PART ONE
Discussion Questions, Pages 1—87
1. Read the first sentence very closely. How many time periods are covered? The beginning of this novel is considered one of the most fabulous openers in the history of literature. What do you like about it? Why do you think it's considered to be so unique?
2. Discuss the opening chapter. How do you feel it sets up the novel? What do you learn about Macondo that is important? What do you learn about the author's style?
3. In the first chapter, José Arcadio Buendía (the patriarch of the novel) uses the lab built by Melquíades to distill his wife's inheritance, essentially wiping it out. What do you think this act represents in the broader context of the book?
4. What is the significance of the fact that Macondo is surrounded by water and hidden from the rest of the world? How does this fact impact the way you read the events that happen in Macondo? Do you see similarities between Macondo and other historic or literary places?
5. In the first chapter, we are introduced to José Arcadio and Aureliano. These two names are then passed down from one generation to the next throughout the history of the Buendía family. Read carefully the way each is described. What can you take from the information García Márquez has provided you about each type of man?
6. What is the significance of the fact that in this novel, ice is considered the "greatest invention of our time?" What does this say about Macondo or its culture?
7. The gypsies return to Macondo with each spring season. Why is this significant? How do you read the gypsies are different from or similar to the inhabitants of Macondo?
8. Plagues that have affected humanity throughout the ages have been diseases that impact the body. What is the significance of the fact that the insomnia plague is a plague of the intellect? How do you read the fact that even though they can't sleep, the inhabitants of Macondo don't die?
9. Talk about the ghosts that crop up in the first part of this novel.
10. José Arcadio Buendía doesn't die, but at the end of Part One he ceases to participate in the activities of his family— his wife essentially takes his place at the head of the family. Why do you think this happens? How do you feel about the way it happens?
Why Macondo Doesn't Sleep: Pages 1—86
One of the most interesting, and confounding parts of the beginning of One Hundred Years of Solitude is a plague that begins with the arrival of Rebeca—a strange and awkward character who "carried her parents bones" and "liked to eat the damp earth of the courtyard." Needless to say, Rebeca is mysterious. Even after she assimilates into the Buendía clan, she is often found doing unusual things and retains a certain "other worldly" quality.
Perhaps, then, it is not that unusual to imagine that with Rebeca's arrival in town comes the most unique and debilitating plague in all of literature—five years of insomnia and memory loss visited on every man, woman and child in the town of Macondo. No sleeping? Is that possible? In One Hundred Years of Solitude it certainly is. And this illness changes things in Macondo—"In a state of hallucinated lucidity, not only did they see the images of their own dreams, but some saw the images of the dreams of others." The plague spreads from household to household on the wings of Úrsula Buendía's candy animals, "delicious little green roosters of insomnia," and it causes the people of the town to adapt in interesting ways. Outsiders can no longer travel through the town without a bell to mark their passage. Aureliano discovers a way to protect against memory loss and suddenly his laboratory and everyone's home or field is filled with inscriptions. Aureliano "realized that the day might come when things would be recognized by their inscriptions but that no one would remember their use." A system of cataloguing their lives without the use of memory becomes common practice. At the same time, every experience becomes a first—and wonderment abounds.
When you can't sleep, your brain can't relax, rejuvenate, or regenerate. In Macondo, no one's mind gets a rest. Normally, this state would inevitably kill everyone trapped in its clutches. Not in Macondo. Instead, the Buendías are thrust into a dream world. Reality slips away. And as reality slips away for the community, so, too it slips away for the reader. Everything might have seemed a tiny bit surreal before the plague. After, just like in Macondo, our imaginations are ignited, our rationality is suspended, our dream life is awakened and all of a sudden, anything is possible.
Enjoy your sleepless night in the land of dreams. It can take you on one of the wildest rides of your life!
The Fall of Innocence: Pages 1—86
"Listen at the air, listen to the buzzing of the sun, the same as yesterday and the day before." — José Arcadio Buendía
The first part of One Hundred Years of Solitude ends with an inconceivable episode. The first time you meet the patriarch of the Buendía clan, José Arcadio Buendía, you'll find him strong and full of adventure, a defender of his wife's virtue, the natural leader of Macondo, a man of science and a seeker of knowledge. Yet, as the third chapter closes, he is driven mad by grief and disappointment—grief over the return of the ghost Prudencio Aguilar and the death of Melquíades and disappointment in his attempts to modernize his town. He lives the rest of his life a broken man—"[Úrsula and Amaranta] spoke to him and he looked at them without recognizing them. Later on, they built him a shelter of palm branches to protect him from the sun and the rain." While Gabriel García Márquez clearly meant to give the impression of strength to the man who founded Macondo, his exit from the novel in its early stages—especially when you compare him to his wife Úrsula who runs the family for more than one hundred years—is curious. So is the state he will remain: "soaked with rain and in a state of total innocence" (Page 86). Given little choice, the Buendías leave their patriarch tied to a tree for years to come.
No one in the novel is more fascinated by the promise of progress—of guiding the primitive society of Macondo to become one more advanced, scientific and fore-thinking than José Arcadio Buendía. He is fixated on it. As he gains knowledge, José Arcadio Buendía tries to share his experiments with the town but they are disinterested. Úrsula, as a result of her sojourn to find her son, is the one who reconnects Macondo with the modern world. She brings new people, merchants, peddlers and organized government. While José Arcadio Buendía is at odds with many of these changes, Úrsula finds ways to operate within them—she thrives. In the end, her husband becomes sentimental and lost. In choosing to remain innocent, José Arcadio Buendía relinquishes his right to guide the town or the Buendías—it is his disappointing and unexpected lot.
The exit of José Arcadio Buendía also helps set gender boundaries at the beginning of One Hundred Years of Solitude. According to scholar Luis Harss, "In García Márquez men are flighty creatures. Women are solid, sensible, unvarying and down to earth, paragons of order and stability. García Márquez puts it another way: 'My women are masculine.'" When José Arcadio Buendía goes mad, we see this all the more clearly. For all his supposed strength, it is Úrsula who emerges the true progressive and the unquestionable hero of Macondo.
PART TWO
Discussion Questions, Pages 87—195
1. On page 90, we discover that Father Nicanor Reyna, who has come to Macondo to officiate Aureliano's wedding, can levitate when he eats chocolate. What do you think this episode might represent in the broader context of the novel? How is it written to seem real? How is it written to seem fantastic?
