(book review)

“Cease, cows, life is short”
(Gabriel G. Marquez)

My rating is 10/10. In G. Marquez’s novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” readers are shown the history of Colombia, but at the same time the author highlights only its most acute moments, which were characteristic of most Latin American countries.

The artistic originality and magical realism of the novel lies in the author’s skillful use of such artistic techniques as fairy tale and irony. Fairy tales bring real poetry of life to the novel. The tale is present in the life of the Buendía family. In the work you can find poetic fairy-tale images, fairy-tale plots and associations. For example, the image of the almighty Jack Brownie embodies a werewolf sorcerer, and in the soldiers who were summoned to kill the rebels, the author sees a multi-headed dragon. Frankly speaking, such approach impressed me a lot.

“One Hundred Years of Solitude” is a kind of encyclopedia of human feelings, and magical realism is reproduced in phantasmagoria, fairy tales, fortune-telling and divination. All this is always good, mysterious and poetic, but in the real life of the Buendía family and many other Colombians everything is different. GG Marquez sadly mocked the body of another victim of the Civil War with the following words: “His bullet, obviously, did not understand the forecasts of the maps.”

GG Marquez’s magical realism is active, because the writer is convinced that the worst things that can happen in a person’s life are humility before evil, forgetting the past, loss of will and courage.

I do recommend reading this magic realism novel — it will not leave indifferent any person who has an open heart and an enquiring mind.…