Catharsis

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Reading time – 3 days

Explosion! And my thoughts race outwards towards infinity as I try to salvage as much as I can, shortly after I’ve read this book. Don Gabriel conjures a mystifying world of virgin territory, enterprising adventurers, kaleidoscopic gypsies, phantasmal miracles, impossible situations, civil war at point-blank, transient alien landscapes and real, down to the flesh people. Now I know what the gringo narrator of Narcos was talking about when he mentions ‘Magic Realism’.

The writing is so incredibly descriptive that the reader is bound to lose his way amongst the life-size portrayals of scenes from another world yet much our own. The tone of narration is so pensive that it becomes mysterious and we’re hooked by its subtle but incessant seduction that never gets old. Finally the timbre of the feeling is so dense that one gets absorbed into the story instead of the other way round.

The book is basically a 400+ pages of a portal that transmigrates our consciousness with that of the incredible Don Gabriel and irrefutably transmutes our most prehistoric consciousness in an indescribable manner. As we pass through the vague, winding spiral of plain fact, utter shock and blurry premonitions, we find ourselves ‘in’ the scene watching and yet at the same time unravelling it, comparing it with our own memories and outlooks. It is inevitable.

Don Gabriel invents a new language through the translator to English Mr Gregory Rabassa, whose unparalleled authority over the language makes it look easy. If not for him I would have needed to learn Spanish in order to partake this journey but we (English Readers) are so lucky to have him.

You might find this review somewhat scattered and disoriented, of which I assure you it is merely because I’m writing too soon, before the book’s effects have dissipated. Now, for my future conquest, I’ve set my eyes on Ulysses by His Highness James Joyce. I’ll speak soon and only after I’ve finished reading and only about Ulysses.

Thanking You.

ZS