Sunday, March 11, 2007

100 Años de Soledad Continued

As I continue to read this book, it gets more and more interesting and every page is packed with new events. What is a bit frustrating is that more and more characters get introduced and intertwined with the Buendia family. Not only is the amount of characters hard to follow, but the names of characters (for example the children of Arcadio) overlap with the initial characters of the novel. I don’t really understand why everyone has such similar names and the fact that the “sons” of Colonel Aureliano Buendia’s military expedition are all named Aureliano doesn’t really help.

The topic of incest seems to come up a lot in this book; for example, Aureliano Jose having a liking for his own aunt. Maybe this is trying to show how we have a tendency to want what we can’t have, but on the other hand, incest is not natural or normal. So, I’m not really sure why this seems to be such a dominate theme in the novel.

Furthermore, the novel just continues to get more outrageous, with more incest, bestiality, the two brothers sharing the same girl and it just seems to continue.

I am very intrigued by 100 years of solitude because I really don’t know what’s going to happen next and the suspense is what makes this a good book in my opinion. With the new found connection that links Maconda with the outside, I am really curious to see what will result of it.

1 comment:

Serena said...

Hi Stacey,
Your comments on incest made me think - what place DOES it have in the novel? On one hand it appears natural - cousins Jose Arcadio and Ursula are destined to be together and Aureliano Jose can't overcome his desire for Amaranta - yet we are told many times that it isn't natural - piglets are born from an incestuous relationship. It doesn't seem like there is a clear message - another part of the novel's shifting reality.