View original postI read your review and think it was well-written. My problem is that absolutely nothing in the novel seemed remotely interesting to me. South America is a place that I realize has a history, but outside the pre-Columbian cultures nothing there excites me in any fashion. It would be like someone asking if I wanted to see unpainted pottery fragments from Iceland in the 17th Century, or a 1000-page book on the history of a small town in Ohio. It's bland and for some reason it seems cut off from the grand sweep of world history and culture.
And for me, I have several reasons for being interested in the region and its histories. Knowing some of the allusions made this story more meaningful for me and I think that goes some way in shaping attitudes toward the novel. But yes, it's not for everyone.
View original postKeeping that in mind, I then found the style to be stilted and artificial. It's as though he's trying and failing to be funny in a bittersweet way, which makes the book somewhat painful to read. The characters are largely unsympathetic and they're not really related because it seems like every child is really the result of some sort of adultery or fornication that severs any blood ties with the original family.
I didn't think much of the humor, likely because I thought it was more of a tragic, deeply sad tale of violence intertwined with various forms of solitude. The characters, arrogant and close-minded as most of them were, I believe were meant to represent some of the worse elements of Colombian culture and in that regard, being "unsympathetic" might be what he aimed for there.
View original postFor me, the end result was a cold, dead work that I couldn't relate to at any level - I didn't like the setting, the style, the characters or the story. The experience of reading the book was probably about as interesting for me as it would have been if I spent a hundred years in solitude.
Ha! 
View original postAs they say, though, de gustibus et coloribus...
Indeed. I suspect we're just two ends of the spectrum here when it comes to critiquing the novel.
Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie
Je suis méchant.
Je suis méchant.
So I finally got around to reviewing Gabriel García Márquez's Cien años de soledad/OHYS...
- 26/04/2014 12:04:43 AM
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I just couldn't stand the novel.
- 28/04/2014 05:34:44 PM
390 Views
Indeed, tastes do differ
- 02/05/2014 02:56:20 AM
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