2. Why do you think Rebeca repeatedly postpones her wedding after the death of Remedios? What does she gain—if anything—from the community by remaining single? What do you make of her choices?
3. Discuss the political events that take place from pages 103–111. What do you make of the "mad operation," undertaken by table knives and tools, commanded by Aureliano as the chapter ends? What do we learn about war in Macondo or war in general? What does it reveal about Aureliano's character?
4. Discuss the episode of Arcadio's death. What do you make of his calmness at the end and his final pronouncement?
5. What do you think about the fact that Colonel Aureliano Buendía escapes the firing squad and seems to have "nine lives?" How is the plight of Aureliano portrayed convincingly throughout this section of the book?
6. Talk about Úrsula. In the first section of our reading, you learn of her strength and cunning. How does that continue to show itself throughout the book? In what ways is Úrsula innovative? If she is the natural Matriarch of the family, what decisions does she make that you agree with? Does she make any that you disagree with or are confused by?
7. During this section, what do you learn about the Liberal Party? What is its importance in the community of Macondo?
8. Why does Amaranta never marry? Especially, why does she reject Pietro Crespi after she has yearned for him for years? Is there any religious meaning to her virginity?
9. Discuss the complicated, fecund and very unusual sexual patterns of the Buendía clan. Do you find them to be different from the sexual mores of the United States in the 21st century? If so, how?
10. Talk about the role of Colonel Gerineldo Márquez. Why do you think the author gives this man his namesake and not the rest of the Buendía family? What is his place in the structure of the novel?
War Comes to Macondo: Pages 87—195
"Not madness, war. And don't call me Aurelito any more. Now I'm Colonel Aureliano Buendía." — Aurelito from One Hundred Years of Solitude
Though some far off war may have been brewing for a time, war seems to come to Macondo like a bolt of lightning. Announced by Úrsula as if it had just come over the wire, the news of war sparks a riot that culminates in "a mad operation, twenty-one men...armed with table knives and sharpened tools" (p. 110) and a change in government with the very unlikely Aureliano stepping in to run the war.
In conjunction of the coming of war comes a significant change in Aureliano Buendía. Always withdrawn, a "sentimental person with no future, with a passive character, and a definite solitary vocation," (p. 108) Aureliano is one of the last people in the book we would have expected to rise to the occasion and become a leader. He has not only an unlikely character, he has been preaching passivism and protesting war on principle for several pages preceding his ascension to the ranks of Colonel. Why, then, does he take over the army of Macondo and become a decorated and persecuted war hero for the rest of his days?
As it has borne out in many writings and portraits of war in the 20th century, it seems that men's characters are often revealed by the very act of war. Aureliano might very well have continued to be a passive, unassuming man who certainly wouldn't have fathered 17 sons by 17 women and survived 14 attempts on his life had Macondo not gone to war. It becomes more than a matter of duty with Colonel Aureliano; indeed it seems that Aureliano has accepted his destiny, predicted by Pilar on page 83, "You'd be good at war. Where you put your eye, you put your bullet."
With the superstitious nature of the Buendía family, even if all of the Buendías had wished to preserve the purity and innocence of their sequestered community such a thing could never have been. Just as progress permeates the community when Úrsula returns from her quest to find her son, so progress descends in the form of war and many of the men of Macondo find its pull irresistible.
As such, we begin to understand a clear delineation in the generational offspring of Úrsula and Josè Arcadio Buendía. The Aurelianos, more closely aligned with Úrsula and progress, move society forward. By contrast, the Josè Arcadios, like their fathers, stagnate. These two "sides" of the family are at odds with each other, helping to perpetuate the lack of solidarity that so plagues the Buendías. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the remainder of the novel.
Nostalgia and Solitude: Pages 87-195.
"This time [Aureliano] felt the same weakness in his knees and the same tingling in his skin that he felt in his youth in the presence of a woman. He thought confusedly, finally captive in a trap of nostalgia, that perhaps if he had married her he would have been a man without war and without glory, a nameless artisan, a happy animal."— from One Hundred Years of Solitude
When Colonel Aureliano Buendía returns from war, his family is excited—anticipating the return of a long lost brother, son and friend: "We'll finally have a man in the house again," Úrsula said. What they are met with instead is a man "captive in a trap of nostalgia" who is, at least for a time, unable to move on with his life. He sees for the first time that his mother is the only person who had ever "succeeded in penetrating his misery." He tries to kill himself because even Úrsula can no longer console or find him, "[Úrsula] spent the whole morning looking for a memory of her son in the most hidden corners, but she could find none."
Were this a different sort of novel, we might chalk up Colonel Aureliano's sudden melancholia as part of a natural reaction to the grief of war. But since this is a novel about generations of the loneliness in the Buendía family, Colonel Aureliano fits into a pattern instead. When he comes back to the house after years away, Colonel Aureliano Buendía has a choice. He can either reconnect with his family or lock himself away in solitude. He chooses the latter.
The tools he uses to keep his distance from family members and the world are interesting. Aside from literally issuing orders that no one—not even his mother—can come within 10 feet of him, he retreats in ways no one can see. One of the most repeated places Colonel Aureliano hides is in his remembrance of things past. He spends hours contemplating how his life would have been different given different choices. He doesn't attach himself to the flesh and blood people at the house in Macondo, he relives his childhood: "His only happy moments, since that remote afternoon when his father had taken him to see ice, had taken place in his silver workshop where he passed the time putting little gold fishes together."
We begin to recognize the trend. Rather than reconnect with his wife and children when he became disgruntled, José Arcadio Buendía talks to the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar, his dead enemy. Instead of looking deep into his mother's eyes and finding her, Colonel Aureliano Buendía lives in his memories of happier times. He gives up. Rather than choosing life, the Buendía men choose a spiritual death. They use nostalgia to perpetuate solitude and emotional distance until slowly—one by one—they shuffle off into eternal silence.
PART THREE
Discussion Questions, Pages 197-313
1. Talk about the role the ghost of Melquíades plays in the lives of all the Buendías that he continues to visit after he dies—especially Aureliano Segundo and Aureliano (II). Link this with the "traffic of the dead" that passes through Macondo. What do the ghosts have in common?
2. Spend some time thinking about all the different kinds of love that exist in the novel. Are there loves that seem to transcend the ravages of everyday life, warfare, history, and time itself? What kind of love is the most prevalent?
3. How is old age treated in this novel? Do you feel that a person's place in the Buendía family changes as they grow old? How is their wisdom utilized by the community, and how could it possibly be utilized better? Do you think the characters themselves changed as they aged?
4. Do you feel any of the characters "learn" from their mistakes or heartaches? If so, who and in what ways?
5. The narrator states on page 213, "Remedios the Beauty was not a creature of this world." What sets her apart from the other Buendías? Are there any other literary characters that she reminds you of?
6. Discuss the icons of female beauty and power used throughout the book. In what ways do you consider the female characters to be strong—and similarly, how do they appear weaker or more fragile than the male characters?
7. Talk about the many jubilees, festivals and other kinds of celebration that occur in Macondo. Do there seem to be more of them in these pages than there were at the beginning of the book? If so, why do you think that might be?
8. "The innocent yellow train that was to bring so many ambiguities and certainties, so many pleasant and unpleasant moments, so many changes, calamities, and feelings of nostalgia to Macondo" blows into town on page 239. Put this into context with your general knowledge of progress in Macondo. Did you have a feeling of elation or foreboding when the train/banana company first arrived?
9. Discuss the significance of Úrsula's decision to raise José Arcadio (IV) to be the next Pope. What does this say about her, and why does she do it? What does his "reaction" to his schooling say about him? How do you think it plays into other religious elements in the novel?
10. So far, which character do you connect with most strongly? Name the three things you like about that character most. What do you think this character says about human nature, morality, family, or life in general?
Cult of the Goddess: Pages 197-313.
"Remedios the Beauty was proclaimed queen. Úrsula, who shuddered at the disquieting beauty of her great-granddaughter, could not prevent the choice. The most impetuous men would go to church with an aim to see, if only for an instant, the face of Remedios the Beauty, whose legendary good looks were spoken of with alarming excitement throughout the swamp." — from One Hundred Years of Solitude
Remedios' beauty is so renowned that it brings men to Macondo—to worship at the alter of a beauty so legendary that she has become a "magical fascination." Yet no matter how princely the man or the grand the gesture, Remedios seems oblivious to her hold over men, and her physicality altogether: "She accepted the yellow rose without the least bit of malice, amused...and she lifted her shawl to see his face better, not to show hers" (p. 213). From the first time we meet her, we know Remedios is not meant for the kind of flesh and blood love that consumes so many Buendías. Her role as sovereign ruler, or Queen, of Macondo's biggest festival of the year is by its very nature to put her on a pedestal for worship. It is as if to say that she serves no worthy purpose in Macondo other than to represent something purely supernatural and outside the fray of daily living.
Later it is assumed that Remedios the Beauty possesses "powers of death." One thing often said of the dead is that they were "too good for this life," and surely this notion plays into her strange demise, rising away from the world, "abandoning with her the environment of beetles and dahlias and passing through the air" (p. 255). She leaves the world just as she came into it, "even from the time when she was in her mother's womb, [Remedios the Beauty] was safe from contagion" (p. 214).
What is most interesting about Remedios the Beauty is not what she does but what she represents. She is a break from three strong female archetypes that pervade One Hundred Years of Solitude: the strong, capable, earth-bound mother we see in Úrsula, the lusty Pilar Ternera and the bitter and lonely Amaranta. These women seem to overpower us with the solidity of their natures—their feet are so solidly on the ground they may as well be tacked down. Remedios the Beauty is a whimsy, a flight of fancy as light as a feather. She is a beauty that can't be possessed, a smell that you can't get out of your head—literally—and every other cliché about love you can conjure up. She is a goddess whose intelligence is irrelevant, who moves through the world in wide-eyed innocence unbothered by the concerns of man—or even clothes! By worshipping the goddess in her, we can see the same goddess in ourselves...the one that lives outside of earthly cares and watches the world as a silent, unaffected, perfect observer.
The Butterflies of Love: Pages 197-313.
"It was then that [Meme] realized that the yellow butterflies preceded the appearances of Mauricio Babilonia. She had seen them before...but when Mauricio began to pursue her like a ghost that only she could identify in the crowd, she understood that the butterflies had something to do with him." — from One Hundred Years of Solitude
The passionate fruition of Meme and Mauricio Babilonia's love affair is one of the sweetest and strangest episodes in the host of strangely romantic episodes that riddle One Hundred Years of Solitude. With it, Gabriel García Márquez perfectly captures the crush of initial attraction and the blush of the beginnings of love. Meme and Mauricio, originally oblivious to each other in the great ocean of Macondo, are suddenly drawn to each other like a couple of magnets— drawn not only to one another's strangeness, but also by an immediate sense of comfort they find in their connection. Both lovers operate somewhat outside Macondo's social fabric and come from very different backgrounds. Mauricio is a sensitive mechanic for the Banana Company— Meme's mother hates everyone associated with the company. Meme is an educated proper young woman who hides her propensity for gossip and parties from her rigid mother. Meme finds herself both repulsed and attracted to Mauricio's bold advances under the nose of her disapproving mother. "Although she was flattered by the audacity and ingenuity of Mauricio Babilonia, she was moved by his innocence." (p. 309)
Swept up in their love affair, neither Meme nor Mauricio seem aware of the consequences of their actions. Spurred on by Pilar Ternera, who acts repeatedly as sexual advisor to the Buendías, Meme has "the same feeling of bravery that she had felt on the drunken evening." (p. 311) Mauricio, for his part, seems to be riding the wave of acceptance coming from a woman above his class stature. Chances are, he dared to hope she would ever show an interest in him, and indeed "at first his crudeness bothered her." (p. 310). Once they fall into their lovemaking routine, however, they have utterly thrown class differences and caution to the wind.
As with so many encounters in this novel, Meme's butterfly love affair end in tragedy so severe it seems almost impossible. Mauricio dies a broken man; Meme spends the rest of her life in silence living at a convent. If we could ask them whether or not it was worth it, what might they say? Being natives of Macondo, probably that fate had them in its clutches all along. After all, Fernanda says of Mauricio the first time she meets him, "He's a very strange man. You can see in his face that he's going to die." It is also an interesting twist that the butterflies that connect the lovers are also their downfall—had Fernanda not remembered butterflies from the dark of the movie theater, she might never have uncovered her daughter's secret.
No matter what happened in the end, the language García Márquez uses to capture the feelings in new love is particularly moving and magical. Meme finds herself "splashing in a bog of hesitation," "swallowing her blush and absorbed in tribulation," and "naked and trembling with love among the scorpions." Though the entire episode lasts a mere seven pages, it resonates with a passion so intense and real it seems to jump off the page. While love and sex are clearly important themes in One Hundred Years of Solitude, seldom is it handled with such ardor or with as stunning a visual cue as a steamy bathroom filled to overflowing with butterflies.
PART FOUR
Discussion Questions, Pages 315—The End
1. Discuss the lasting impact of Meme's love affair with Mauricio Babilonia. What do his lingering yellow butterflies represent? What do you think about the way love seems to derail some of the Buendías, including Meme?
2. Talk about the banana strike. What details do you find interesting about the way García Márquez portrays it? Does what happened seem realistic to you? If not, why do you think it doesn't?
3. Take some time to consider the way that the government has changed or developed over the course of the novel. Do you feel that the way the Buendía family is "governed" has shifted? Do they have less or more power than they did in the beginning of the book?
4. "It rained for four years, eleven months and two days." What does the rain represent?
5. What about the culture or the family seems to be in decline during the final portion of the book? What is "decline" and how, specifically, is it manifested?
6. Talk about the deaths of many of the substantial characters. What is similar about the ways they die? What do you think the way death is portrayed in this novel says about the author's view of life and death?
7. Think about Aureliano and Amaranta Úrsula's love affair in terms of how it's different from other love in the book and also the same. What does the fact that they give birth to the fabled last of the line say about their affair? How do they, together and separately, carry on the spirit of the Buendías?
8. Discuss how Nigromanta is the natural successor to Pilar Ternera's domain in the novel. In what ways are the two characters similar? In what ways are the different?
9. Why do you believe that this novel is important for people to read? If you were going to recommend it to a friend, what would you say to persuade him or her to read it?
10. Talk about the final paragraph. How did it make you feel?
Macondo's Banana Strike: Pages 315—The End.
"The workers, who had been content to wait until then, went into the woods with no other weapons but their working machetes and they began to sabotage the sabotage." — from One Hundred Years of Solitude
The economic and political takeover of Macondo by the banana firm, the strike by field workers, and the military repression and massacre that García Márquez covers in One Hundred Years of Solitude are closely based on events from 1900–1928 in rural Colombia. From modest Colombian holdings, the United Fruit Company of Boston grew into a virtual state-within-a-state in a zone stretching from coastal Santa Marta to Aracataca (the author's hometown). As in Macondo, the firm had separate American-style residential compounds, company stores for foodstuffs, and it's own irrigation system and water policy. Because the United Fruit Company of Boston hired field hands only through subcontractors to avoid Colombian labor legislation, they consistently claimed that United Fruit Company had no employees. Similarly, the six lawyers in the novel argue that "the banana company did not have, never had had, and never would have any workers in its service," and the court establishes "in solemn decrees that the workers did not exist." (p. 320) Indeed, they truly did not.
Seen through the eyes of José Arcadio Segundo and the small child he picks up and cares for during the melee, the struggle for human rights and dignity in the novel takes on a very human face. Though he has been through the massacre himself, when José Arcadio Segundo steps away from the dead that lay strewn in the streets, they disappear. "The streets were deserted under the persistent rain and the houses locked up with no trace of life inside." (p. 331) He, as the sole survivor of the massacre, is told by a villager: "You must be dreaming. Nothing has happened in Macondo, nothing has ever happened, and nothing will ever happen. This is a happy town." (p. 333)
In this, the most brutal, political episode in Gabo's novel about life in Latin America, the author makes a bold statement with unbelievable grace and style. As a young boy, Gabriel García Márquez saw his town, his family and his life blown to the four winds by the real banana strike. As a man, he comments on it with powerful melancholy and truth, showing clearly how events can be manipulated, revised and excised by those in power. Even the Buendía family, who held every ounce of power at the beginning of the novel, find themselves helpless in the face of powerful entities from outside their culture.
In this instance we begin to truly understand the Buendías solitude, their loss, their helplessness, their grief. It is here that our hearts connect to what this family has lost, what they cannot regain, and what it feels like to be the oppressed.
Melquíades' Parchments Revealed: Pages 315—The End.
"Aureliano could not move. Not because he was paralyzed by horror but because at that prodigious instant Melquíades' final keys were revealed to him and he saw the epigraph of the parchments perfectly placed in the order of time and space: The first of the line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by the ants." — from One Hundred Years of Solitude
Though the parchments, Melquíades' historic creative output, appear early in the tale of the Buendías, it is not until the last three pages as the novel winds to completion that we learn what has been written on them. It is not until the end that we—along with the "last of the line"—understand how much Melquíades the gypsy was a soothsayer, a prophet, and the final arbiter of the family's fate. He knew everything all along.
With this revelation in the eleventh hour comes an entirely new way to read the novel we are just finishing. All of a sudden, the full tragedy of "fate" hits home. We learn that not only were the Buendías fated to their decline but every one of their actions—as a family and as individuals—was pre-determined. Their lives were literally written on parchments that predated them all—and could not have been read until the very moment they were deciphered by the last Buendía standing, "prophesying himself in the act of deciphering the last page of the parchments, as if he were looking into a speaking mirror." (p. 447)
Can you imagine this novel ending any other way? García Márquez couldn't have wrapped the novel up in a neater package. At once, Aureliano Babilonia's life's purpose is fulfilled, Melquíades' role cemented and the Buendía line's awkward choices understood, and in a way, sanctioned. The author (both Melquíades and who he has come to represent...García Márquez himself) has been tragicomically called out for what he is: a manipulator of men's souls and a creator in the most complete sense. The icing on the cake is what the parchment's revelation says about humanity—that perhaps we are all damned and redeemed by our heritage, our culture and our nature.
Gabo's masterstroke is complete with the final sentence: "Races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth." In one stroke, he dashes all of our hopes for the future of humanity. Yet, considering the humor and irony we have come to expect from García Márquez, do races ever get a second chance? Are we in control of our own destiny, or does every family have a Melquíades of sorts?
William Kennedy wrote in the New York Times Book Review that "One Hundred Years of Solitude is the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race." In the end, it is at once pessimistic, optimistic—and ultimately—realistic.
Get more resources on One Hundred Years of Solitude, an Oprah's Book Club selection.
View the Complete Oprah's Book Club List.
Discussion Questions, Pages 1—87
1. Read the first sentence very closely. How many time periods are covered? The beginning of this novel is considered one of the most fabulous openers in the history of literature. What do you like about it? Why do you think it's considered to be so unique?
2. Discuss the opening chapter. How do you feel it sets up the novel? What do you learn about Macondo that is important? What do you learn about the author's style?
3. In the first chapter, José Arcadio Buendía (the patriarch of the novel) uses the lab built by Melquíades to distill his wife's inheritance, essentially wiping it out. What do you think this act represents in the broader context of the book?
4. What is the significance of the fact that Macondo is surrounded by water and hidden from the rest of the world? How does this fact impact the way you read the events that happen in Macondo? Do you see similarities between Macondo and other historic or literary places?
5. In the first chapter, we are introduced to José Arcadio and Aureliano. These two names are then passed down from one generation to the next throughout the history of the Buendía family. Read carefully the way each is described. What can you take from the information García Márquez has provided you about each type of man?
6. What is the significance of the fact that in this novel, ice is considered the "greatest invention of our time?" What does this say about Macondo or its culture?
7. The gypsies return to Macondo with each spring season. Why is this significant? How do you read the gypsies are different from or similar to the inhabitants of Macondo?
8. Plagues that have affected humanity throughout the ages have been diseases that impact the body. What is the significance of the fact that the insomnia plague is a plague of the intellect? How do you read the fact that even though they can't sleep, the inhabitants of Macondo don't die?
9. Talk about the ghosts that crop up in the first part of this novel.
10. José Arcadio Buendía doesn't die, but at the end of Part One he ceases to participate in the activities of his family— his wife essentially takes his place at the head of the family. Why do you think this happens? How do you feel about the way it happens?
Why Macondo Doesn't Sleep: Pages 1—86
One of the most interesting, and confounding parts of the beginning of One Hundred Years of Solitude is a plague that begins with the arrival of Rebeca—a strange and awkward character who "carried her parents bones" and "liked to eat the damp earth of the courtyard." Needless to say, Rebeca is mysterious. Even after she assimilates into the Buendía clan, she is often found doing unusual things and retains a certain "other worldly" quality.
Perhaps, then, it is not that unusual to imagine that with Rebeca's arrival in town comes the most unique and debilitating plague in all of literature—five years of insomnia and memory loss visited on every man, woman and child in the town of Macondo. No sleeping? Is that possible? In One Hundred Years of Solitude it certainly is. And this illness changes things in Macondo—"In a state of hallucinated lucidity, not only did they see the images of their own dreams, but some saw the images of the dreams of others." The plague spreads from household to household on the wings of Úrsula Buendía's candy animals, "delicious little green roosters of insomnia," and it causes the people of the town to adapt in interesting ways. Outsiders can no longer travel through the town without a bell to mark their passage. Aureliano discovers a way to protect against memory loss and suddenly his laboratory and everyone's home or field is filled with inscriptions. Aureliano "realized that the day might come when things would be recognized by their inscriptions but that no one would remember their use." A system of cataloguing their lives without the use of memory becomes common practice. At the same time, every experience becomes a first—and wonderment abounds.
When you can't sleep, your brain can't relax, rejuvenate, or regenerate. In Macondo, no one's mind gets a rest. Normally, this state would inevitably kill everyone trapped in its clutches. Not in Macondo. Instead, the Buendías are thrust into a dream world. Reality slips away. And as reality slips away for the community, so, too it slips away for the reader. Everything might have seemed a tiny bit surreal before the plague. After, just like in Macondo, our imaginations are ignited, our rationality is suspended, our dream life is awakened and all of a sudden, anything is possible.
Enjoy your sleepless night in the land of dreams. It can take you on one of the wildest rides of your life!
The Fall of Innocence: Pages 1—86
"Listen at the air, listen to the buzzing of the sun, the same as yesterday and the day before." — José Arcadio Buendía
The first part of One Hundred Years of Solitude ends with an inconceivable episode. The first time you meet the patriarch of the Buendía clan, José Arcadio Buendía, you'll find him strong and full of adventure, a defender of his wife's virtue, the natural leader of Macondo, a man of science and a seeker of knowledge. Yet, as the third chapter closes, he is driven mad by grief and disappointment—grief over the return of the ghost Prudencio Aguilar and the death of Melquíades and disappointment in his attempts to modernize his town. He lives the rest of his life a broken man—"[Úrsula and Amaranta] spoke to him and he looked at them without recognizing them. Later on, they built him a shelter of palm branches to protect him from the sun and the rain." While Gabriel García Márquez clearly meant to give the impression of strength to the man who founded Macondo, his exit from the novel in its early stages—especially when you compare him to his wife Úrsula who runs the family for more than one hundred years—is curious. So is the state he will remain: "soaked with rain and in a state of total innocence" (Page 86). Given little choice, the Buendías leave their patriarch tied to a tree for years to come.
No one in the novel is more fascinated by the promise of progress—of guiding the primitive society of Macondo to become one more advanced, scientific and fore-thinking than José Arcadio Buendía. He is fixated on it. As he gains knowledge, José Arcadio Buendía tries to share his experiments with the town but they are disinterested. Úrsula, as a result of her sojourn to find her son, is the one who reconnects Macondo with the modern world. She brings new people, merchants, peddlers and organized government. While José Arcadio Buendía is at odds with many of these changes, Úrsula finds ways to operate within them—she thrives. In the end, her husband becomes sentimental and lost. In choosing to remain innocent, José Arcadio Buendía relinquishes his right to guide the town or the Buendías—it is his disappointing and unexpected lot.
The exit of José Arcadio Buendía also helps set gender boundaries at the beginning of One Hundred Years of Solitude. According to scholar Luis Harss, "In García Márquez men are flighty creatures. Women are solid, sensible, unvarying and down to earth, paragons of order and stability. García Márquez puts it another way: 'My women are masculine.'" When José Arcadio Buendía goes mad, we see this all the more clearly. For all his supposed strength, it is Úrsula who emerges the true progressive and the unquestionable hero of Macondo.
PART TWO
Discussion Questions, Pages 87—195
1. On page 90, we discover that Father Nicanor Reyna, who has come to Macondo to officiate Aureliano's wedding, can levitate when he eats chocolate. What do you think this episode might represent in the broader context of the novel? How is it written to seem real? How is it written to seem fantastic?
