One Hundered Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Márquez
The book's genre is magical realism, meaning that it incorporates magic into a realistic view of the real world. The story is in history fragments told by many different views and backgrounds. Themes of the strong ties between family often show up in this book.
Essentially what the story is about is a little town called Macondo, founded by our starting two lead characters José Arcadio Buendiá and Úrsula Iguarán, a married couple with 3 children. The story is experienced through the eyes of these two and their family as time goes on, it's essentially the history of Macondo seen through the eyes of the Buendiás. Many characters come in throughout the story, the gypsy man Melquiades who would inspire the curious mind of José. The three children of the couple grow as the story goes on, eventually spawning their own stories and families. New children would be adopted into the family of the Buendiás. Themes of civil discourse between two factions would shape the future of the town. The town will build, the town will fall, people will die and people will come back, we get to see it all through the eyes of the Buendiá family.
I enjoyed the book mostly because of all the strange yet appropriate stuff that happens in it, it’s actually quite funny at times. I guess the target audience for this book would be anyone who just enjoys reading realistic books with a bit of magic and weird thrown in. Honestly it’s coin flip on whether or not this book would be right for you, in half it's fairly calm and interesting in how things turn out, in the other half you have ghosts plugging up their throats with grass and strong cases of “You stop that”, of which refers to several uncomfortable circumstances. Read it if you’ve got the time and can handle a little weird.
Book Review by Muakong Y.
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