Take a look at the Paradise Lost (John Milton) excerpt in your text and read the background info (page 465ish) or just think about the Biblical creation story. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a much more sprawling saga but do you see any parallels? Has Garcia Marquez created a modern Paradise Lost?
Please let me know what you think of this novel in general as well or ask any questions you have for the rest of us!
6 comments:
I'm over half way through 100 years of solitude and i think he has created some kind of "paradise lost".When Macando is first discovered, the family really enjoys it, but they still are haunted by solitude. Even as Macando grows and more people begin to live there, everyone else seems to enjoy it but for the majority of the family, they don't enjoy it and even if they do, the members of the family still feel somewhat alone and lost even when they are surrounded by people.
Is this Meaghan? Halfnickel -- I get it!
Yes there's definitely a cycle of devolution almost. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold (see WB Yeats), etc. There are lots of interesting things going on and reasons for this corruption or whatever you want to call it. There seems to be a sort of inevitable and unavoidable fate which no one can escape though they try through war, religion, hedonism, etc. The whole solitude idea ties in here I think but I'd love to hear what others think. Colonel Aureliano reverts to solitude as the only possibility and solitude is mentioned throughout the novel in relation to many characters. Any ideas about its role in the novel and in Marquez's world-view?
In the sense that the town originally is ideal and closed off from the rest of the world but slowly becomes lost in the sins of the family, I think Garcia Marquez has created something very similar to the Adam and Eve story, at least. There's also something very biblical in the magical realism itself, the way they simply accept the surreal as natural events such as in the assumption of Remedios the Beauty. There's also a sense of destiny at play, with the circular nature of the events and generations and the way their family was doomed from the start (the first is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by the ants - both present tense, like they're happening at the same time). At the same time though, it plays very much like a history, but one that's not meant for people to far away from the time in which it is set - much like Genesis can often read when it talks about someone being the son of the son of the son of the son of Abraham, as if we should know who these people are.
100 Years is rather like The God of Small Things (a book I read randomly a couple months ago) and Things Fall Apart. I thought of the God of Small Things partially because of the butterflies (there was a moth/ghost) and partially because of the set up of the family. The family in Small Things is much smaller, just two (and a half) generations, than the many generational family in 100 Years. However, there's a feeling where the people are all separated from each other. The two kids grow up with each other, but are separated and grow apart. They are always separate from the other members of the family, especially after their mother dies. In 100 Years, all members are separate. There are a couple occasions where two members form a bond, but the bond always breaks. There's a solitude link between the two books.
Things Fall Apart is kind of like 100 Years, but I only thought of it because of mr.richardson's comment. The main character ends up killing himself (shooting? hanging?) by the end of the book. I'm not done with 100 Years, but I have a general feeling that everybody, from the family, is going to die.
Alright. Um. Entire thought process got interrupted for about an hour there. Um. I don't know what else I was going to say, but...
All the books are stream of conscious(ness) and jump around a little & are about daily life.
There's definitely allusions to the biblical creation story (and probably many other bible stories...) but I'm interested in the sort of tongue in cheek tone which permeates the entire novel. Even the assumption of Remedios is downright humorous (in my opinion). There is a sort of dark comedy about Jose Arcadio Buendia's being tied to a tree (although the ending fate of little Aureliano is rather gruesome and NOT really funny -- here the novel actually becomes a bit tragic). This is a very interesting novel given the fact that Marquez was tied to the communist movement (at least in his younger days -- I'll have to check his later political status). This is a very UNcommunist novel. As you mention -- we are controlled by fate and personality and the large scheme of things in general. Humans are sort of comically manipulated by forces they are not really even aware of except in a very vague and ineffectual way (for example, Ursula's attempts to Catholicize her pagan family and town through a series of comically inadequate priests obsessed with various trivialities and her own grandson who uses religion to live a life of luxury in Europe).
Me, Myself and I -- The God of Small Things is on my to-read list. I'll have to talk with you about it further. As I remember (and it's been awhile so I only remember very generally), Things Fall Apart is similar in its themes of human failing and fraility in the face of larger forces but Things Fall Apart is tragic in tone, while there's too much humor in 100 Years to be truly tragic in my book. I guess the end is tragic but the rest is sad in a quirky way but also funny.
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