2. Why do you think Rebeca repeatedly postpones her wedding after the death of Remedios? What does she gain—if anything—from the community by remaining single? What do you make of her choices?
3. Discuss the political events that take place from pages 103–111. What do you make of the "mad operation," undertaken by table knives and tools, commanded by Aureliano as the chapter ends? What do we learn about war in Macondo or war in general? What does it reveal about Aureliano's character?
4. Discuss the episode of Arcadio's death. What do you make of his calmness at the end and his final pronouncement?
5. What do you think about the fact that Colonel Aureliano Buendía escapes the firing squad and seems to have "nine lives?" How is the plight of Aureliano portrayed convincingly throughout this section of the book?
6. Talk about Úrsula. In the first section of our reading, you learn of her strength and cunning. How does that continue to show itself throughout the book? In what ways is Úrsula innovative? If she is the natural Matriarch of the family, what decisions does she make that you agree with? Does she make any that you disagree with or are confused by?
7. During this section, what do you learn about the Liberal Party? What is its importance in the community of Macondo?
8. Why does Amaranta never marry? Especially, why does she reject Pietro Crespi after she has yearned for him for years? Is there any religious meaning to her virginity?
9. Discuss the complicated, fecund and very unusual sexual patterns of the Buendía clan. Do you find them to be different from the sexual mores of the United States in the 21st century? If so, how?
10. Talk about the role of Colonel Gerineldo Márquez. Why do you think the author gives this man his namesake and not the rest of the Buendía family? What is his place in the structure of the novel?
War Comes to Macondo: Pages 87—195
"Not madness, war. And don't call me Aurelito any more. Now I'm Colonel Aureliano Buendía." — Aurelito from One Hundred Years of Solitude
Though some far off war may have been brewing for a time, war seems to come to Macondo like a bolt of lightning. Announced by Úrsula as if it had just come over the wire, the news of war sparks a riot that culminates in "a mad operation, twenty-one men...armed with table knives and sharpened tools" (p. 110) and a change in government with the very unlikely Aureliano stepping in to run the war.
In conjunction of the coming of war comes a significant change in Aureliano Buendía. Always withdrawn, a "sentimental person with no future, with a passive character, and a definite solitary vocation," (p. 108) Aureliano is one of the last people in the book we would have expected to rise to the occasion and become a leader. He has not only an unlikely character, he has been preaching passivism and protesting war on principle for several pages preceding his ascension to the ranks of Colonel. Why, then, does he take over the army of Macondo and become a decorated and persecuted war hero for the rest of his days?
As it has borne out in many writings and portraits of war in the 20th century, it seems that men's characters are often revealed by the very act of war. Aureliano might very well have continued to be a passive, unassuming man who certainly wouldn't have fathered 17 sons by 17 women and survived 14 attempts on his life had Macondo not gone to war. It becomes more than a matter of duty with Colonel Aureliano; indeed it seems that Aureliano has accepted his destiny, predicted by Pilar on page 83, "You'd be good at war. Where you put your eye, you put your bullet."
With the superstitious nature of the Buendía family, even if all of the Buendías had wished to preserve the purity and innocence of their sequestered community such a thing could never have been. Just as progress permeates the community when Úrsula returns from her quest to find her son, so progress descends in the form of war and many of the men of Macondo find its pull irresistible.
As such, we begin to understand a clear delineation in the generational offspring of Úrsula and Josè Arcadio Buendía. The Aurelianos, more closely aligned with Úrsula and progress, move society forward. By contrast, the Josè Arcadios, like their fathers, stagnate. These two "sides" of the family are at odds with each other, helping to perpetuate the lack of solidarity that so plagues the Buendías. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the remainder of the novel.
Nostalgia and Solitude: Pages 87-195.
"This time [Aureliano] felt the same weakness in his knees and the same tingling in his skin that he felt in his youth in the presence of a woman. He thought confusedly, finally captive in a trap of nostalgia, that perhaps if he had married her he would have been a man without war and without glory, a nameless artisan, a happy animal."— from One Hundred Years of Solitude
When Colonel Aureliano Buendía returns from war, his family is excited—anticipating the return of a long lost brother, son and friend: "We'll finally have a man in the house again," Úrsula said. What they are met with instead is a man "captive in a trap of nostalgia" who is, at least for a time, unable to move on with his life. He sees for the first time that his mother is the only person who had ever "succeeded in penetrating his misery." He tries to kill himself because even Úrsula can no longer console or find him, "[Úrsula] spent the whole morning looking for a memory of her son in the most hidden corners, but she could find none."
Were this a different sort of novel, we might chalk up Colonel Aureliano's sudden melancholia as part of a natural reaction to the grief of war. But since this is a novel about generations of the loneliness in the Buendía family, Colonel Aureliano fits into a pattern instead. When he comes back to the house after years away, Colonel Aureliano Buendía has a choice. He can either reconnect with his family or lock himself away in solitude. He chooses the latter.
The tools he uses to keep his distance from family members and the world are interesting. Aside from literally issuing orders that no one—not even his mother—can come within 10 feet of him, he retreats in ways no one can see. One of the most repeated places Colonel Aureliano hides is in his remembrance of things past. He spends hours contemplating how his life would have been different given different choices. He doesn't attach himself to the flesh and blood people at the house in Macondo, he relives his childhood: "His only happy moments, since that remote afternoon when his father had taken him to see ice, had taken place in his silver workshop where he passed the time putting little gold fishes together."
We begin to recognize the trend. Rather than reconnect with his wife and children when he became disgruntled, José Arcadio Buendía talks to the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar, his dead enemy. Instead of looking deep into his mother's eyes and finding her, Colonel Aureliano Buendía lives in his memories of happier times. He gives up. Rather than choosing life, the Buendía men choose a spiritual death. They use nostalgia to perpetuate solitude and emotional distance until slowly—one by one—they shuffle off into eternal silence.
PART THREE
Discussion Questions, Pages 197-313
1. Talk about the role the ghost of Melquíades plays in the lives of all the Buendías that he continues to visit after he dies—especially Aureliano Segundo and Aureliano (II). Link this with the "traffic of the dead" that passes through Macondo. What do the ghosts have in common?
2. Spend some time thinking about all the different kinds of love that exist in the novel. Are there loves that seem to transcend the ravages of everyday life, warfare, history, and time itself? What kind of love is the most prevalent?
