Thursday, July 01, 2010

One Hundred Years of Solitude

When sometime back Dhanush suggested me to read the book, "One Hundred Years of Solitude", what I replied was something like 'the name sounds so boring and doesnt feel like reading it when I hear the name'. He asked me to change my perspective of Marquez and start reading them. So that was how Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude got their place in my "To Read" list. Love in the Time of Cholera was a real good book. I enjoyed it thoroughly. But I started reading One Hundred Years of Solitude with the same attitude that I was having.. so boring.. And I was literally dragging on with it..sometimes falling asleep in the bus while reading it... But somewhere in the story, something just triggered my interest.. I have not been able to figure what really interested me.. But I just got involved with what happens in Buendia family.. May be the magic of Marquez's writing to start slowly, telling about everyday life in a way that you slowly feel part of the story and then after finishing, the characters just lingers around you.. Even though the story happened in a different spatial and temporal domain, you can still relate the characters and events to yourself and people around you.. Though the last of the Beundia's were carried away by the ant as Melquides' predications said, the same cycle repeats itself with a different family name at a different place at a different time..

Couple of things I cant help mentioning here..

The story made me remember one of the early poetries that my mother taught me in my LP classes for the English recitation competitions..

In the village, in the village, in the village
Life repeats itself, life repeats itself.
There is sunlight, there is darkness..

Here you can read it fully:

http://www.threes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2176:andrew-oerk&catid=83:literature&Itemid=67

Secondly, arent Melquiades' parchments what they are promoting as Naadijyothisha these days.. Sages have written down all about your life, including when you will read them, your previous and next lives, centuries ago..