Up the Creek Book Club
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© 2000 Kathy Craig |
One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
January 2001
Synopsis
"A best seller and critical success in Latin America, Europe, and the United States, 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 Buendia family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death and the tragicomedy of man. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the Buendia family, one sees all mankind, 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, the universal themes, dominate the novel. Whether he is describing an affair of passion or the voracity of capitalism and the corruption of government, Garcia Marquez always writes with the simplicty, ease, and purity that are the mark of a master. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, alive with unforgetable men and women, and with a truth and understanding that strikes the soul, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece of the art of fiction." (Publisher)
Reviews
- "The first piece of literature since The Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race. It takes up not long after Genesis left off and carries through to the air age, reporting on everything that happened in between with more lucidity, wit, wisdom, and poetry than is expected from 100 years of novelists, let alone one man....Mr Garcia Marquez has done nothing less than to create in the reader a sense of all that is profound, meaningful, and meaningless in life." (William Kennedy)
- "It is not easy to describe the techniques and themes of the book without making it sound absurdly complicated, labored and almost impossible to read. In fact, it is none of these things. Though concocted of quirks, ancient mysteries, family secrets and peculiar contradictions, it makes sense and gives pleasure in dozens of immediate ways." (Robert Kiely, Books of the Century, The New York Times)
Book Club Rating and Comments
If you or your book club has read this book and would like to share your comments, please email us at upthecreekbc@yahoo.com.
Other Books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- 'Chronicle of a Death Foretold'
- 'In Evil Hour'
- 'Love in the Time of Cholera'
- 'News of a Kidnapping'
- 'The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor'
- 'Strange Pilgrims: Twelve Stories'