Third reading
This story of the rise and fall of the Buendia family through seven generations differs from most family sagas in that it is written in the style of magic realism, of which Columbian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez is the acknowledged master. Thus we have supernatural events such as flying carpets, levitating priests, and ghosts mixed in with realistic political events such as civil wars, rigged elections, and a massacre of strikers by government troops (all based on the history of Columbia). Along with these seemingly disparate elements, Marquez tells a page-turning story about the loves, hates, and follies of the family which presided over the founding and the demise of an isolated village. The seamless blend of the magical and the mundane makes this an unforgettable reading experience.
The plot is too complicated and encompasses too much to summarize in any understandable way. It begins when Jose Arcadio Bundia founds the village after receiving a vision and ends when the last Bundia is eaten alive by ants.
The only ways I could have appreciated this novel more is if I knew more about Columbian history and if I were capable of reading it in the original Spanish. Otherwise it is perfection, at least for those with the kind of mind which can embrace this style of writing. I know some people only want to read super-realistic novels, and this is not for them.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. I enjoyed his novel Love in the Time of Cholera even more than this one.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment