One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The bookstore’s aircon blew at full blast and the weather outside is stormy with a sliver of sunshine at the horizon when I picked this particular book amongst hundreds of books lined up side by side in the store.
OK, I made the stormy weather up :-P the weather was fine and I was pleasantly surprised (priceless moments) as I shopped for books :-)

Anyway, back to the book review :-)
When I read the opening of the book entitled “One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez”, I was mesmerized. The opening lines are rather “flavourful”, which, I take as a beginning of a great story ahead.

I read the novel with gusto until I reached the part about the 3rd generation of the Buendía family living in a small jungle settlement (which eventually grew in size and prosperity) called Macondo; founded by their patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía.

After that, I closed the book gently, threw it on the table, lay down on my bed and slept off.

When I woke up, I don’t even want to touch the book anymore. In fact, this book will have the honour of being placed amongst my list of unfinished books. Why? (do allow me to explain again :-P)

Cos I find that the story is mundane, boring and repetitive; so much so that it felt as if I’m listening to never ending trance music.

Even the very sentence “…as Arcadio/Aureliano faced the firing squad...” was repeatedly mentioned throughout the course of the story-telling.

When I said I’ve reached the story about the 3rd generation, it is not over yet, no no no, in fact, “One Hundred Years of Solitude” is about SEVEN GENERATIONS altogether, and truth to be told, I'm happy I stopped reading after the 3rd generation cos I don't think I can last till the 7th :-P

It is essentially about the patriarch and his group of explorers leaving their hometown and journeying thru thick jungles before they decide to establish a small settlement by the body of water, way out of the closest civilisation. After that, strange and unusual events happened repeatedly throughout the establishment, often inflicting misfortunes to José’s family first before it spread to the rest of the community.

I don’t know about the rest of the readers because some people claim that they had life changing experience after reading this book. Others associated this book with Colombia’s progress in broader perspective.

But as for me, I find this book a “tough meat to chew on”; hence, I don’t enjoy reading this book as much as I wanted/tried to.

P/S: Make no mistake; because the writer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a 1982 Nobel Prize winner for Literature; thus, he has his share of solid fans and critics. I would consider myself as a critic and not a fan for sure.


Personal rating: N/A

Cons:
1) N/A

Pros:
1) N/A