One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Name: Gabriel García Márquez

Year Won: 1982

Read: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Original Language: Spanish

Reason: "for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent's life and conflicts"

About: One Hundred Years of Solitude follows the lives of members of the Buendia family. One's a revolutionary. One is beautifully deadly. Most die. One is born with the tail of a pig.

It's an odd book, that flits between history (actual Columbian revolutions), fantasy, and fiction almost effortlessly. It also dives between the lives of each of the protagonists seemingly at random, dipping first into the life of one, then into the life of her grandmother, then into the life of her son, seemingly without any division between them, as though the past, present, and future are all one ill defined web.

What I liked: I know I'm in for a treat whenever the Nobel Committee selects a Latin American author and this time was no different. One Hundred Years of Solitude is excellent. I think you could take practically any line from it and be like, "wow, that's some good writing".

In addition, it's hard not to be strangely, almost pruiently fascinated, by the goings on of the strange Buendia family. Is one of them fathering 17 sons, all of whom will be executed by firing squad? Sure, why not? Is everyone in love with the beauty, and sure to die soon enough of their strange curse? Also, why not? It's wonderfully soap-y.

What I Disliked: Not really anything. To me, this is a masterpiece.

With that said, for someone who likes plots that, y'know, are linear. Or make sense. Or are conventional. This is going to be a tough read. It meanders all over the place (I think deliberately). While it's never confusing (and I'd say it's generally satisfying - the plots all do wrap up, even if you generally know their outcome before the story starts), it does go EVERYWHERE.

Should it have won a Nobel: This is one of those great classics for a reason. So yes.

Next Up: "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding

"Auto Da Fe" by Elias Canetti

Name: Elias Canetti

Year Won: 1981

Read: Auto Da Fe

Original Language: German

Reason: "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power"

About: Auto Da Fe supposedly follows a number of people obsessed to the death with something. Depending on the character, they are crazy, wildly, madly obsessed. Which sounds *amazing*.

As it turns out, the writing felt so random and haphazard that I had a hard time figuring out what the plot was, if anything. A boy goes into a bookstore. He talks to a man. There are long descriptive passages, yet nothing seems to happen. It all seems incredibly random.

What I liked: The premise seems really cool. I was never able to grasp it, small minded that I am. But reading the notes made me think, "wow, this seems super cool!"

What I Disliked: I literally had no idea what was going on. Ever. I gave this about 50 pages before being like, "WTF is this?" and returning it to my library. The premise might seem cool, but the story itself was almost impossible to parse, IMO. (And the writing itself struck me as very meh. The first chapter was just a bunch of dialogue with nothing else going on. Like, "hey". "I'm here" "That's good to hear" "I'm glad to hear that" etc. going on seemingly endlessly. I may just not be literary enough for this kind of BS)

Should it have won a Nobel: No. At least not for this. I am done with "let's just do something weird, but talk about it to make it seem special" being seen as special. Like, give the prize to something that's good. There are a LOT of good novels out there. This is...just not one of them.

Next Up: "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez (yes!!!!!)