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One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Every ten books or so, I take myself off the brain candy I normally read and force myself to read something challenging. To me, it is like going to the gym to workout. I don't really want to get started, but once I get going, I'm always glad I went.
I read this Garcia Marquez work because my current favorite writer (Dennis LeHane) said it is his favorite novel. I can see why.
Although it took me over a week to read, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had to get past the POV and the way he tended to just tell one continuous narrative broken apart seemingly by some set number of words or pages. But, when I got to the end and saw the way he pulled everything back together, I realized the book really made an impression on me.
I'm not scholarly enough to discuss all the allegory and metaphor although I'm sure many of you are. Here are the things I loved about the book.
His character descriptions were amazing. Example, Remedios the Beauty. Rather than provide a list of her qualities or some metaphor for her beauty, he shows us how men fall into tragedy by becoming obsessed with her. How one guy tears through the roof just to see her, etc. How powerful is that?
The way he handles the themes of time and history (repeating) were great too. The end brings us right back to the beginning, etc.
The humorous (I laughed out loud more than once) way he handled human baseness and carnality was also entertaining.
And, of course, the ending, while tragic seemed so perfect for the story.
I also like the "magical realism" (I think that is the term) and the way he brought dead characters back into the story.
I'd love to hear the opinions of others who've read it. If you haven't read it I encourage you to.
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