3. How is old age treated in this novel? Do you feel that a person's place in the Buendía family changes as they grow old? How is their wisdom utilized by the community, and how could it possibly be utilized better? Do you think the characters themselves changed as they aged?
4. Do you feel any of the characters "learn" from their mistakes or heartaches? If so, who and in what ways?
5. The narrator states on page 213, "Remedios the Beauty was not a creature of this world." What sets her apart from the other Buendías? Are there any other literary characters that she reminds you of?
6. Discuss the icons of female beauty and power used throughout the book. In what ways do you consider the female characters to be strong—and similarly, how do they appear weaker or more fragile than the male characters?
7. Talk about the many jubilees, festivals and other kinds of celebration that occur in Macondo. Do there seem to be more of them in these pages than there were at the beginning of the book? If so, why do you think that might be?
8. "The innocent yellow train that was to bring so many ambiguities and certainties, so many pleasant and unpleasant moments, so many changes, calamities, and feelings of nostalgia to Macondo" blows into town on page 239. Put this into context with your general knowledge of progress in Macondo. Did you have a feeling of elation or foreboding when the train/banana company first arrived?
9. Discuss the significance of Úrsula's decision to raise José Arcadio (IV) to be the next Pope. What does this say about her, and why does she do it? What does his "reaction" to his schooling say about him? How do you think it plays into other religious elements in the novel?
10. So far, which character do you connect with most strongly? Name the three things you like about that character most. What do you think this character says about human nature, morality, family, or life in general?
Cult of the Goddess: Pages 197-313.
"Remedios the Beauty was proclaimed queen. Úrsula, who shuddered at the disquieting beauty of her great-granddaughter, could not prevent the choice. The most impetuous men would go to church with an aim to see, if only for an instant, the face of Remedios the Beauty, whose legendary good looks were spoken of with alarming excitement throughout the swamp." — from One Hundred Years of Solitude
Remedios' beauty is so renowned that it brings men to Macondo—to worship at the alter of a beauty so legendary that she has become a "magical fascination." Yet no matter how princely the man or the grand the gesture, Remedios seems oblivious to her hold over men, and her physicality altogether: "She accepted the yellow rose without the least bit of malice, amused...and she lifted her shawl to see his face better, not to show hers" (p. 213). From the first time we meet her, we know Remedios is not meant for the kind of flesh and blood love that consumes so many Buendías. Her role as sovereign ruler, or Queen, of Macondo's biggest festival of the year is by its very nature to put her on a pedestal for worship. It is as if to say that she serves no worthy purpose in Macondo other than to represent something purely supernatural and outside the fray of daily living.
Later it is assumed that Remedios the Beauty possesses "powers of death." One thing often said of the dead is that they were "too good for this life," and surely this notion plays into her strange demise, rising away from the world, "abandoning with her the environment of beetles and dahlias and passing through the air" (p. 255). She leaves the world just as she came into it, "even from the time when she was in her mother's womb, [Remedios the Beauty] was safe from contagion" (p. 214).
What is most interesting about Remedios the Beauty is not what she does but what she represents. She is a break from three strong female archetypes that pervade One Hundred Years of Solitude: the strong, capable, earth-bound mother we see in Úrsula, the lusty Pilar Ternera and the bitter and lonely Amaranta. These women seem to overpower us with the solidity of their natures—their feet are so solidly on the ground they may as well be tacked down. Remedios the Beauty is a whimsy, a flight of fancy as light as a feather. She is a beauty that can't be possessed, a smell that you can't get out of your head—literally—and every other cliché about love you can conjure up. She is a goddess whose intelligence is irrelevant, who moves through the world in wide-eyed innocence unbothered by the concerns of man—or even clothes! By worshipping the goddess in her, we can see the same goddess in ourselves...the one that lives outside of earthly cares and watches the world as a silent, unaffected, perfect observer.
The Butterflies of Love: Pages 197-313.
"It was then that [Meme] realized that the yellow butterflies preceded the appearances of Mauricio Babilonia. She had seen them before...but when Mauricio began to pursue her like a ghost that only she could identify in the crowd, she understood that the butterflies had something to do with him." — from One Hundred Years of Solitude
The passionate fruition of Meme and Mauricio Babilonia's love affair is one of the sweetest and strangest episodes in the host of strangely romantic episodes that riddle One Hundred Years of Solitude. With it, Gabriel García Márquez perfectly captures the crush of initial attraction and the blush of the beginnings of love. Meme and Mauricio, originally oblivious to each other in the great ocean of Macondo, are suddenly drawn to each other like a couple of magnets— drawn not only to one another's strangeness, but also by an immediate sense of comfort they find in their connection. Both lovers operate somewhat outside Macondo's social fabric and come from very different backgrounds. Mauricio is a sensitive mechanic for the Banana Company— Meme's mother hates everyone associated with the company. Meme is an educated proper young woman who hides her propensity for gossip and parties from her rigid mother. Meme finds herself both repulsed and attracted to Mauricio's bold advances under the nose of her disapproving mother. "Although she was flattered by the audacity and ingenuity of Mauricio Babilonia, she was moved by his innocence." (p. 309)
Swept up in their love affair, neither Meme nor Mauricio seem aware of the consequences of their actions. Spurred on by Pilar Ternera, who acts repeatedly as sexual advisor to the Buendías, Meme has "the same feeling of bravery that she had felt on the drunken evening." (p. 311) Mauricio, for his part, seems to be riding the wave of acceptance coming from a woman above his class stature. Chances are, he dared to hope she would ever show an interest in him, and indeed "at first his crudeness bothered her." (p. 310). Once they fall into their lovemaking routine, however, they have utterly thrown class differences and caution to the wind.
As with so many encounters in this novel, Meme's butterfly love affair end in tragedy so severe it seems almost impossible. Mauricio dies a broken man; Meme spends the rest of her life in silence living at a convent. If we could ask them whether or not it was worth it, what might they say? Being natives of Macondo, probably that fate had them in its clutches all along. After all, Fernanda says of Mauricio the first time she meets him, "He's a very strange man. You can see in his face that he's going to die." It is also an interesting twist that the butterflies that connect the lovers are also their downfall—had Fernanda not remembered butterflies from the dark of the movie theater, she might never have uncovered her daughter's secret.
