This week we all read the first half of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It wasn’t a bad read, and I did enjoy it, but again not my favourite from what I have read so far. Although, there is so much to discuss about this book that I don’t even know where to start. From the themes, characters, storylines, and overall what I liked and didn’t like, I want to mention it all.
Starting with themes, I saw the theme of magic realism but also themes of memory, death, and family. There were a lot of moments in the novel where a character stated they would never forget that moment. For example, “Aureliano, who could not have been more than five at the time, would remember him for the rest of his life” (6) or “That biting odour would stay forever in her mind linked to the memory of Melquiades (6). As far as I noticed, this theme has been used a bit in the first four chapters. Another theme is magic realism. We see this on the first page when the gypsy says, “things have a life of their own” (1-2)—intending that things have souls and are real. The last theme I wanted to touch upon was death and solitude. As soon as someone died, the theme of solitude would be in effect. The character would go into mourning and isolation, distancing themselves from everyone and everything. I’m not exactly sure what page, but I remember there was a specific moment when two characters wanted to get married, but someone died, and the whole house went into mourning, so the couple could not get married.
Moving onto the characters, why was there so many repetitions of names? It honestly confused me so much. I understand that family and family line was important, but six generations of practically the same name were easily confused together. I often wondered, ‘wait, which Arcadia or Aureliano is this?’ I see that family relationships and legacy were meaningful in this story, but it was challenging to understand the organization of the characters. Even when a new girl came to the town, they gave her the same last name as them, Buendia. I appreciated that the new girl, Rebecca, was different from the other names, so I could easily remember her as the girl who randomly showed up with her dirt-eating issues. Still, I can notice family is significant to the Buendia’s, and I especially liked how they took in Rebecca as one of their own.
Now, I want to discuss a specific storyline that happened in chapter four. It concerns the theme of memory and how this town is almost stuck in a state of nostalgia or lack of modernity. In chapter four, the town suffers from this plague of insomnia, which causes a lack of sleep for the whole town. At first, the town was not fazed by this because they could accomplish more in life without sleep, “but the Indian women explained that the most fearsome part of the sickness of insomnia was not the impossibility of sleeping, for the body did not feel any fatigue at all, but its inexorable evolution toward a more critical manifestation: a loss of memory” (43-44). After the whole town was infected with this memory-losing plague, Jose Buendia started labelling everything with its name so they wouldn’t forget what it was and how to use it. For example, with a cow, they wrote that it was a cow and what to do with it, such as milk it every morning and then boil it. Although, the problem was that eventually, they would forget to read, and the words themselves would be useless to the town members, making the labels useless in the long run. However, magically out of god knows where this visitor comes to the town. He gives Jose Buendia “a drink of a gentle colour and the light went on in his memory” (49). Then, he notices that the visitor is Melquiades and magically, the whole town of “Macondo was celebrating the recovery of its memory” (49). Thinking about this scene realistically is confusing, but it works if we consider it a fiction novel.
I still have way more I want to mention, but I have already talked a little bit about everything. Therefore I will keep my other thoughts for post number two. In the meantime, I am sorry this blog was all over the place. So much is going on in this novel, from the timeline, plot, characters, and themes, and I wanted to mention everything.
My question for you this week is, what character do you resonate the most with, if any, and why?
The novel deals with the theme of memory in many ways, both explicitly and implicitly. This passage you mention is in fact one of the most famous. What importance can the repetition of names, situations and themes have as part of a reflection on forgetting? The author is also asking us to make an effort of the memory, to exercise it.
ReplyDeleteHi Melika! great blog post! To answer your question, the character that resonated with me the most was Ursula. It is hard to relate to these characters because they are in a very different town, with different social views and norms than the west coast. And also the fact that this book is fiction and uses magic realism. I relate most to Ursula Iguaran because she is the mother of the town. She physically and emotionally helps the Buendia house whenever something or someone needs help. I am the oldest sibling from a single parent family and sometimes I help out my mom with my siblings. Especially at times when my mom cant be there I have taken care of my brother, helped my sister with school and emotional problem's. In a way, I sometimes act as a mother to help my family, just let Ursula is the mother who fixes things in the Buendia household.
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