One Hundred Years of Solitude: Favorite Passages

I finished One Hundred Years of Solitude the other day. It was a slow, complex, and ultimately tragic book, but I found it enjoyable and certainly fulfilling. It's an epic unlike any that I have ever read. I intend to write a post about my general feelings and contemplations on the book as a whole, but I really feel the need to do some more reflecting on it now that it's over. In the meantime, I want to point out some favorite passages of mine from the second half of the book. Some are touching, others are just plain fun.

"He soon acquired the forlorn look one sees in vegetarians."
This quote makes me think of Aaron, who recommended this book to me. As a vegan, I wonder how he feels about this. If I ever became vegetarian, this is how I would look at a 4th of July barbecue when faced with the forbidden bratwurst.

"On awakening each one had the juice of forty oranges, eight quarts of coffee, and thirty raw eggs. On the second morning, after many hours without sleep and having put away two pigs, a bunch of bananas, and thirty cases of champagne . . ."
In this scene, a gluttonous character gets in an eating contest with a giant woman named The Elephant, obviously. I grinned madly reading the hyperbolic description of their battle of appetites. People are still fascinated with this sort of thing; just look at the various competitions restaurants around the city have for their customers: Eat a giant pizza or so much ice cream that you'll puke! I've never had the balls to take one of those establishments up on the challenge, but this passage inspires me to do so when I feel the desire to die young.

"He saw a woman dressed in gold sitting on the head of an elephant. He saw a sad dromedary. He saw a bear dressed as a dutch girl keeping time to the music with a soup spoon and a pan. He saw the clowns doing cartwheels at the end of the parade and once more he saw the face of his miserable solitude . . ."
Just before one character dies after living a miserable and lonely life, he walks out to the street for the first time in years to watch the circus pass. It was a passage filled with poignancy and wonder. One of the many death scenes Marquez handles beautifully. Another character actually ascends body and soul into heaven, Jesus style.


"The air was so damp that fish could have come in through the doors and swum out through the windows, floating through the atmosphere in the rooms."
Here, because of a complex mishap with a banana company, it rains in the town where the book is set for years. How wet does that make the place? Wet enough for fish to swim in the air. Surreal.


"They enjoyed the miracle of loving each other as much at the table as in bed, and they grew to be so happy that even when they were two worn out old people they kept on blooming like little children and playing together like dogs."
This is just a heartwarming story of a man and his concubine. One of the very few relationships in the entire book that is actually sweet and genuine. The description here is exactly how I see Mary and I (except for the part about them being old and about one of them being a concubine...).


"What do you expect? Time passes."
This could very well be the motto of the book, as one hundred years passes. Five generations of the family pass between the book's opening and thundering conclusion. Characters move from carefree childhood to an old age full of pain and solitude. It brings the book full of fantasy into the harsh realities of mortality and the dark moments life inevitably holds for us all.

While it is hard and largely bleak, there was a lot to enjoy, especially when it comes to Marquez's writing style. Certainly a nice change of pace.

Up Next: Thoughts on themes and characters in Marquez and the start of the next book in my journey: MOBY DICK!!!!