No matter what happened in the end, the language García Márquez uses to capture the feelings in new love is particularly moving and magical. Meme finds herself "splashing in a bog of hesitation," "swallowing her blush and absorbed in tribulation," and "naked and trembling with love among the scorpions." Though the entire episode lasts a mere seven pages, it resonates with a passion so intense and real it seems to jump off the page. While love and sex are clearly important themes in One Hundred Years of Solitude, seldom is it handled with such ardor or with as stunning a visual cue as a steamy bathroom filled to overflowing with butterflies.
PART FOUR
Discussion Questions, Pages 315—The End
1. Discuss the lasting impact of Meme's love affair with Mauricio Babilonia. What do his lingering yellow butterflies represent? What do you think about the way love seems to derail some of the Buendías, including Meme?
2. Talk about the banana strike. What details do you find interesting about the way García Márquez portrays it? Does what happened seem realistic to you? If not, why do you think it doesn't?
3. Take some time to consider the way that the government has changed or developed over the course of the novel. Do you feel that the way the Buendía family is "governed" has shifted? Do they have less or more power than they did in the beginning of the book?
4. "It rained for four years, eleven months and two days." What does the rain represent?
5. What about the culture or the family seems to be in decline during the final portion of the book? What is "decline" and how, specifically, is it manifested?
6. Talk about the deaths of many of the substantial characters. What is similar about the ways they die? What do you think the way death is portrayed in this novel says about the author's view of life and death?
7. Think about Aureliano and Amaranta Úrsula's love affair in terms of how it's different from other love in the book and also the same. What does the fact that they give birth to the fabled last of the line say about their affair? How do they, together and separately, carry on the spirit of the Buendías?
8. Discuss how Nigromanta is the natural successor to Pilar Ternera's domain in the novel. In what ways are the two characters similar? In what ways are the different?
9. Why do you believe that this novel is important for people to read? If you were going to recommend it to a friend, what would you say to persuade him or her to read it?
10. Talk about the final paragraph. How did it make you feel?
Macondo's Banana Strike: Pages 315—The End.
"The workers, who had been content to wait until then, went into the woods with no other weapons but their working machetes and they began to sabotage the sabotage." — from One Hundred Years of Solitude
The economic and political takeover of Macondo by the banana firm, the strike by field workers, and the military repression and massacre that García Márquez covers in One Hundred Years of Solitude are closely based on events from 1900–1928 in rural Colombia. From modest Colombian holdings, the United Fruit Company of Boston grew into a virtual state-within-a-state in a zone stretching from coastal Santa Marta to Aracataca (the author's hometown). As in Macondo, the firm had separate American-style residential compounds, company stores for foodstuffs, and it's own irrigation system and water policy. Because the United Fruit Company of Boston hired field hands only through subcontractors to avoid Colombian labor legislation, they consistently claimed that United Fruit Company had no employees. Similarly, the six lawyers in the novel argue that "the banana company did not have, never had had, and never would have any workers in its service," and the court establishes "in solemn decrees that the workers did not exist." (p. 320) Indeed, they truly did not.
Seen through the eyes of José Arcadio Segundo and the small child he picks up and cares for during the melee, the struggle for human rights and dignity in the novel takes on a very human face. Though he has been through the massacre himself, when José Arcadio Segundo steps away from the dead that lay strewn in the streets, they disappear. "The streets were deserted under the persistent rain and the houses locked up with no trace of life inside." (p. 331) He, as the sole survivor of the massacre, is told by a villager: "You must be dreaming. Nothing has happened in Macondo, nothing has ever happened, and nothing will ever happen. This is a happy town." (p. 333)
In this, the most brutal, political episode in Gabo's novel about life in Latin America, the author makes a bold statement with unbelievable grace and style. As a young boy, Gabriel García Márquez saw his town, his family and his life blown to the four winds by the real banana strike. As a man, he comments on it with powerful melancholy and truth, showing clearly how events can be manipulated, revised and excised by those in power. Even the Buendía family, who held every ounce of power at the beginning of the novel, find themselves helpless in the face of powerful entities from outside their culture.
In this instance we begin to truly understand the Buendías solitude, their loss, their helplessness, their grief. It is here that our hearts connect to what this family has lost, what they cannot regain, and what it feels like to be the oppressed.
Melquíades' Parchments Revealed: Pages 315—The End.
"Aureliano could not move. Not because he was paralyzed by horror but because at that prodigious instant Melquíades' final keys were revealed to him and he saw the epigraph of the parchments perfectly placed in the order of time and space: The first of the line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by the ants." — from One Hundred Years of Solitude
Though the parchments, Melquíades' historic creative output, appear early in the tale of the Buendías, it is not until the last three pages as the novel winds to completion that we learn what has been written on them. It is not until the end that we—along with the "last of the line"—understand how much Melquíades the gypsy was a soothsayer, a prophet, and the final arbiter of the family's fate. He knew everything all along.
With this revelation in the eleventh hour comes an entirely new way to read the novel we are just finishing. All of a sudden, the full tragedy of "fate" hits home. We learn that not only were the Buendías fated to their decline but every one of their actions—as a family and as individuals—was pre-determined. Their lives were literally written on parchments that predated them all—and could not have been read until the very moment they were deciphered by the last Buendía standing, "prophesying himself in the act of deciphering the last page of the parchments, as if he were looking into a speaking mirror." (p. 447)
Can you imagine this novel ending any other way? García Márquez couldn't have wrapped the novel up in a neater package. At once, Aureliano Babilonia's life's purpose is fulfilled, Melquíades' role cemented and the Buendía line's awkward choices understood, and in a way, sanctioned. The author (both Melquíades and who he has come to represent...García Márquez himself) has been tragicomically called out for what he is: a manipulator of men's souls and a creator in the most complete sense. The icing on the cake is what the parchment's revelation says about humanity—that perhaps we are all damned and redeemed by our heritage, our culture and our nature.
Gabo's masterstroke is complete with the final sentence: "Races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth." In one stroke, he dashes all of our hopes for the future of humanity. Yet, considering the humor and irony we have come to expect from García Márquez, do races ever get a second chance? Are we in control of our own destiny, or does every family have a Melquíades of sorts?
William Kennedy wrote in the New York Times Book Review that "One Hundred Years of Solitude is the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race." In the end, it is at once pessimistic, optimistic—and ultimately—realistic.
Get more resources on One Hundred Years of Solitude, an Oprah's Book Club selection.View the Complete Oprah's Book Club List.
Published 01/20/2004
