One Hundred Years of Solitude

It is said that Gabriel Garcia Marquez took eighteen months to write One Hundred Years of Solitude. In those eighteen months, it is said, basic supplies dwindled in his house, his wife had to get them on credit for a few months, and they were in arrears in their rent obligations. Whatever it was he was writing, he must have been inspired.

It shows. Marquez’s inspiration, I mean. It flies off the book’s pages, wafts sweet magic through your eyes, and ends up inspiring you as well. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a work of such depth and breadth that it leaves you lost for words. It is such a fantastic (literally) leap of imagination (and fantasy, if I may repeat myself), a breathtaking expanse of fiction, raw fiction that does intimate tango with objective reality, that it beggars belief. They call it magical realism.

One Hundred Years of Solitude speaks of solitude (duh). It tells the story of seven generations of the Buendia family in a fictional Latin American town of Macondo. Starting with the family patriarch, Jose Arcadio Buendia, down six generations to the last Aureliano Buendia, solitude is an enigma the family cannot escape, even though they try. Jose Arcadio Buendia tries to solve the mystery of the existence of God and the writings of Melquiades the gypsy; his son Jose Arcadio goes off with the gypsies and tours the world but returns with nothing to his name; his other son Colonel Aureliano Buendia leads thirty-two rebellions against the government and loses all of them; his daughter Amaranta remains unmarried and dies a virgin in old age; and so on. Their descendants try by all means, outlandish and modest, but fail to escape the badge of solitude stamped and preordained upon them as foretold by Melquiades the gypsy.

It is a story infused with as much realism as fantasy; as much politics, corruption, and capitalism as family ties; as much life as death; as much youth as old age; and as much tragedy as happiness. Sometimes it reads like a bedtime story, for instance, when we see Remedios the Beauty, whose beauty causes much tragedy, floating off to heaven; or when Jose Arcadio Segundo can’t be seen before the very eyes of a military officer hounding him. Many times it reads like a political protest, as when the Conservative federal government massacres Liberal workers in Macondo and rewrites history to erase the massacre. Sometimes it is a love story, as between Amaranta and her successive suitors, or between Jose Arcadio and Rebeca. Sometimes it is a story of lust, as between the sixth generation Aureliano and his aunt Amaranta Ursula.

Many times it is a tribute to family – Jose Arcadio Buendia’s wife, Ursula, the matriarch, tries to hold the family together many generations down. She succeeds, but the family unravels after her death. Where there was prosperity, poverty creeps in. Where there were boundaries, they are erased. Incest, her most dreaded fear, finally happens after she dies, between the sixth generation Aureliano and his Aunt. A child with a pigtail is finally born.

The story of the Buendias is enmeshed with that of Macondo. Macondo is founded as a simple town by Jose Arcadio Buendia, who himself starts a simple family. As Macondo grows in complexity, so does the Buendia family. They both go through enormous upheavals, and when Macondo declines, so does the family. When Macondo is finally swept into extinction by a mythical dry wind that comes after many consecutive years of rain, so is the Buendia family.

In the end, it has to be an epic story about the human condition. It is not only about the Buendias, it is about the rest of us, the human race. I am sure anyone who has read this book (it was first published in 1967) has found a little bit of himself or herself in it, a point where it felt as if he/she was peering into the mirror at their reflection.

Perhaps the story is made more astounding by the style with which it is written. The prose (we acknowledge the superb work of the translator from the Spanish, Gregory Rabassa) has a certain urgency to it that urges you to read on, while retaining great detail and vividness. It presents without dwelling, states without pontificating. As you read, you are taken on a delightful journey of twists within sentences and turns within paragraphs; no sooner does your mind settle on a tangent than the story takes on a new one. A storytelling masterpiece, it has that quality of leaving you behind, having to catch up breathlessly. It is a beauty.

Try getting yourself a copy, if you haven’t read it. Please?

Picture credit: Goodreads