Just a short blog as I haven’t had a ton of time today to write…
I just reread “One Hundred Years Of Solitude” for the first time in 20 years at least. When I was a younger man, I had loved the book, but I don’t think I had any sense of its depth, the cycles of growth and decay, life and death, and the sense that time can often feel like it’s moving in a circle instead of linearly.
Reading it again now, I was surprised how much I loved it immediately. I have reread quite a few of my favorite novels from my youth recently, including “The Brothers Karamazov,” “The Sun Also Rises,” and “The Great Gatsby.” All of them were still excellent books, but somehow didn’t move me or bring me to awe the way they did when I was younger.
But this book did. Choose any one paragraph in Marquez’s book, and there is more energy, more to say about what drives us, our flaws and joys and sadnesses, in any one paragraph than I’ve read in other author’s entire books. Somehow it captures all that is profound magical about life, along with all that is banal and useless. It is the best novel I’ve ever read, and is on the short list of the best books I’ve read…