Amazon.com
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
It is typical of Gabriel García Márquez that it will be many pages before his narrative circles back to the ice, and many chapters before the hero of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Buendía, stands before the firing squad. In between, he recounts such wonders as an entire town struck with insomnia, a woman who ascends to heaven while hanging laundry, and a suicide that defies the laws of physics:
A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room, went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendía house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlor, hugging the walls so as not to stain the rugs, went on to the other living room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-room table, went along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under Amaranta's chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson to Aureliano José, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where Úrsula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread.
"Holy Mother of God!" Úrsula shouted.
The story follows 100 years in the life of Macondo, a village founded by José Arcadio Buendía and occupied by descendants all sporting variations on their progenitor's name: his sons, José Arcadio and Aureliano, and grandsons, Aureliano José, Aureliano Segundo, and José Arcadio Segundo. Then there are the women--the two Úrsulas, a handful of Remedios, Fernanda, and Pilar--who struggle to remain grounded even as their menfolk build castles in the air. If it is possible for a novel to be highly comic and deeply tragic at the same time, then One Hundred Years of Solitude does the trick. Civil war rages throughout, hearts break, dreams shatter, and lives are lost, yet the effect is literary pentimento, with sorrow's outlines bleeding through the vibrant colors of García Márquez's magical realism. Consider, for example, the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar, whom José Arcadio Buendía has killed in a fight. So lonely is the man's shade that it haunts Buendía's house, searching anxiously for water with which to clean its wound. Buendía's wife, Úrsula, is so moved that "the next time she saw the dead man uncovering the pots on the stove she understood what he was looking for, and from then on she placed water jugs all about the house."
With One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez introduced Latin American literature to a world-wide readership. Translated into more than two dozen languages, his brilliant novel of love and loss in Macondo stands at the apex of 20th-century literature. --Alix Wilber
Book Description
One of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world, and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize-winning career.
The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.
Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility -- the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth -- these universal themes dominate the novel. Whether he is describing an affair of passion or the voracity of capitalism and the corruption of government, Gabriel García Márquez always writes with the simplicity, ease, and purity that are the mark of a master.
Alternately reverential and comical, One Hundred Years of Solitude weaves the political, personal, and spiritual to bring a new consciousness to storytelling. Translated into dozens of languages, this stunning work is no less than an accounting of the history of the human race.
Customer Reviews:
Reminds Me of America's Keenest City, by Mongo.......2007-10-06
This is a marvelous book that remind's me in both style and message of America's Keenest City, by Mongo. I would recommend that if you like Marquez, you should read Mongo also. Both books use surrealism to expose political and cultural phenomena. Marquez enlightens us about Latin America and Mongo about North America.
"...because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude do not have a second opportunity on earth".......2007-09-12
Reading ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE is like discovering the world for the very first time. This discovery is experianced anew each time one reads it (for me, this is the eighth time). The Book -- yes, with the capital B, because it has the aura of sacredness about it -- the Book, I say, is an epiphany of both the familiar and unfamiliar; Macondo is a universe in which we have always lived, and yet one that we could never have imagined on our own. One compares it not with the other great works of modern literature, but with the myths and legends that go back to the beginning of Time, the Illiads and the Mahabharatas. It evokes the timeless sense of having always existed. It comes across not as the creation of a single man, but as the product of a cosmic consciousness. Garcia Marquez seems to have dreamed this rather than written it. Each page has the evanescence of a dream, a touch-me-not quickness, a water-colour transparency, abstraction and fluidity. Don't expect the characters to be fully fleshed-out three-dimensional figures; here they are quickly drawn archetypes who seem insubstantial but, paradoxically, also irresistable. They flit in and out of a century of wonderful dreams towards the final moment of self-annihilation, when Aureliano reads in the Sanskrit parchments the destruction of Macondo foretold, at the very instant when the cataclysmic winds bear down upon the town to wipe it off the face of the earth. So ends humanity and all Creation. In Marquez's vision, the earth is a rock of solitude in the cosmos; and man a speck of solitude on earth. And when Marquez says in the final sentence "...because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude do not have a second opportunity on earth", isn't this an almost oracular prophecy of the fate of all mankind ?
