Book Review: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I struggled so hard to get through this one. It’s supposed to be the epitome of magical realism and generational epics, but I was entirely unimpressed. The most common theme in the novel is pedophilia, which fortunately isn’t my thing. And I guess the secondary theme was incestual pedophilia. I was going through my sparse annotations in preparation of writing this review, and the first few notes I had were just “pervy” on page 64, “oh look, two pedophiles” on page 74, and “geez, an entire family of pedophiles” on page 156. 

Oh, and there might have been a light theme of solitude in the midst of family, but absolutely no aspect of the book meant anything beyond words on a page. I really don’t know what to say except that it was beyond boring. It was a mushroom trip that was entirely dull. I don’t get it. In the literary world of magical realism, this is even worse than 1Q84 by Murakami. 

I suppose I’ll try Love in the Time of Cholera, since it’s already in my physical library, but I think that’ll be the end of my Marquez reading journey.