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Hello!

I hope you'll join us for this month's Group Read of Gabriel García Marquez's novel One Hundred Years of Solitude.

I nominated this book for the group read because it has been on my to-be-read shelf for a long time and group reads are perfect opportunities to get through that shelf. I have only heard wonderful things about the book and so my expectations are pretty high.

If you're joining us, please use whatever edition or translation of the text you can get your hands on. My edition is the Perennial Classics edition translated by Gregory Rabassa.

I'll be posting a reading schedule soon. The book doesn't have chapter numbers, but it does have chapter breaks, which is how I'll identify start and stopping points. In the meantime, please introduce yourself if you're planning to participate. If you would like discussion questions that focus on a particular aspect of the text, include those too and I'll make sure they help to shape our discussion. A short word about me: I'm a former college english professor, but I don't want the discussion forum to feel like an english class. If I veer that way too much, someone stop me!

I'm looking forward to this and hope you are to. Let's have a great June group read!

Lisa

Ooh ooh! Me! Me! Call on me! Teacher!! Call on me!! :) (Okay, I can't help it that I kind of like English class settings. I was, after all, an English major :) )

I'll be joining this group read. I'd heard good things about the book, but even though it wasn't on my to-read list, I decided I'd go ahead and read it with the group. It rarely hurts to read a classic.

I received my book yesterday and my jaw dropped at how tiny the print was for such a thick book! There'll be no let up on this one, huh? But I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait to see who else joins us, and what we'll discuss!

Hi, I'd also like to join this group read. I'll get back to you again, when I have the book at hand and don't have to type on mobile.

I'm not ready for a reread but I'll tap in on your discussion. It was a fascinating , multi-layered story.

I'm still waiting for my copy from the library, I'm 4th on the wait list.

Hi Everyone!

I numbered the chapter markers in my book and came up with 20. Does this match what everyone else found in their books?

Here's the reading schedule I have worked out for our June Read of One Hundred Years of Solitude:

June 1-8: Chapters 1-5
June 9-15: Chapters 6-10
June 16-22: Chapters 11-15
June 23-29: Chapters 16-20

I will post new discussion questions on Saturdays, but don't feel limited to the questions that I pose. If you just want to make comments about the book as you read, those are definitely welcome.

For the first week of reading, I think it would be great for everyone to share their first impressions after reading Chapter 1.

Ready? Go!

The GBPL came through. I picked up my copy yesterday, finished my current read this morning and I'm ready to go.

lisa wrote: "Hi Everyone!

I numbered the chapter markers in my book and came up with 20. Does this match what everyone else found in their books?..."

Yup, I have 20, as well.

Looks like it's time to get started now!

Well, I've made it through chapter 5, and I'm liking it so far. It's a great story, so it's going somewhat quickly (But with 3 other group reads this month, even "quickly" is taking a while!).

I love the way Marquez sort of alludes to past and future events, and you just know (or hope) that those allusions are going to be explained more later.

And I love the ... mystical? fantastic? mythical? surreal? aspect of the story: the alchemy, the workshop, the fact that no one had yet to die in Macondo (which strikes me, with Marquez'/the translator's language, like No One Ever Dies Here, when really it's probably more like the city wasn't old enough to have any of its citizens expire yet)...and some other things that I don't want to be spoilery.

My copy (I don't know if all printings/publishers' versions do) has a family tree in the front, and boy am I using it a lot!

Great choice on this one, Lisa! So far, I'm glad I veered away from my personal bookshelves to join in.

Yes, thank goodness for the family tree! Too many similar names. Although the tree itself is an interesting glimpse into what's to come.

I liked that false teeth are the answer to eternal life.

And one of the best opening lines, ever.

I have been looking at the family tree too! It is also kind of spoilery though and I keep telling myself to stop looking! I am also curious about the fact that no one has died, but maybe that is part of the magical realism? What also interests me is the magical realism of the insomnia that everyone suffers. Even the appearance of the Spanish galleon. I think all of it rolls into the mystical, fantastic qualities Tiffany mentioned above.

I am three chapters in (a little behind where I am supposed to be, but catching up quickly). But I want to post some thoughts/questions for us to talk about as we head into week two of the read.

First -- what do you think of the way the novel is written? Like Tiffany, I love the way he alludes to what is to come but teases us just enough to keep us reading to find out more. I also love the language and the diction. How about you? There was a great line that I didn't underline but it was just gorgeous.

Another question -- as you are reading, what comes to mind when you see the word "solitude"? Every time I see it I get just a little more attentive. I am used to reading books with a pencil in hand, and I have put a box around solitude each time the word appears. I wonder if those who enjoy their solitude and those who don't will eventually have some greater...meaning or insight into those characters?

What do you think of the patriarch of the family, Jose Arcadio Buendia? Dreamer? Philosopher? Ne'er do well? And what about Ursula his wife? Has Marquez changed or played with the traditional roles of husband/wife, man/woman?

From the first line of the book, readers are set up to anticipate one of the characters facing a firing squad. How does this change your reading of that character when he pops up in the story? Do you have a sense of foreboding each time he enters the stage?

Oh, and one more thing to ponder as we read: I don't know if this is intentional, or if I am just reading too much into it, but do you think that at the beginning, Macondo is set up as a kind of paradise (or Eden) and that the first the arrival of the gypsies and then the magistrate, along with science and technology is setting us up for a tale of a paradise that is slowly being lost? If I were teaching this novel to my students, I would ask them to think about whether or not Marquez is slowly establishing some sort of epic metaphor for something else. Just throwing it out there.