U will never read anything like it.......2007-08-02
I read One Hudred Years of SOlitude like 6 times over the years, and it still holds its magic and atmosphyre. Just an unbelievable classic. It feels weary and long at moments, also distracting at moments but its originality and magical ventures arise and fill the soul. Must have.
a great book but..........2007-06-25
a great book but it can be a little decieving. It will be different than anything you have ever read... and that can make it a little troubling... and tedious at times, however when you finish youl feel great about it and love it. so there ya go.
check it out.
Undeniably amazing!.......2007-06-22
Though it is arrogant and superficial to make such claims, I would wager that this is one of the greatest books ever written. It is difficult to say anything about Garcia Marquez's magnum opus that hasn't been said-- One Hundred Years of Solitude is an incredible tale of the human condition, and Garcia Marquez perhaps the greatest prophet of literature since Shakespeare.
Many readers will find it difficult, as the names (especially to Americans like me!) can sound very similar, and are frequently exactly the same. It will take much flipping back to the family tree at the front of the novel to make it through, and quite a bit of effort remembering each individual character's attributes and story, but trust me and the thousands of other Garcia Marquez admirers-- it's well worth it!
My only wish is that I spoke fluent enough Spanish to read this in its original language!
Book Description
One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women -- brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul -- this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.
Customer Reviews:
A masterpiece- but of what?.......2007-10-07
When you purchase and read this book you will be exposed to many wonderful and fanciful narrative techniques. There is no arguing that the way in which the latter chapters of One Hundred Years of Solitude mirror the first ones is very skilfully done, or that there is a lot of depth and reflection on the subject of solitude in what's actually a novel.
But buyer beware- a book is composed of both technique and content, and the content is not up to par. One Hundred Years of Solitude narrates the fictional tale of a family which lives in a small south american village in the midst of nowhere. It's the fatalistic and depressing story of the south america that has-been, with all the usual low-lifes from corrupt banana-republic officials to self-styled revolutionary "coronels". It's a tale of two-dimensional, impulse-driven characters with no depth and little to make them memorable or likeable. Most of all, it's a tale in which hope and happiness and most that is good in human beings is absent, and the few moments in which they seem to appear are illusory. Think of it as a Lord of the Flies but with a less interesting, adult, south american cast- and written with a very clever structure.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a talented and powerful author. But much of what he writes about is distasteful (his latest book concerns an elderly man enjoying child prostitution), and in the case of this novel both the characterization and ultimate message are downright repelling. I finished reading it against my better judgment. I would only recommend this novel to literary critics and others like them who derive most of their enjoyment from the technique of a book rather than its contents. For a more palatable study of themes like the darkness of the human heart, I suggest reading Joseph Conrad instead.
Like America's Keenest City.......2007-10-06
I had trouble following the book at first, but eventually caught on to the message. I recently read another book, America's Keenest City, by Mongo which reads the same for me. Both Marquez and Mongo use bizarre characters and situations to hide their true commentary on their respective societies. Marquez writes about Latin America and Mongo writes about North America. I would recommend both books as essential reading and would suggest reading Mongo if you enjoy reading Marquez.
One Hundred Years of Solitude: an enduring masterpiece........2007-09-26
There is nothing I can say about this novel that hasn't already been said before, so let me just add one more voice to the choir already praising One Hundred Years of Solitude. Colombian novelist, Gabriel Márquez (1927) received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. Considered his masterpiece, his second novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad) has sold 36 million copies since it was published in 1967. In addition, Márquez won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize in 1972 for the novel. It follows seven generations of the Buendía family, who survive Civil War (the Thousand Days War), massacre, heavy rains, death, and solitude in the fictional South American village Macondo for one hundred years, at which point the entire town is obliterated from the world. In his novel, Márquez brilliantly weaves together elements of history, fiction, politics, economics, and magical realism to explore love, loss, and what it means to be human. For me, this novel will always be an example of why reading great literature is such a worthwhile experience.
