Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude III

"A lot has been said about this book, from how great it is to how bad it is. Well for what it's worth, I didn't think much of it."


"Truly an epoch novel."


"The whole time I was reading this I was trying to figure out what everyone loves about it. I love language--M.F.K. Fisher's sensual descriptions of oysters, the magical visions Truman Capote evokes--but Marquez's writing just didn't speak to me. It didn't seem fresh and I didn't have any of those 'oh, how perfect' moments when a writer describes something exactly as it should be described. I also love the characters I come to know through literature--Anne of Green Gables, Isabel Archer in Portrait of a Lady--but his were hollow forms--merely pieces in a plot, not personalities to get attached to or angry with. In the years to come, I won't remember their pleasures and their struggles because Marquez never let me in. I had such high hopes that this would be a novel I could love, but I guess it just wasn't my style"

THE GOOD OLD 'I'VE READ THREE OTHER BOOKS EVER' REVIEW


"More like A Hundred Years of Torture. I read this partly in a misguided attempt to expand my literary horizons ... The whole time I read it I thought, 'This must be what it’s like to be stoned.'"


"I just can't fathom what everyone sees in this book. The writing style is not engaging, it's more childlike in its 'first he did this, then he did that' way. The barrage of characters all interbreeding and using the same names; the unfathomable storyline (where is all this leading?); the mix of fantasy and normality; all these things combined to constantly annoy me.

So why does it get such great press? Are people too embarrassed to say they didn't like? Am I just unable to appreciate art? I don't know and frankly, I don't care."


"Having being told that 100 Years of Solitude is one of the best Spanish language books ever written I was so disappointed when I found out that this was a complete and utter lie. Or if it is the truth, it really sets a low standard for Hispanic literature!"


"There is nothing good about One Hundred Years of Solitude. In fact reading it felt like Three Hundred Years of Suck."


"First the style of writing is terrible. It's like a history of a multi-generation family told in a hurry. An account of things that happened. There's so many characters introduced one after another that are shallow (no psychology) that you loose track who's who along the way especially that they all have the same names (Jose Arcadio, Jose, Arcadio, Arcadio Jose...). Another thing is the unfortunate addition of fantasy to a novel that seems to be historical fiction (although not based on any country or events in particular). The gypsies on flying carpets and heavenly ascension are totally out of place. Surprisingly this book was even praised for the interweaving of reality and fantasy. I say it was very awkward. I recommend Haruki Murakami to see how it's done skilfully. In addition incest seems to be one of the main themes of this book. Marquez must have been on some serious drug rampage while writing it and trying to come on terms with his Edip complex."


"Why do the characters have the same names? How can we maintain an interest when we keep having to refer to the family tree and even then it doesn't seem right?"


"Marquez has chosen ... to make all the characters share impossibly similar names throughout the generations."


"If you have a taste for weird books then this might be for you. Unfortunately I interpret the author's bizarre decadency into people living for 150 years, ascending to the sky, being born with pig-tails etc. etc. as being poor writing."


"you can just read what happens at the end without reading the rest of the book and it wouldn't make any difference."


"Hugely overhyped pile of turgid dross ... Forget this drivel, and find someone who can actually write a novel."

Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude II

"The book could have been cut down to one sentence. This dude founded a town Macondo which was destroyed seven generations later."


"A Skilled Rapist ... Marquez pushes a dizzying and horrifying picture of the human condition, which left me feeling as if I had been raped."


"this is one of the books that forced me to have to fight (with the help of a very great and kind Librarian (probably why I have a thing for Librarians) to get my adult library card and access to adult materials, she would stash the books next to the newspaper rack for me (she really was a true goddess) I thought it was non- Imaginative and Wordy, the Imagery really Impacted my brain and since I never knew any more than a few hispanic or spanish people I was fascinated by the way those people thought. I remember thinking maybe some day I would grow up and think that way too."


"The incestuous scenes abound and were a shock to me. Why so much incest? Perhaps I'm failing to grasp the unique Latin-American culture this book is supposed to have captured so perfectly."


A SELECTION OF PEOPLE EXPLAINING THEY ARE IN FACT VERY SMART AND THEY REALLY DID TRY TO FINISH THIS NOVEL WHICH ANY SUFFICIENTLY WELL-BEHAVED ORANGUTAN COULD UNDERSTAND


"This book made me feel less of the 'ardent reader' that I thought I was...I tried, I really really tried"


"It is one of the few books I never finished. I figured it was only fair to put a book I didn't like on this list, since there are so many I do like, just for balance. ;-)"


"It is a rare occasion that I don't finish a book."


"This is the first book I wasn't able to finish since I was a lazy student back in the day. I tried really hard to like it and get into it but failed."


"Ok, I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but I had no idea whether the book was written to be laughed at or to be thought provoking."


"couldn't finish it - that almost never happens"


"I got about 50 pages into the book and quit. It takes a lot for me to not stick it out so there you have it, that's my review."


"Well, I tried. One of maybe 5 books ever that I haven't been able to finish out of sheer boredom."


"one of about 4 books in my life that I was unable to complete...it just went ON and on...but I didn't."


"This is the only book I never finished!"


"I finish pretty much every book I read, but I just couldn't with this one."


"This book was so horrible and uninteresting, I put it down and never picked up back up...and I never do that."


"i can count on one hand the number of books i've put down without finishing. this is one of them. i got 20 pages in and just couldn't take it anymore."

MY DEAR WOMAN CONSIDER IT A VICTORY YOU CAN COUNT AT ALL


"read half way through this book and had to stop. Typically I'm religious about 'not counting' a book if it isn't read all the way through. (This very rarely happens... I have read through some bad literature in my days.) But reading half this book took nearly a month and a half- and the fact that I made it that far is something I'm really proud of."


