A Hundred Years of Solitude

This book has to be the most entertaining I have read for World Literature in English as well as the most bizarre. The story follows a family line who were the founders of the imaginary town of Maconco. This novel is written in the style of magical realism so everyday things are paired with the fantastical, such as washing laundry and then being taken by the wind up to heaven. When reading the novel you really just need to go with the flow and not stop to think about how weird or gross some of the events are or you are never going to get through the entire novel. There is a lot of incest, sex with random women, illegitimate children all over the place, and just plain odd stuff.  

I enjoyed the ending of the novel. It came full circle, like Ursula had has been saying the whole novel, back to the gypsies and the scrolls. To be honest at this point and time I was just happy that the book was over, 417 pages of all that nonsense was a little much, but looking back it was a good way to end the novel. I also enjoyed the fact that the thing Ursula feared the most, the dreaded pig tail, was on the child that would have saved the line if he had lived. We talked a lot in class that all the mental instability in the family was actually the pig tail and the child born with the actual tail would have been sane. However you never find out since the father totally abandons the child after the mother's death and the child is eaten by ant (yes you read that right, ants) 

Now the most confusing thing about this novel was that every male in the novel had almost the same name or at least a name close to that of his father. In the first couple of generations it wasn't a huge issue, but with all the children, grand children, and onward it was extremely difficult to remember who belonged to who and which geberation the person belonged to. By the fourth generation I just gave up and kept reading thinking that I would get a marker somewhere to know which person it was. 

Overall it was fun to read, but I don't think I will read it again for a long time. Maybe over the summer if I am truly bored I will go back and take my time reading through it. Rating wise I give it a 3.5 out of 5 due to confusing parts, names, and overall just being much too long. If you are interested in Latin America or magical realism give it a read, but allow yourself time and don't get too frustrated. After a while it will either start making sense or you will just go with the flow.