One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

details

author Gabriel García Márquez published 1967 date start Jan 03, 2023 date read DNF edition ebook

magical realism fantasy historical fiction

review

Stopped at 34%.

I tried. I really really really tried to like this book. I started reading this to participate in r/bookclub for January since I was either not interested in the monthly pick or I had already read them. So, I picked this.

At first, it was charming. A little bit confusing with the names sometimes, so I had to pay a little more attention to it. But coming from a Filipino background, it wasn't really that confusing to me. The "magical realism" of it was really great, and having it contained to the small town of Macondo was really interesting to me.

However. At one point, there just wasn't enough of the magical realism that I liked for me to finish this book. At one point, there were more icks that I just did not like. This is probably a matter of taste, I guess, and from a literary point of view, perhaps it is intentional to show how messed up the Buendia family is. I think I would have appreciated that stuff a little more if there were actual consequences to their actions rather than just it being "that happened" and then moving on.