One Hundred Years of Solitude (Oprah's Classics Book Club Selections, #3) (Perennial Classics) (P.S.)

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

In the book which put South America on the literary map, Marquez tells the haunting story of a community lost in the depths of that almighty continent where time passes slowly. A poetic masterpiece whose rich and powerful language easily survives the translation from Spanish, this is the most celebrated text of magic realism, the literary movement which has dominated world fiction for the last thirty years.

• ISBN10: 0060883286
• ISBN13: 9780060883287
• Publish Date: 1 February 2006 (first published 25 June 1970)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 448
• Language: English

Reviews

[ibeforem]

I’m really not sure what to say about this book. In truth, I didn’t finish it, but, I did make it about 75% of the way through. I just got tired of it. It’s an interesting and original story, but horribly confusing at times. Most of the men are named after each other, so I was constantly trying to figure out which person was being spoken about, and how old they were. I didn’t even mind the mystical elements, or the more unsavory ones (such as one of the men marrying a girl who was essentially a child of 10 or 11). It just got to be too much. I’m glad I gave it a shot, but I’m not sorry I didn’t finish.

[jamiereadthis]

It’s been nearly a year now, but it was like this: my magical little bookstore man, both of us in the middle of the shelves, breaking off conversation now and then to tug at the spines of old friends.

He tapped there, Love in the Time of Cholera, and I smiled, nodding. He then tugged at its next door neighbor, this book, laying his hand to the cover. “I have always meant to read this too,” he said, and when I said the same— had never read it, always meant to— he looked up grinning. “You know, my dear, I do believe we are leading parallel lives.” He chuckled, then— shelved it again, fondly.

“It’s waiting for me,” he said, a sigh. He looked to me to make sure I understood: I did, exactly. “We’re patient, it will come. In the meantime, it’s nice to know it’s waiting, isn’t it— for both of us.”

And now, all I want to do is search every bookshop high and low until I shake him out again, press a worn copy in his hands and tell him to read, read, please don’t wait another minute. This is the book written for him most of all.