One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Translator: Gregory Rabassa
ISBN: 0679444653 ISBN13: 978-0679444657
Pages: 448
Genre: Fiction, Magical Realism
Publisher: Everyman's Library (Hardcover, October 17, 1995)
Originally Published: 1967



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Recommended
Immersive
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Wow, this book is beautiful. I can see why it is so often cited as a great book. This is one of the most immersive books that I have read in a long time. The descriptions, the characters, the settings, and everything else all comes together beautifully. Again, I am reading this in translation, so I can't really comment on the original Spanish version, but the English translation here (I'm reading the Everyman's Library edition) is wonderful.

A word of warning, there are a lot of characters in this book. Not only are there are a lot of characters but the character's names are all very similar to one another. The book follows several generations of a family, (which is what makes for the common character naming), rising and falling over the years. This provides for an interesting story line because you follow one family through several generations.

I would recommend getting a character list, perhaps from Sparknotes or the like, which will make it slightly less painful to keep track of all the characters. I made the mistake of thinking that I could keep track of every character and I ended up asking myself, "Okay which one is this again?" Unfortunately, this book is not available as a Kindle edition, because if it was you could use X-Ray to help keep track easier.

This is a heavily character driven book as most of the action takes place in the same locale of Macondo. Marquez does a beautiful job of creating all these generations of characters, giving each a personality, developing their character, and forming character conflicts all of which brings the story together. I highly recommend this book, but be prepared for the long character list.