G. Merritt
Yira Prado.......2007-09-26
Yira Prado gave this book to me and I couldn't stop reading. It's an amazing book from an amazing girl with good taste!
"..Because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude do not have a second opportunity on earth".......2007-09-12
Reading ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE is like discovering the world for the very first time. This discovery is experianced anew each time one reads it (for me, this is the eighth time). The Book -- yes, with the capital B, because it has the aura of sacredness about it -- the Book, I say, is an epiphany of both the familiar and unfamiliar; Macondo is a universe in which we have always lived, and yet one that we could never have imagined on our own. One compares it not with the other great works of modern literature, but with the myths and legends that go back to the beginning of Time, the Illiads and the Mahabharatas. It evokes the timeless sense of having always existed. It comes across not as the creation of a single man, but as the product of a cosmic consciousness. Garcia Marquez seems to have dreamed this rather than written it. Each page has the evanescence of a dream, a touch-me-not quickness, a water-colour transparency, abstraction and fluidity. Don't expect the characters to be fully fleshed-out three-dimensional figures; here they are quickly drawn archetypes who seem insubstantial but, paradoxically, also irresistable. They flit in and out of a century of wonderful dreams towards the final moment of self-annihilation, when Aureliano reads in the Sanskrit parchments the destruction of Macondo foretold, at the very instant when the cataclysmic winds bear down upon the town to wipe it off the face of the earth. So ends humanity and all Creation. In Marquez's vision, the earth is a rock of solitude in the cosmos; and man a speck of solitude on earth. And when Marquez says in the final sentence "...because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude do not have a second opportunity on earth", isn't this an almost oracular prophecy of the fate of all mankind ?
Amazon.com
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
It is typical of Gabriel García Márquez that it will be many pages before his narrative circles back to the ice, and many chapters before the hero of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Buendía, stands before the firing squad. In between, he recounts such wonders as an entire town struck with insomnia, a woman who ascends to heaven while hanging laundry, and a suicide that defies the laws of physics:
A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room, went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendía house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlor, hugging the walls so as not to stain the rugs, went on to the other living room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-room table, went along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under Amaranta's chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson to Aureliano José, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where Úrsula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread.
"Holy Mother of God!" Úrsula shouted.
The story follows 100 years in the life of Macondo, a village founded by José Arcadio Buendía and occupied by descendants all sporting variations on their progenitor's name: his sons, José Arcadio and Aureliano, and grandsons, Aureliano José, Aureliano Segundo, and José Arcadio Segundo. Then there are the women--the two Úrsulas, a handful of Remedios, Fernanda, and Pilar--who struggle to remain grounded even as their menfolk build castles in the air. If it is possible for a novel to be highly comic and deeply tragic at the same time, then One Hundred Years of Solitude does the trick. Civil war rages throughout, hearts break, dreams shatter, and lives are lost, yet the effect is literary pentimento, with sorrow's outlines bleeding through the vibrant colors of García Márquez's magical realism. Consider, for example, the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar, whom José Arcadio Buendía has killed in a fight. So lonely is the man's shade that it haunts Buendía's house, searching anxiously for water with which to clean its wound. Buendía's wife, Úrsula, is so moved that "the next time she saw the dead man uncovering the pots on the stove she understood what he was looking for, and from then on she placed water jugs all about the house."
With One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez introduced Latin American literature to a world-wide readership. Translated into more than two dozen languages, his brilliant novel of love and loss in Macondo stands at the apex of 20th-century literature. --Alix Wilber
Book Description
Probably García Márquez finest and most famous work. One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of a mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, alive with unforgettable men and women, and with a truth and understanding that strike the soul. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece of the art of fiction.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating, but depressing!.......2007-06-08
Captivated by Love In The Time Of Cholera, I had to have this book to continue with the works of this author. Couldn't put it down, then struggled with overwhelming gloom after finishing it. He pulls the reader into the tale; you smell, touch, feel, and live the moment. Unfortunately, the moment is a bad place to be. Not for the faint of heart.
Visual exercise.......2007-05-26
We took turns reading this book aloud to each other. Each night, just a few pages. Nice escape from tv and videos.
good, but not spectacular.......2007-05-13
Let me first say: This book, compared to most other 20th-century classics (Joyce, Mann, Proust, Kafka,...), is NOT a difficult read! Its actually easily accessible. What are people reading when they have problems with this one?
"One Hundred Years of Solitude" is the story of a family and a city, and, of course, a tale of the whole human history. In other words, this is a book about everything. This is usually not good, because very many authors cannot handle a very wide focus. But Marquez is a very good writer. There are so many characters and plots in this book that many writers would have problems to organize it without losing focus. Marquez however manages to finish every subplot, to relate it to the other plots, and to keep track of all of his characters.
The book is the strongest if it describes family life and the weaknesses of its characters. Here, the book offers a lot of wisdom. Its much less convincing when it becomes political. I don't like political books in general, and its no different for this one. Being Fidel Castro's best buddy, Marquez cannot resist to bring in some anti-Americanism (I am not American and certainly not biased!) and anti-imperialism (the evil is an american Banana Company, and its arrival is basically the beginning of the end). I find that a little "cheap", and I don't exactly see what it adds to the story.
Everyone interested in serious literature should certainly read this one. Its a very good starting point for those who have not read a lot of literature before, because as I already mentioned, its easily accessible without being shallow.
Hardcover Book.......2007-05-13
This is a wonderful but complex book.
However, I was surprised that Amazon would send a book with a library stamp on the outside pages, as well as inside, wothout advising beforehand.
Good book, but not worth re-reading.......2007-04-03
The book is indeed a masterpiece and the story is good, but it can be monotonous at times. There's too much sex in the book for my taste (nearly every 20 pages!), and the author presents an overly pessimistic view of humanity, as most of the characters are driven by sex, food, and egocentrism. It was an interesting read, but I wouldn't read it again.
Book Description
One of the most influential literary works of our time, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a dazzling and original achievement by the masterful Gabriel García Márquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women -- brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul -- this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.
Customer Reviews:
Amazing!.......2007-09-13
Marquez book's have always amazed me, the way he has to transport you through the pages of the book to a world full of imaginative, mystery, laughs, its a book to read more than one time. Highly recommended.
pointless.......2007-08-25
This is one of the hardest to read most pointless books I have ever had the misfortune of trying to read.
Creative Mastery.......2006-09-05
I truly cannot remember the last time I have read something so imaginitive and insightful. While this book is sure to make you laugh, the wisdom imparted through hysterical and fantastic happenings is almost chilling at times. This book reminds me of Voltaire's "Candide," in that it takes a satirical tone towards the human race. A piece of advice: Definitely read this book at a time when you won't have to take too much time away from it. The character list is long, and it can be difficult to become reoriented. A perfect vacation read!
Book Description
Casebooks in Criticism offer analytical and interpretive frameworks for understanding key texts in world literature and film. Each casebook reprints documents relating to a work's historical context and reception, presents the best critical studies, and, when possible, features an interview with the author. Accessible and informative to scholars, students, and nonspecialist readers alike, the books in this series provide a wide range of critical and informative commentaries on major texts. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude is arguably the most important novel in twentieth-century Latin American literature. This Casebook features ten critical articles on Garcia Marquez's great work. Carefully selected from the most important work on the novel over the past three decades, they include pieces by Carlos Fuentes, Iris Zavala, James Higgins, Jean Franco, Michael Wood, and Gene H. Bell-Villada. Among the intriguing aspects of the work discussed are its mythic dimension, its "magical" side, its representations of women, its relationship with past chronicles of exploration and discovery, its portrayals of Western power and imperialism, its astounding diffusion throughout the globe and the media, and its simple truth-telling, its fidelity to the tangled history of Latin America. The book incorporates several theoretical approaches--historical, feminist, postcolonial; the first English translation of Fuentes's renowned, oft-cited, eight page meditation on the work; a general introduction; and a 1982 interview with Garcia Marquez.
Customer Reviews:
This book is a treasure........2005-03-26
This is my favorite book. I have read it so many times I have lost the count, and each time I feel and live it and I can't put it down. It's the brightest jewel in the Latin American literature. This is a jealous book, it's not for the people who "act" as if they were reading, while thinking of something else. It demands your full attention. If you have trouble following a complex story line, I recomend you to read it while keeping a pencil and paper handy so you can draw the Buendia's family tree. It will help you to follow the story. That's what I told my mom to do and it worked out right. If you are feeling adventurous and want to read a story full of life, passion, death, and love, this is the book for you. I have never ever found another book so human inspite of being magical. I invite you to read it, if you really follow this book, you won't regret the hours you spent immersed in it.
Helpful, but like so many anthologies, uneven.......2003-03-24
This book cannot fail to be of use to anyone trying to gain a fuller understanding of García Márquez's ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE. Although not useless to advanced readers, the collection is explicitly targeted at readers approaching the text for the first time. I imagine they had this in mind as a college text to accompany the novel.
Anthologies are almost always uneven, with some essays justifying the cost of the book, and others that seem to either muddy the water or just waste one's time. This collection is no exception. Several of the essays are superb. In general, as the editor acknowledges in the Introduction, the clearest, most helpful essays are those by scholars working in Great Britain. The least helpful are those scholars--either American or Latin American--in the grips of literary theory. One of the essays is so densely written that nearly the entire piece consists of buzz words from cultural studies and comparative literature. I can't imagine many college level readers having the background to penetrate such an essay, while many advanced scholars will recognize that such an essay covers up lack of content by an excess of lingo.
Nonetheless, by picking and choosing, one will gain a great deal of help in reading García Márquez's great novel. There is a good deal of helpful biographical and historical information, as well as a number of excellent critical pieces analyzing various aspects of the book. I found the essays in the first two thirds of the book to be more helpful than those in the last third, with some exceptions in each section.
And yes, the font is small, but I didn't have the trouble reading the book that the first reviewer had.
Excellent material.......2002-11-18
Excellent material but the print is too small to read without strain even with glasses.
![One Hundred Years of Solitude [Cliffs Notes Study] (Notes)](http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/31TWR4DHVYL.jpg)
Average customer rating:
- Good, but overrated work of fiction
- epic voyage
- The best book ever
- 10,000 years in print
- The best piece of literature I have ever enjoyed.
|
One Hundred Years of Solitude [Cliffs Notes Study] (Notes)
Carl Senna
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Spark Notes 100 Years of Solitude
ASIN: 0822009641 |
Book Description
This history of a family is an amalgamation of Garcia Marquez's shorter fiction, American fiction, biblical parables, and quixotic experiences of his own unique life story. His is a community crowded with people and personal narratives, confusion, and progressive decline. The novel is a journey through life, caught on paper, so real that you'll swear you can smell it.
Customer Reviews:
Good, but overrated work of fiction.......2003-12-01
To read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's masterwork is to confront one's demons and one's devices in a monumentally singular reading experience. What does that mean? I have no idea, but I thought it sounded good when I wrote it.
Seriously though, you could do worse than to read this book. Although, it is overrated, and at times, you will think it is pretentiously boring. Still, there were enough good stretches of narrative beauty to overtake the sometimes tiresome ponderousness of the story.
epic voyage.......2002-10-08
One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of those few novels that is magical, beautiful and can capture the very kernel of mind to wake you up from the reality of Latin American world. The writer questions the propriety of the superstructure of the governance of mankind and the whole lot of theories and principles which are supposed to deliver the mankind from the drudgeries and miseries but which do not.To read this novel is to experience darkness and the failure of mankind.
The best book ever.......2001-12-18
This was really the best book I ever read. The non-standard use of time and space concepts is amazing. I read it in two languages (both translated) and I started to study Spanish just to read this book in original. Everytime I read this book it gives me a completely different view.
10,000 years in print.......1999-09-24
In 10,000 years, when most of the world's literature is lost and forgotten, this book will still be read. Like "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Les Miserables", I will read it again and again until my eyesite fails. Then my childen will read it aloud to me. Then I can die.
The best piece of literature I have ever enjoyed........1999-06-12
Turn off the television and forget the stupid movies. You've had enough TV for a lifetime. This book will take you where you want to go...an escape in fascinating literature, only to come home to reality and beauty and the unique bizarreness of life--in touch with the human race! From the very first page--profound reading. Marquez is truly a literary genius. I positively loved this book.
Average customer rating:
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Gabriel García Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude (Landmarks of World Literature)
Michael Wood
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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ASIN: 0521316928 |
Book Description
One Hundred Years of Solitude is perhaps the most important landmark of the so-called ‘Boom’ in contemporary Latin American fiction. Published in 1967, the novel was an instant success, running to hundreds of editions, winning four international prizes, and being translated into 27 languages. In 1982, its author received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Michael Wood places the novel in the context of modern Colombia’s violent history, and helps the reader to explore the rich and complex vision of the world which Garcia Marquez presents in it. Close reference is made to the text itself (in English translation), and there is a guide to further reading.
Book Description
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of the most influential Latin American writers of the twentieth century. His unique literary creativity is rooted in the history of the region, with all its social and political implications.
In this beautifully written examination of Garcia Marquez and his work, Gene Bell-Villada traces the major forces that have shaped the Colombian novelist and describes his life, his personality, and his political opinions. He considers Garcia Marquez's place in world literature and analyzes his short fiction and all of his novels from the great and complex One Hundred Years of Solitude—a cultural phenomenon the likes of which we have seldom seen—through Love in the Time of Cholera. He shows why Garcia Marquez has achieved a confluence of high art and popular success that is virtually unique in the twentieth century.
Bell-Villada examines the narrative works of Garcia Marquez for their historical and human content, for their literary technique and structure, and for their expert use of fantasy, ribaldry, humor, and satire. He describes Garcia Marquez as a global phenomenon and as a local boy, as a Nobel Laureate and as a Latin American Everyman, as a political writer and as a novelist of love.
The book will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers—generalists who enjoy his novels, teachers and students, and literary specialists and Latin Americanists investigating the culture and politics of the region.
Customer Reviews:
If you love Garcia Marquez...you'll adore this book.......2002-12-01
Gene H. Bell-Villada won me over in the first few pages of "García Márquez: The Man and His Works" when he wrote, "to this day I have not forgotten the sheer excitement I felt on first reading Cien años de soledad in 1968, and my utter bedazzlement on reaching its concluding paragraph. Since then the idea of writing on the great South American author for his North American devotees has been one small dream of mine."
To that end, Bell-Villada, a professor of romance languages at Williams College does not disappoint. This comprehensive and engaging book is a well-written study of García Márquez and his work. The research in this two-part book is meticulous. Part one is background on Colombia, the writer's life and his politics. Part two is a stimulating history of Macondo and a strong examination of the works. Both parts are filled with valuable information that helps explain Colombia and its long history of violence.
Bell-Villada is a good teacher. He patiently goes into great detail describing the expert use of fantasy, humor and satire. He also examines literary technique and structure in a simplistic fashion. The bottom line of this beautiful book is that it enhances the understanding, appreciation, and respect of the work of Gabriel García Márquez...the greatest living novelist in the world.
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