One Hundred Years of Solitude

Title: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Pages: 448

Genre: Latin, Classic

Grade: B+

Synopsis: The story is about 100 years in the small Latin American town of Macondo, founded by Jose Arcadio Buendia. For the next 100 years, his family lives in the town as it grows and changes. For six generations, the children are named after their ancestors and are blessed and cursed with the same passions, desires, strengths and weaknesses of those who have gone before them.

My Review: I quite enjoyed the book, but found it very difficult at first to distinguish between the main characters as all the boys are either named Arcadio or Aurelianos and all the women are named Remedios, Amaranta or Ursula. While the book covers a century, every chapter is a different story that is expertly woven into the fabric of the book as a whole, such as the visits of the gypsies, a town plagued with insomnia and one of the girls ascending to heaven while she hangs her laundry.

Disclaimer: As is often the case with the classics, this book does not shy away from sex or violence, although descriptions are never graphic (Although, apparently, the men of the Buendia family are distinguished by large members...).

From the Book: "A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room, went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendía house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlor, hugging the walls so as not to stain the rugs, went on to the other living room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-room table, went along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under Amaranta's chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson to Aureliano José, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where Úrsula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread.

"Holy Mother of God!" Úrsula shouted."