reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (08/27/84)
I enthusiatically recommend Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of
Solitude", which I have just finished reading. I had been putting off
reading it for some ten years, as I expected it would be rather dull and
difficult. I was wrong on both counts. It is fascinating and fluid.
Garcia Marquez, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982, largely
on the strength of this book, has fashioned an intriguing tale of the
hundred year long history of a mythical Columbian city, Macondo. This
history is inextricably linked to the history of its founding family,
the Buendias. I suspect that, on one level, the book is an allegory on
the history of South American countries, but I am unsure, being ignorant
of South American history. It doesn't matter much, because the book works
so well on so many other layers.
"One Hundred Years of Solitude" flawlessly combines magic and science, the
mystical and the everyday. The characters are fascinating. Garcia Marquez
has tremendous compassion for them, and manages to make us feel sympathy
even for the most outwardly unlikable of them. He is not interested in heroes
and villains, but in what makes people behave the way they do. The book's
simple yet powerful style overwhelmed me. I recommend it without reservation.
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher