Something Unfamiliar, Something Strange, Something Fearful and Something we do not know is the Latin America/South America, to say more appropriately the culture of Latin Americas. Steeped and rooted in Spanish and Roman traditions, they have their own culture – a mixture of both. For thousands of years this continent was not paid attention to and Garcia Marquez’s title One Hundred Years of Solitude goes well to say the life and struggles of those interesting people.
The novel scans a century, even more than a century – from the beginning of the little village Macondo (A place where Marquez himself comes from). The portrayal pf the family of Buendias is incredible and the whole story revolves around them. The novel does not present itself in linear form – Time is distorted here in the novel – some of the characters do not even sense Time like Aureliano who locks up himself in a room and makes Gold fishes for no specified purpose. As far as the morals are concerned, Marquez portrays it as individual choice – In the novel one finds fifty year old man marrying a fifteen year old girl, incest is very common through the generation even after repeated warning of incestuous child being born with pig’s tails, prostitution is very common, scenes of women locking themselves in a room for hundred years, continual sewing of shroud, girls walking naked and suddenly flying high and disappearing (Remedios, the beauty), stark description of day to day affairs, the political and social scene of country’s invasion (Columbia), especially rise of communism and also religious factions. It is difficult to narrate the story or to write it in a time-processed manner. Do read to take glimpse of what this novel is all about.
No wonder, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a typical post-modern novel – depicting the power of language and its various interpretations. Magical Realism is predominant throughout the novel – where imaginary things delve into reality. One finds such instances in the novel when Gypsies come to Macondo and tell things as though they are supernatural, the very fact that the town is isolated and disconnected is a magically real in the novel, the flight of Remedios the beauty is a fairy tale amidst suffering, sometimes even dead people seemingly alive – in the novel one seems to be questioning, is it real? All the characters in the novel are individual types – none of them fit into society and they also seem like a distorted pictures or portraits.
Solitude, though different from loneliness through a hundred years would never be pleasing. The family almost perishes, even at the end incest happening (incest shows that the family cannot trust outsiders). It cannot survive through one hundred years of solitude.
What makes one write such a novel, even think of Rushdie? Why are the abstract paintings, the post-modern novels, symbolism etc becoming famous? Don’t you think the world around us has become meaningless, may be because of which we admire or we are made to admire things we don’t understand or it should be the other way round – that all that is in the world today is abstract as an abstract painting or a novel?
One Hundred Years of Solitude – can anyone survive ?