"It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of [nagging wives][sic]." — Fredric Jameson Márquez

Spivak occasionally comments on how so-called "magical realism" became the identifiable trait of the so-called "subaltern novel" in large part due to the geographical proximity of these writers to English-language publishers in the United States. The category of magical-subaltern-realism seems particularly fraught because it remains to be seen whether a text has ever survived the insertion of such an Intra-Fabular Device, and which therefore functions to condemn these works twice. ( )

Una novela encantadora, si bien recomiendo tomar apuntes de la genealogía. ( )

Neste clássico de Gabriel García Marques, conheça as fabulosas aventuras dos Buendía-Iguarán, com seus milagres, fantasias e dramas que representam famílias do mundo inteiro. Romance fundamental na história da literatura, Cem anos de solidão apresenta uma das mais fascinantes aventuras literárias do século XX. Vencedora do Prêmio Nobel de Literatura, uma obra que todos devíamos ter em nossas estantes.

A classic first published in 1967 - I read this very, very bizarre book on the recommendation of my creative writing teacher while stationed in Newport, Oregon, back around 1999. I had written a particular piece about how my father loved to pour concrete and create things with it. He made rows of concrete fish for yard decor and large potted planters for placement throughout the yard. Then came the concrete covered parking, then the concrete patio near the bayou, and finally just a large oval concrete slab for us three girls to roller skate on and play tetherball. By the time he was finished, many years later, he had concreted about 3/4 of our property.

She said my writing style in that story was just like this author's and that I should read it. I can't say I loved it or even understood or remember just what it was he was writing about. I seem to remember something about a guy who fell asleep under a tree and didn't wake up for a thousand years later. It's now 2021. I would have to reread it to remember what it was even about. ( )

I've started to read this book 3 times before and never made it through the first 20 pages.   This time i got over 1/3 of the way through it, and that was more than enough to call it a day.   So read this review with that in mind.

This book is the literary equivalent of a crap TV soap opera.   The characters are mostly inbred and somewhat retarded.   There are too many characters, most of which either have the same name or very similar names.   And just when you thought there was more than enough of one name a whole bunch of illegitimate children would turn up and Gabriel would give them all the same name of the father.   It's like grandson named after son named after father named after great uncle named after grandfather.   And this goes on and on until you aren't quite sure who you're reading about.   Adding to the too many characters with the same name, there are also too many characters with similar names.   Then you get time shifts, where suddenly you're reading something that happened to a 'name' (because you can never be sure which character that name is) previously and then it's back to present then off to the future and then it's now again but you don't get any structure to it, and it's just utter chaos.

On top of all that chaos, they're all related somehow because incest seems to be a perfectly normal thing amongst these backward, inbred people.   And every few pages a new child is thrown into the mix named after someone already in the story who is then adopted and raised by someone other than its parents.   And the incest and adoption is so confusing that you're never quite sure who is related to who in what way, thus leading to more incest, adoption and confusion.

Oh, sure, i could have done due diligence and made a big effort to work out who exactly is who when a name appears, but i shouldn't have to.   I don't read books to make tedious and pointless work for myself.   I read books to enjoy the escape from tedium, for fun and recreation, to enjoy the experience of losing myself.

You can never lose yourself in this book if you want to understand what is going on because you're always having to work at who is who and how they're related to each other in what generation, etc., etc..

Then there's the liberal use of Deus Ex Machina.   Create a problem, that of everyone losing their memories, and then solve it when someone turns up with a magical potion and everything's suddenly ok again.   And what was the point of it all and where have we got with the actual story?

And that's the question: what is the actual story here?   All i get is a never ending cacophony of incest, illegitimate children, adoption of each other's illegitimate children, giving them names of already existing characters into the maelstrom of same and similar named characters that already exist, and stupid behaviour with ever more and more characters from other places being thrown in, even when completely unnecessary.

How this book is classed as a paragon of Spanish literature is beyond me.   I suppose it's the same crowd that think Shakespeare and Dickens are paragons of English literature.   And guess what?   You won't ever find any Shakespeare or Dickens amongst my reviews.

It's not that i can't handle lots of characters: i've read the Riftwar saga by Raymond E. Feist and similar great sagas of fantasy and sci-fi, and i've never been confused.   Why?   Because they give them all distinctive names.

It's not that i have a problem with non English names: i've read lots of fantasy, sci-fi and also translated books by lots of non English writers, never been a problem.   Why?   Because they give them all distinctive names.

I can only think that this was done on purpose to make some literary point, but this literary point is completely lost on me.   Why create utter chaos within your character structure, add too many characters even when completely unnecessary to the story, give the characters same or similar names to add more confusion, throw never ending incest and inbreeding into the mix and then get them to adopt each other's children and then don't tell the children who their parents are so you can look forward to more incest?   The point certainly isn't made in the first 1/3rd of the book and if a writer can't be bothered to hook me into a story in that time then the book goes in the delete bin.

The other issue with all this character chaos is that you never can bond with any of the characters.

I like a book that gives me some central characters who i can bond with, root for and believe in.   Characters that i can identify, who stand out and make sense of the story for me.   I like a book that simply loses me in the story.   When i read a book the only part of me that has to do anything is my thumb, turning the pages on my Kindle: i don't want to be having to stop and think about what's happening, the story should flow and make sense of itself without my having to make a load of effort to make it make sense.   And i don't like soap operas and those kind of pathetic characters, repeating the same stupid mistakes over and over again and never learning anything.   If i want a soap opera i could watch television.   I don't watch television!   I read books!

My final pronouncement on this book is that it is a work for voyeurs with a niche fetish of viewing incest who enjoy crappy TV soap operas who are happy with Deus Ex Machina being deployed to solve every problem that served no literary purpose other than to deploy the Deus Ex Machina in the first place.

Utterly ridiculous! ( )