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
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