Mar
21
Marquez: post 10
Posted by: | March 21, 2010 | Comments Off on Marquez: post 10
After reading CADS it is clear to me why the novel receives so much praise; the book is so well thought out and meticulously constructed. I am a sucker for over analyzing meanings of books and taking symbols and metaphors on far fetched tangents. However, I feel that Marquez is so purposeful in his writing and incorporates so many strategies and references to drive home his message. The only author I can compare is Scott Fitzgerald; the works of these authors are unique to me, because I find the every detail intentional, therefore proving them to be master-pieces, versus other novel in which literary analysts extract meaning from novels where they do not exist. I feel like in these books over analyzing is impossible, the book are full of so many messages, and there are too many references, details, metaphors, symbols deliberately employed to even catch.
For example, the way in which Marquez reiterates over and over the spiraling, repetition of history. Not only do names get passed down through the generations, but Marquez finds new ways for the characters who share the same name to embody and realize the same destiny or rather doom. One example, Jose Arcadio II is confound to solitude obsessing over Melquides work, mirroring the solitude of Coronel Aureliano Buendía after the war. There are countless more examples like this in CADS. And the mere repetition on incest, because incest in itself is just repetition of family genes. The incest continues to isolate the family from the world. In a way the incest also isolates each family member because it is as if in the act of incest, the members are denying the other is family, therefore breaking the family up and promoting more isolation. In so many ways, Marquez finds ways to string this complex web back to the opening of the book. You even have Ursula being transformed back in time, and images of Macondo doing the same.
Obviously solitude and isolation are major themes of the book. But Marquez tackles this theme from many angles. It is interesting to me that both having memories and loosing memories, both represent a threat for isolation. On the one hand you have the scenes of amnesia, loss of words, and loss of memory of the war and massacre, representing a disconnect to the world. On the other have you have isolation in which you are just consumed in your thoughts and memories such as the example of Rebecca. And eventually the entire town is forgotten, wiped off the map.
Religion plays a really important role in the book, and I honestly do not know exactly what Marquez’s goal is/what he exactly trying to say about. Technology pays a really important role in advancing solitude, but it also seems to be some what of a critique on religion, as if the wonderment of new inventions take over the role of God (ok here I think I am taking it too far, I am not sire what exactly I mean here). But in general there are lots of references to the Bible, the rain mirror the flood, loss of language (when Jose Arcadio Buendia can only speak Latin) is like Bable… I think there are lots and wish I was more familiar with the Bible.
