One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
Expectation: An immersive story about one family’s experiences navigating the shifting social and political changes of a fictional Latin American village.
Reality: Some of the narrative choices — structure and naming of characters, mainly — made this difficult to follow, but the beauty of Gabriel García Márquez’s prose still shone through.
My Take:
When I told people that “One Hundred Years of Solitude” was my next read, the reaction was either, “I love that book!” or “good luck!” After finishing Gabriel García Márquez’s epic tale of the Buendia family, I totally get it.
Rarely have I found a book so frustrating yet engrossing, and not because of the subject matter — although the frequent references to incest, sex with minors and female degradation was off-putting — but because of its notoriously difficult structure.
Rather than rehash the plot, which honestly, I’m still not one hundred percent sure about, I’m going to spotlight a few things that struck me while listening. While an endearing piece of literature, I knew very little about the story, which served as both a blessing and a curse.
A few things that stuck out:
I wasn’t expecting the magical realism elements and was charmed by the gypsies on flying carpets, alchemists making potions and food that can cause an entire town to experience insomnia.
Even with all the sexualization of women, it was still proto-feminist, especially for Hispanic culture. The folly of man is a recurring theme and the author frequently lambasts machismo.
This is not a story that can be taken at face value. There’s so much sociopolitical commentary and activism in the pages. It presents a fascinating dissection of colonialism and civil unrest in Latin America — all framed around a fictional family’s experiences in a mystical town.
You simply cannot deny Márquez’s genius and his beautiful words and phrases. Many sections read almost like a lullaby.
After listening to thousands of hours of audiobooks I can confidently say this one was the most difficult, and I cannot recommend the audio format. Like many readers, I rely on audiobooks to help work through meaty, complex stories but if given the choice to start “Years” again, I would’ve opted for a physical or digital copy.
This is of no fault to John Lee who did a good job bringing the text to life, it’s simply the plot ping pongs frequently, and there are multiple characters with the same name so you can’t easily track what’s happening to whom unless you’re taking frequent notes. I did source a copy of the Buendia family tree but it was too little too late.
This is undoubtedly a book that every literature lover should attempt to read at some point. However, it’s important to know this isn’t so much a book for entertainment as it is for enlightenment.
Rating (story): 3/5 stars
Rating (narration): 3/5 stars
Format: Audiobook (library loan)
Dates read: September 18 – September 29, 2023
Multi-tasking: Not recommended. Even for avid listeners, this is a difficult story to follow given the array of characters and shifting timelines.
