Marquez's novel of seven generations of the Buendia family in Columbia is a lush, rich and beautiful tapestry. I read it first at 19, studying 'minority' fiction in one of my literature units at university. I'm not sure it'd be classed so now - I'm sure the unit was more designed to introduce us to world literature rather than 'minorities'. How politically incorrect! But this book is dog earred and frayed on my shelf to this day, even when it has been loaned to friends and family with the insistance that they must read it. I myuself had never read anything ike it - the magic realism had hooked me - people who levitated, foresaw the future, ascended to heaven in folds of sheets and were followed by yellow butterflies:
For many months, while he lay motionless in the bed, the yellow butterflies hovered around him, flitting from flower to flower. It was a phenomenon that no one in Macondo could explain, although it was a source of great satisfaction to the family, who came to see it as an extraordinary sign of fate. They noticed that the closer the butterflies got to Mauricio, the stronger their fragrance became, and that even the doctors in the town agreed that the only thing that could have caused such a phenomenon was a deep, mysterious force of nature."
The novel itself is a landmark novel and considred one of the greatest works of Latin American literature and a perfect example of magic realism, where the fantastical merges with the real world. It's set in the fictional town of Macondo, and explores themes of solitude, where characters are isolated or cut off from one another just as the town itself is. They are often trapped in patterns of behaviour, as if they are fated to repeat the same mistakes of their parents and grandparents, trapped by their famiily's legacy. Violence and war shape individual and collective destinies - Macondo is 'found' because of trying to escape the ghost of a man Buendia had killed - and passion and love drive their fates.
I'm not sure I was too bothered in the themes as I read it for the first time, or even the tenth. It was his prose that captivated me - it was poetic, rich, beautiful. There was a dreamlike quality to it made richer by the magical realist elements, so that sometimes events seemed surreal, and above all it was haunting and stayed with me for a long time.
This novel was so important to me that I held my breath a little as I started watching it. The very first line, however, gave me a good sign the series was on the right path:
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
There it was - the line that sets up how important family and memory are to this novel, and the liquid nature of time where characters see into the future and are bound by the past.
There are many times in the series that reflect the book faithfully - in fact, some viewers returned to the book unconvinced that it happened, only to find that indeed, it was within the pages of Marquez's poem to Columbia.
I was really pleased it was subtitled and with Latin American actors - it would have been a travesty to have white, mainstream, Hollywood actors play the parts, just as it was awful that Nicholas Cage played the lead in the TV series of Berniere's Captain Corelli's Mandolin and Penelope Cruz, a Latin American actor, played the greek Pelagia. Beautiful book, disappointing movie!
The magic realist elements weren't quite as magical as the book, but still added to the tone and feeling of the series - the line of her son's blood trickling all the way to Ursula's kitchen, levitating priests, Rebecca's passion shaking the entire house, Aureliano's prophetic visions. I found the relationships a little more jarring this time - I never really paid much attention to the fact that the town prostitute Pilar slept with both the brothers when they were young, and sent a virgin in her place to her son, or that Aureliano was basically obsessed with a child and the families were ultimately all okay with that, or that incest was a thing (in all fairness, it wasn't the first literature I'd read where people fall in love with their cousins). It's not a theme I thought about when I read it, choosing to read 'passion' and 'love' above power, violence and oppression, social shame, loneliness and secrecy, which seem more vivid to me now and I'd like to re-read the book with this in mind.
They were afraid that those two healthy products of two races that had interbred over the centuries would suffer the shame of breeding iguanas. There had already been a horrible precedent. An aunt of Úrsula’s, married to an uncle of José Arcadio Buendía, had a son who went through life wearing loose, baggy trousers and who bled to death after having lived forty-two years in the purest state of virginity, for he had been born and had grown up with a cartilaginous tail in the shape of a corkscrew and with a small tuft of hair on the tip. A pig’s tail that was never to be seen by any woman and that cost him his life when a butcher friend did him the favor of chopping it off with his cleaver. José Arcadio Buendía, with the whimsy of his nineteen years, resolved the problem with a single phrase: “I don’t care if I have piglets as long as they can talk.”
