Fiction

One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) by Gabriel García Márquez

One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) by Gabriel García Márquez is a brilliant book by a true master, storyteller and magician. While on a family vacation in Acapulco, Gabriel García Márquez became struck with a vision of a story that, in two years, would become the sensational novel called One Hundred Years of Solitude.

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One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) by Gabriel García Márquez is a brilliant book by a true master, storyteller and magician. While on a family vacation in Acapulco, Gabriel García Márquez became struck with a vision of a story that, in two years, would become the sensational novel called One Hundred Years of Solitude.

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The story involves the life of the Buendía family over roughly one hundred years in the town of Macondo, and Márquez’s writing reflects his culture and heritage, often moving in a downward spiral that folds back on itself rather than a linear approach often found in American literature.

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E.L. Doctorow explains that most “American writers have always been disposed to move along at a snappier pace than their European counterparts. But the minimal use of exposition does suppose a kind of filmic compact between writer and reader, that everything will become clear eventually” (50).

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Gabriel García Márquez, Colombian Novelist (1927-2014)

Despite the often crawling pace of Márquez’s South American prose, which also includes a straight-faced magic realism, he is able to bring characters, who often have a lasting impact, alive in just one sentence, and convey extraordinary events clearly and convincingly.

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Characters are the heart of the story and although their action and dialogue can make or break a plot, it is their vivid emergence onto the scene of the fictive dream that must be handled with alacrity. “Nearly every one can be summed up in a sentence,” writes E.M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel, “and yet there is this wonderful feeling of human depth” (71).

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Márquez’s novel is an extensive history filled with countless characters, and most are memorable because of how he introduces them with such clarity and power that they are not easily forgotten. The first example is for a major character that is referenced throughout the novel unto its end. Márquez writes: “A heavy gypsy with an untamed beard and sparrow hands, who introduced himself as Melquíades, put on a bold public demonstration of what he himself called the eighth wonder of the learned alchemists of Macedonia” (1).

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With such a brisk description incorporating “heavy,” “untamed,” “sparrow,” “bold” it is no wonder why the reader will vividly recall this character when he is summoned into later events by the author.

Márquez does this with every character he writes into the story, and this last example is for Petra Cotes described as “a clean young mulatto woman with yellow almond-shaped eyes that gave her face the ferocity of a panther, but she had a generous heart and a magnificent vocation for love” (188). The depth through brevity is what allows these characters to be fully shaped as quickly as possible, and Márquez is a genius at making these characters come alive, mostly fully formed, as they step out onto the stage of the story.

Another tool that Márquez has at his disposal in this classic novel is his ability to write spectacular and unbelievable events as though they were common place and more factual than rumored. Márquez explains that in his earlier attempts to write stories involving magic realism was that he “tried to tell the story without believing in it” and he later “discovered that what [he] had to do was believe in them…and write them with the same expression with which [his] grandmother told them: with a brick face” (Afterword 8).

And as the following passage shows from a very memorable event, Márquez nailed this approach of writing with a “brick face”:

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Amaranta felt a mysterious trembling in the lace of her petticoats and she tried to grasp the sheet so that she would not fall down at the instant in which Remedios the Beauty began to rise. Úrsula, almost blind at the time, was the only person who was sufficiently calm to identify the nature of that determined wind and she left the sheets to the mercy of the light as she watched Remedios the Beauty waving good-bye in the midst of the flapping sheets that rose up with her, abandoning with her the environment of beetles and dahlias and passing through the air with her as four o’clock in the afternoon came to an end, and they were lost forever with her in the upper atmosphere where not even the highest-flying birds of memory could reach her (236).

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 As Remedios the Beauty vanishes into a Christ-like ascension, the writer or narrator remains passive and a reporter of events, and does not critique what is happening. And this is no easy task, by any means, for any writer. “A story that renders a single moment convincingly is a complex accomplishment,” writes Jerome Stern in Making Shapely Fiction, “The complexity lies in the richness, the rendering, the texture, the subtlety of observation, the experience it creates for readers” (66). Not stopping there.

In addition, what Márquez does successfully in this piece is not only to tell it in a clear and convincing manner, but to do so in a manner that allows the reader to draw her own conclusions about what might or might not have actually happened to Remedios the Beauty. After all, Úrsula is practically blind and she is the one to have “watched” this event take place.