I hope everyone is enjoying the book! Even if you haven't gotten to chapter 5 yet, please leave any comments or thoughts you have about the book here, and remember that you aren't limited by the questions I've raised here.

Happy reading!

lisa wrote: "What also interests me is the magical realism of the insomnia that everyone suffers."

Yes! That, too! It was very magical/mystical -- The idea that insomnia (which is kind of already a mystical idea: *why* do you have insomnia? What cures it? What happens when you can't sleep?) is contagious; that you can go without sleeping, yet still be productive; the idea that you start to lose your memories and vocabulary when you have insomnia for too long (that was pretty crazy); that the insomnia can then be infused in food that others eat, thus making them insomniacs, too; and that it was cured just like that with Melquiades' remedy. So yes, I also thought that was pretty fantastical.


"What do you think of the patriarch of the family, Jose Arcadio Buendia? Dreamer? Philosopher? Ne'er do well?"

I like him. I do think he's a bit of a dreamer, which others might see as a ne'er-do-well if/when his projects don't work, but I like dreamers :) I like the character of someone who's always trying to create the things that we think can't be created: perpetual motion machines, time machines, dream machines, alchemy, etc. (Wait...That was him, right? Not his son? I know his son starts getting into the far-out stuff, like daguerreotypes, but the other stuff was the father, right? Oh, the names!)


"From the first line of the book, readers are set up to anticipate one of the characters facing a firing squad. How does this change your reading of that character when he pops up in the story? Do you have a sense of foreboding each time he enters the stage?"

For most of chapters 1-5, it wasn't a sense of foreboding, more just "Ohhh.... *him*" whenever his name was mentioned. Toward the end of chapter 5, though, some things happened that made me think "Ooh, is this when it starts?" And then I realized that this probably isn't related to the firing squad just yet because there's still 440 pages left of the book!


"Oh, and one more thing to ponder as we read: I don't know if this is intentional, or if I am just reading too much into it, but do you think that at the beginning, Macondo is set up as a kind of paradise (or Eden) and that the first the arrival of the gypsies and then the magistrate, along with science and technology is setting us up for a tale of a paradise that is slowly being lost?"

I hadn't thought of the gypsies, magistrate, and science as leading to the paradise lost, but yes, I was thinking Macondo was sort of a paradise, mainly because of that "no one had died here" aspect. Once we got a death (I figured there had to be a death eventually), it would sort of be like Eden or Paradise vanishing and becoming more like the real world. But I see your point of the gypsies/outsiders and science and all that contributing to the ruin of their paradise. I'll have to think about that as I read more.

"... the idea that you start to lose your memories and vocabulary when you have insomnia for too long (that was pretty crazy)"

Actually, this is the least magical part of the equation. Memory and cognitive impairment are one of the chief effects of long term sleep deprivation. But the rest of it? The contagious aspect, awesome.

What I find interesting about Jose Arcardio is his obsession with experimentation paired with his absurd ignorance. Every time mercury gas is mentioned, I cringe. JA also bemoans his fate to be so removed from all the advances of the outside world, yet it must be noted he has a gift for avoiding the outside world. After all, he searched for Ursula for three days without finding her, yet she found towns, larger more advanced towns, within a few days of Macondo.

lisa wrote: "... do you think that at the beginning, Macondo is set up as a kind of paradise (or Eden)..."

I was reading this morning, and near the beginning of one chapter (page 121 in my copy), it mentions "that day when [Aureliano Jose] became aware of his own nakedness," and I thought "Ooh! Lisa's Eden theory!" :)

So, am I the only one who finished this? Any themes to discuss? Symbolism to explore?

Marquez said he based the tone of the book on the way his grandmother would tell stories: with absolute belief and a stone face. I thought he evoked that emotionless, or maybe evenly weighted would be a better way to say it, tone. Anyone?

Donna wrote: "So, am I the only one who finished this? Any themes to discuss? Symbolism to explore? ..."

hehehe... I finished it, but no one else was saying anything, and I felt like I'd done too much talking, so I didn't say anything! :)

I like that idea of telling the stories with absolute belief and I can see that in the tone of the story. There was rarely (if ever) any moments of sort of winking at the reader, like "You and I know better," so I can totally see that idea of telling the story (both the author and the narrator, I suppose) with absolute belief.

I'm not sure I'd necessarily call it evenly weighted, though; couldn't it be that the narrator really did believe that people lived to be well into their 100s, and that insomnia was contagious, and that it rained for however many years straight? I think that adds to the mystical quality of the story -- even our narrator truly believes that these wild things Really Did Happen.

Hello. This isn't actually about this book but I was wondering if July's book is In Cold Blood? and are we going to discuss it? I was just wondering because I haven't seen any discussions on it yet.

Lynn, I just left a comment for you in the thread for _The Blind Assassin_ :)

Tiff, by evenly weighted, I kind of meant that the mundane was treated with equal importance as the magical or the tragic or the joyous. Every event or detail had the same value to the story. I'm probably not saying this well, as I suck at book analysis.

Donna wrote: "Tiff, by evenly weighted, I kind of meant that the mundane was treated with equal importance as the magical or the tragic or the joyous. Every event or detail had the same value to the story. I'm p..."

Ahhh... Then yes, I totally agree with you :)