I really love how a TV series can add to your understanding of a novel, or enrich it - and I'm looking forward to the second season which comes out next year. If I was to choose, I'd definitely choose the novel and would recommend you read it before watching the series, but if you've read the novel, don't shy away from watching it on the screen.
The images were from CHATGPT - have signed up for a month to see what the fuss is about.
With Love,
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I've been wanting to read this book forever, but I kept putting it off until "my Spanish reached a really good level, so I could fully enjoy it in original." As you may guess, that day never came when I felt completely satisfied by my Spanish skills, but when the first season of the series came out, my wife and I watched it. We both enjoyed it so much that we decided to read the book together, which is what we're doing now.
It's long, so much so that we're convinced there will be a third season. Otherwise they couldn't pack the whole story into the show, which I believe is the whole point. As a two-hour motion picture the essence of it would be destroyed, but as a multi-season series it may bring out all the feelings the author intended.
I'm so glad you are reading it!! I can't even imagine the vibe in Spanish - it was extraordinary in English so must be amazing in its original form.
It is amazingly difficult: Long, elaborate, multi-layer sentences, sprinkled with words that could be used a couple of times in one's lifetime, but all in all it's worth it. I am certainly enjoying it.
Sometimes a novel that makes you work is infinity better than one that treats you like a fourth grader.
That's right, particularly if the novel is actually good. Not because of the difficult language, but in spite of it. This reminds me of something I saw, just the other day:
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I’ve never heard of this novel, sounds very compelling and I’ve always had an interest in South America. More so than the USA it has to be said! Will have to see if the series is available here or on a web based provider.
Funnily enough, I’ve also signed up for ChatGPT, spoiler - I’ve found it very useful for my day job.
Wait what..you've never heard of this book? Please listen on audio at least before the series. It's the most influential, famous Latin American novel ever!!!
Personally, I was very skeptical at first. I adored the book growing up and felt no one could ever do it justice. But it wins out inevitably, when everyone's talking about it, and was (like you) pleasantly surprised. Really enjoyed it.
Curious to read your thoughts after your month on ChatGPT tbh!
I almost didn't watch it for those reasons!!!
Kinda haven't been using it much. The image gen is just Dall E and it's not giving me much more than I got for free on deep Seek. Maybe o just haven't had the right task for it to wow me (God are we at that point already!).
Been using perplexity more as a search engine now..
For me yes, I really appreciate the TV series I think it's not so far from the book and create the atmosphere I imagined while reading the books, plus the actors was amazing 😍😋
They were great weren't they?
I also saw the series and the truth is that I was pleasantly surprised by the accuracy with which they represented the novel, it is in fact (in my opinion) one of the most faithful adaptations I've seen, the only thing I did not like is that the book describes Rebecca as a beautiful woman, a dazzling woman and in all honesty I can say that the girl they chose to play her is not pretty at all, but from the rest I found it a very faithful adaptation to the cannon and visually very beautiful, you can almost feel Gargía Márquez's voice in every shot.
Aquí entra en juego la interpretación de "belleza". Lo que es bonito para unos, tal vez no lo es para otros. Los gustos son variados y hay para todos.
Muy buena reseña. Invita a leer, a ver, escuchar, sentir pero sobre todo a disfrutar. A mí me resultó muy curioso el "qué dirán"... La cola de cerdo es como la vergüenza que arrastras por tus inmoralidades.
@riverflows, you're rewarding 0 replies from this discussion thread.
Thank you for this review of a great TV show, spectacularly well done, and well acted by unknowns (to us in America anyway). I love seeing new, young actors get a chance at starring roles. You make a most excellent point about some of the over-used Hollywood familiars, one in particular:
Cage was also horribly miscast in the movie version of JC Oates "Rape: A Love Story," retitle "Vengeance." Cage was wrong for the role in every way possible. The movie totally missed the point of the book and the title.
Incredibly, I still have not read Hundred Years of Solitude, but I did read "Love in the Time of Cholera."
YOu'll have to get around to the novel of 100 years. I've read all his books. YEah Cage can be miscast a lot! When he isn't he's a legend though. You can't be made at Nick.