez has hardwired into the book by giving the family all the same names. The incest was also an area of shock and confusion for me, first because I had to figure out, as you mention, who was involved, and then figure out if it was really incest (and of course sit with the feeling of knowing I had just read incest). The expansion and growth of Macondo is something I was intrigued by as I kept reading, because it happens naturally over time but also when you stop and think about where the book started, it’s crazy how much the town, and the people, have changes.
I am not entirely sure why Garcia Marquez chose to make this book so complicated, but I think its complexity is due to the fact it spans many generations, people, and life changing events. The magical realism aspect as well fits with a not-straightforward way of telling the story, so this may be why the book ended up the way it did.
Kenward Tran
March 1, 2023 — 10:03 pm
Hi Montserrat,
I appreciate the perspective of this novel through the lens of a Spanish speaker, and even in its original language Marquez manages to confuse the reader. I guess we are all not alone in solitude. To answer your question, I think that Marquez wrote 100 Years of Solitude in a complicated manner to allow us to understand that not everything is linear, and there are cyclical relationships in our lives that we may not have noticed before. At times, this non-linear storytelling can also be exciting and leave you wanting more, I assume just as Marquez wanted it to be.
Julienne
March 1, 2023 — 11:56 pm
Hi Montserrat, nice blog post! I liked reading about your thoughts in trying to debunk what’s happening in the story and what it means. To answer your question, I think given that Garcia Marquez is writing about so many characters in this book, it ought to be complicated, which ultimately reflects how life is. I think despite it being geared towards identifying with magic realism, he still wanted to give it the human touch of error, confusion, and complication as well.