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Needless to say, however, a truly great writer allows the reader to become involved with interpreting events for themselves, rather than having every last detail explained. James Wood, in How Fiction Works, articulates this trait every writer should remember to use: “The reader tends to plump for one reading, while being aware that multiple readings are also possible; we sew ourselves into the text, becoming highly invested in our version of events” (216). Márquez repeatedly accomplishes this most difficult task of involving the reader in extraordinary events without having to solidify interpretations in concrete explanations. Instead, he leaves it up to the reader and that allows the reader to become not only an observer of the story but also a participant.

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Gabriel García Márquez, Colombian Novelist (1927-2014)

Márquez continues to relay events to the very end in a highly unobjectionable tone. Wood explains further about the importance of writing in an unemotional form in order to convince and convey: “That the awful and the regular will be noticed at the same time…and that in some way there is no important difference between the two experiences: all detail is some what numbing, and strikes the traumatized voyeur in the same way…the writing refusing to become involved in the emotion of the material” (44-45). In the final scene of the novel, Márquez is able to portray the horrific in a style similar to the ascension of Remedios the Beauty and it proves effective, leaving the reader speechless:

“And then he saw the child. It was a dry and bloated bag of skin that all the ants in the world were dragging toward their holes along the stone path in the garden. Aureliano could not move. Not because he was paralyzed by horror but because at that prodigious instant Melquíades’ final keys were revealed to him and he saw the epigraph of the parchments perfectly placed in the order of man’s time and space: The first of the line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by the ants” (415).

Aureliano’s son’s dead body is dragged off by ants and the man watches in a passive reflection and comes to an understanding of a cryptic text, and not once is the emotion of a father for a lost son extrapolated. The emotion, or the horrific empathy of such an event, Márquez leaves for the reader to interpret how she sees fit, and it draws the scene to a much more powerful close by doing so.

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Márquez is a master at work in One Hundred Years of Solitude. He is able to write magic realism and unbelievable events in an approach that has been studied and copied ever since, a tone of reporting more than forced emotion, and he allows the reader to draw conclusions, both in fact and feeling, throughout the stories long spiral of events. And for these reasons, his ability to become a magician through his storytelling establishes his novel above a great many others and will likely remain one of the greatest books in the twentieth century, and readers and writers will continue to admire it in the twenty-first century, and beyond.

Bibliography:

Afterword. “The Great Novel of the Americas?” One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967). By Gabriel García Márquez. Trans. Gregory Rabassa. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. 8-12. Print.

Doctorow, E.L. “Quick Cuts: The Novel Follows Film into a World of Fewer Words.” Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from The New York Times. New York: Times Books, 2001. 49-53. Print.

Forster, E.M. Aspects of the Novel (1927). New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1985. Print.

Márquez, Gabriel García. One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967). Trans. Gregory Rabassa. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. Print.

Stern, Jerome. Making Shapely Fiction. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991. Print.

Wood, James. How Fiction Works. New York: Picador, 2008. Print.

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cg fewston

CG FEWSTON

cg fewston

The American novelist CG FEWSTON has been a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome (Italy), a Visiting Fellow at Hong Kong’s CityU, & he’s a been member of the Hemingway Society, Americans for the Arts, PEN America, Club Med, & the Royal Society of Literature. He’s also a been Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) based in London. He’s the author of several short stories and novels. His works include A Fathers Son (2005), The New America: A Collection (2007), The Mystics Smile ~ A Play in 3 Acts (2007), Vanity of Vanities (2011), A Time to Love in Tehran (2015), Little Hometown, America (2020); A Time to Forget in East Berlin (2022), and Conquergood & the Center of the Intelligible Mystery of Being (2023).

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He has a B.A. in English, an M.Ed. in Higher Education Leadership (honors), an M.A. in Literature (honors), and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Fiction. He was born in Texas in 1979.

