A REVIEW OF MEMORIES, PROPHECIES, ILLUSION AND REALITY IN MACONDO

I first read One Hundred Years of Solitude when I was 12. I have read it 7 or 8 times all over these years, always picking up new pieces of wonder that I had previous and unfortunately missed. It’s my favourite novel, and I think I have read several types of it.

This Gabriel García Márquez’ masterpiece perhaps defies description; it belongs to “MAGIC REALISM” which uses interesting techniques like flashback and racconto. That’s why is not really easy to know for certain where the limits of reality lay. From the first page, you will voyage with very unique and amazing characters, through passionate prose. You might find yourself laughing out loud when you are not sobbing in sympathy with someone dying of heartbreak.

Macondo is a mythical South American town, founded, accidentally, by José Arcadio Buendía, and populated mainly by his descendants. This is a huge and colorful narrative that explores the story of one hundred years in the life of that enchanted place and its inhabitants, who seem to be put to test their capacity for surprise by keeping them in a permanent alternation between excitement and disappointment, doubt and revelation. Like an eternal fight to renew themselves and survive.

There are delightful and comical situations on this novel. Surprises never stop burning, as that man whose presence is announced by clouds of butterflies or insomnia episode which forces people to write everything- even their own names. There is also satire and loads of sexuality element. However, there is an everlasting sadness that impregnates every single action as well.
You need read it to reckon about the fantastically-real world of Macondo, and the people who live there. Once you know them, they will be a part of your own world and thoughts. My favourite character is Ursula Iguarán, because she works devotedly to keep the Buendía’s family together despite its differences and she is also a very strong and brave woman- as my mother is.

Have you ever looked at a painting, walked into it and become a part of it? That’s why I do admire the way that Gabo (Gabriel García Márquez) captured the range of human emotions and their own reasons to carry on breathing. Like so much else in this odd and dynamic narrative, the end appears to have been unavoidable and not gone astray.

Find out what I mean!

I MADE THIS AS AN ASSIGMENT ON CIDUNT-WHERE I STILL STUDY ENGLISH