Kimber Silver's Reviews > One Hundred Years of Solitude

"Then he made one last effort to search in his heart for the place where his affection had rotted away, and he could not find it."
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

This dazzling tale of the Buendía family spans generations. It is a rich account of people carving out a life for themselves in Macondo, a town founded by the patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía.

"At that time Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point."

José Arcadio Buendía is a corker! He is so hell-bent on making a wondrous discovery that he fritters away the family money on inventions purchased from a wandering troop of gypsies who miraculously show up in Macondo on occasion. Thankfully, his levelheaded wife (and first cousin), Úrsula Iguarán, works herself to the bone to make sure the family won’t starve to death. During this fantastical journey, wars were fought, fortunes won and lost, and hearts wholly decimated, leaving the jilted lovers dead in a flower bed. It must be said that the Buendia family’s foolish choices are an endless source of drama and entertainment.

"Look at the mess we've got ourselves into," Colonel Aureliano Buendia said at that time, "just because we invited a gringo to eat some bananas."

I’ve read Márquez before and loved his work, but this was a whole other animal! He expertly blurs the line between magic and realism so smoothly that it feels as if he was creating cinematic electricity! The horror is tempered by a big dose of whimsy that had me laughing through my tears. The writing is agonizingly beautiful, and each character exquisitely drawn.

In a lifetime of reading, there are only a few extraordinary novels that touch the very fabric of a person’s being—For me, One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of those. I was transported into Márquez’s dreamlike creation, and for the past few days had forgotten the real world and lived entirely in his. My only regret is that it all had to come to an end.

So, if you are looking for an epic novel to steal your breath away, look no further!

Thank you, Kevin Ansbro. Your outstanding review pointed the way to this magnificent read!