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cg fewston

Conquergood & the Center of the Intelligible Mystery of Being is a captivating new dystopian science fiction novel by CG Fewston, an author already making a name for himself with his thought-provoking work. Set in the year 2183, Conquergood is set in a world where one company, Korporation, reigns supreme and has obtained world peace, through oppression... The world-building in the novel is remarkable. Fewston has created a believable and authentic post-apocalyptic society with technological wonders and thought-provoking societal issues. The relevance of the themes to the state of the world today adds an extra wrinkle and makes the story even more compelling.”

cg fewston
cg fewston

“A spellbinding tale of love and espionage set under the looming shadow of the Berlin Wall in 1975… A mesmerising read full of charged eroticism.”

Ian Skewis, Associate Editor for Bloodhound Books, & author of best-selling novel A Murder of Crows (2017)  

“An engrossing story of clandestine espionage… a testament to the lifestyle encountered in East Berlin at the height of the Cold War.”

“There is no better way for readers interested in Germany’s history and the dilemma and cultures of the two Berlins to absorb this information than in a novel such as this, which captures the microcosm of two individuals’ love, relationship, and options and expands them against the blossoming dilemmas of a nation divided.”

~ D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

A Time to Forget in East Berlin is a dream-like interlude of love and passion in the paranoid and violent life of a Cold War spy. The meticulous research is evident on every page, and Fewston’s elegant prose, reminiscent of novels from a bygone era, enhances the sensation that this is a book firmly rooted in another time.”

~ Matthew Harffy, prolific writer & best-selling historical fiction author of the “Bernicia Chronicles” series

“Vivid, nuanced, and poetic…” “Fewston avoids familiar plot elements of espionage fiction, and he is excellent when it comes to emotional precision and form while crafting his varied cast of characters.” “There’s a lot to absorb in this book of hefty psychological and philosophical observations and insights, but the reader who stays committed will be greatly rewarded.”

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GOLD Winner in the 2020 Human Relations Indie Book Awards for Contemporary Realistic Fiction

FINALIST in the SOUTHWEST REGIONAL FICTION category of the 14th Annual National Indie Excellence 2020 Awards (NIEA)

“Readers of The Catcher in the Rye and similar stories will relish the astute, critical inspection of life that makes Little Hometown, America a compelling snapshot of contemporary American life and culture.”

“Fewston employs a literary device called a ‘frame narrative’ which may be less familiar to some, but allows for a picture-in-picture result (to use a photographic term). Snapshots of stories appear as parts of other stories, with the introductory story serving as a backdrop for a series of shorter stories that lead readers into each, dovetailing and connecting in intricate ways.”

~ D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

“The American novelist CG FEWSTON tells a satisfying tale, bolstered by psychology and far-ranging philosophy, calling upon Joseph Campbell, J. D. Salinger, the King James Bible, and Othello.”

“In this way, the author lends intellectual heft to a family story, exploring the ‘purity’ of art, the ‘corrupting’ influences of publishing, the solitary artist, and the messy interconnectedness of human relationships.”

“Fewston’s lyrical, nostalgia-steeped story is told from the perspective of a 40-year-old man gazing back on events from his 1980s Texas childhood…. the narrator movingly conveys and interprets the greater meanings behind childhood memories.”

“The novel’s focus on formative childhood moments is familiar… the narrator’s lived experiences come across as wholly personal, deeply felt, and visceral.”

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cg fewston

American Novelist CG FEWSTON

 

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This is my good friend, Nicolasa (Nico) Murillo, CRC, who is a professional chef & a wellness mentor. I’ve known her since childhood & I’m honored to share her story with you. In life, we all have ups & downs, some far more extreme than others. Much like in Canada, in America, the legalization of marijuana has become a national movement, which includes safe & legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use & research for all.

“This is a wellness movement,” Nico explains. The wellness movement is focused on three specific areas: information, encouragement, & accountability.

In these stressful & unprecedented times, it makes good sense to promote & encourage the state or condition of being in good physical & mental health.

To learn more you can visit: Americans For Safe Access & Texans for Safe Access, ASA (if you are in Texas).

The mission of Americans for Safe Access (ASA) is to ensure safe and legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use and research.

Link: https://www.safeaccessnow.org/

TEXANS FOR SAFE ACCESS ~ share the mission of their national organization, Americans for Safe Access (ASA), which is to ensure safe and legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use and research, for all Texans.

Link: https://txsafeaccess.org/about-1

Stay safe & stay happy. God bless.

 

Nico Murillo Bio ~ Americans & Texans for Safe Access ~ Medical Cannabis

 

 

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