"I hardly ever give up on a book, and if I do it's always early on when I see it's not what I thought it was.
I made it half way through this book before I threw it down. It was a tough decision."


"This was perhaps the very first book that I put down without finishing."


"Boy, I really worked on this. I REALLY tried to read it and make sense of it, but by the time I was two-thirds of the way through I thought...what the heck, why waste my time?"


"Okay, I tried. I really, really tried. I'm sure that this book has significant value and literary significance and all that, but I just couldn't finish it."


"I can count on one hand the number of books that I've started and not finished, but I just couldn't keep reading this one."


"I have been an avid book reader all my life and this is the ONLY book I just COULDN"T finish. I found it confusing, boring and too long!!"


"I finish 98% of the books I start. Couldn't finish this one."


"I couldn't finish it. I tried--I really did. Then I decided life is too short, and I should move on."


"I didn't finish it. That's rare for me, but I've decided not to push myself to read things that I simply do not like."


"Like other reviewers here, I hardly ever give up on a book. But about 30 pages into the SECOND attempt, I am feeling exhausted."


"This is one of the very few books I've stopped reading halfway through. And I have no intention of ever finishing it. Despite the fact that I horde books, I gave this one away."


"I have to admit that I didn't even finish reading this book. I made it through the first hundred pages and then I had to stop. I don't think you can go 20 pages without reading about someone having sex, and if you asked me what else this book was about, I'd have a pretty hard time coming up with an answer."

Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude

"uhh no offense BUT THIS book should SUCK MY BALLS! um the amazing truth is that i didn't read IT!!!!!!!! but i read a few line sof the summar y thouh. it probably has to do someth ing wit hprophecies and that is why little noobies like the 5 raters have no sense of quantum mechanics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! seriously wh y do we have to listen to the prphecy EH? BATMAN prophecies are assuming that time is presaid already which goes AGAINST QUANTUM MECHANICS!
QUANTUM MECHANICS IS WRONG? i think so....... every physiscs discovery is wrong thes DAYSSS .
baertrand would see alberts hinf beams pathing him at the full speed of lih ght! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7vpw4AH8QQ
since i dont have no idea what the book is about i andre wills just say tat it SUCKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
X^yz+y^xz+Y^xy=X^y*Y^z*z^x"


"Alas the mother dies! Alas the father is so bereft that. . . the baby is eaten by ants! I know that I should be moved, but I am laughing."


"The Buendias are generally selfish. They act in truly outlandish fashion but not in a manner that is entertaining. And they are just dumb. They act in many instances like primitives or even like people suffering from mental retardation. In fact, it seems, from Garcia Marquez’s descriptions of her behavior, that Remedios the Beauty may, in fact, be retarded. I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with those who suffer from mental retardation or with depictions of those who truly are mentally retarded, but the Buendias are not described as suffering from any mental defects, and yet they seem to be really, really stupid."


"I will never understand why this was required school reading even if the arthur was spanish."


"Someone implored me to finish this and I was like: NO! I got three quarters through; read the rest of the plot on SparkNotes. And read the final chapter for effect. I'm a rational adult human being who craves real issues and emotion in fiction. Fuck this."


"I'm sorry, but don't we spend 12 years trying to teach kids that story telling is more than 'this happened, then this happened, then this happened.' I'm proud to be a literary dissident on this one."


"I am a pretty intelligent person - lots of education - But I just couldn't follow this book. It was like it was written by a crazy person. Somewhere in the middle of the book I realized that one sentence was 2 pages long. People with the same name. I missed the metta messages. I couldn't get beyond the black and white. I didn't do well in English Literature class in college - just couldn't figure out the poetry - it was like a foreign language. That's what this book seems like. It was poetic but it made no sense to me."


"This book seemed to take a hundred years to read, mostly because I was you tube instead."


"This book is often called a novelist's novel and it is frequently cited by people (who I frankly doubt have finished it) as a great read. It isn't. There is little to no dialogue."


"Why do people like this interminable, tedious series of letters placed one after another on the printed page?"


"Where is the unreliable narrator? Where are the linguistic pyrotechnics?"


"Most overrated book in modern literature. I've tried reading it at least four times. Never finished it. It's in the same rack with Ulysses and The Sound and the Fury. Anyone who says they've read this book and can differentiate between all the characters and tell you what it's about can go tell it on a mountain."


"Would have been interesting if I could get past the 'storytelling' type of narrative."


"I heard that Spanish writing style involves going in circles, returning to the point in ever widening spirals, instead of the English mode of more linear plot development, and I thought--aha! That's why that book drove me nuts!"


"I found this books subject matter to really nieve. The topic lacked substance"


"It is a little kooky and written by a man and so maybe that is why it is considered to be good. The moral of the story is: time repeats itself and you cannot go back into the past no matter how nostalgic you are. Duh."


"it wasn't good enough to earn my focus."


"I would not recommend this book. The author is obviously base and low. There is not a character in this book who does not stoop to the lowest human characteristics possible. They are mentally, sexually, and physically ill."


"The thing with the so-called classics is this: if you don't care for one of them, or if you don't personally think one of them is a great book, you must be 'missing the point' somehow. Maybe you're simply not that smart, or maybe you're just a shallow reader. One way or another, though, you're deficient and the book is a masterpiece.

Well, I dispute this. I'm not an idiot and I'm not deficient."


"I am beginning to wonder if people say they love books like this because they just want to appear really smart and well read... it just has to be a hoax of some sort."