(This is the entry I meant to post last weekend – I only just realized that it hadn’t been uploaded to my blog as I had thought!)
Cien años de soledad is a book I’ve wanted to read for a while and been interested in, but didn’t really know very much about it, apart from a passing familiarity with Gabriel García Marquez (whose writing I have read in smaller excerpts in other Spanish classes) and the novel’s lofty reputation as an award-winning, much-acclaimed masterpiece. Not only did it win the Nobel Prize, but even Oprah has endorsed it!
As much as I am looking forward to getting into this story, I am tentative about it and I know it will be difficult (but hopefully rewarding) reading for several reasons. The fluid nature of time in the narrative is a difficult, but also fascinating aspect of the novel. Also, I am already having trouble keeping the characters’ names straight – looking at the family tree, there’s José Arcadio Buendía, José Arcadio, Arcadio, Aureliano Buendía, Aureliano José . . . it’s very confusing already even at this early point in the novel.
