final thoughts, week funf.

I just finished One Hundred Years of Solitude today, and I must say, I was very pleased with the ending. I really appreciate it when an author can compose a satisfying ending, because so many times I feel like they are insufficient. It did leave me asking, however, were Melquiades parchments the novel itself, and we have been reading the entire time the history that he wrote? Or are these separate? It would be more exciting, I think, if they were the parchments themselves. 

I also liked, in a sad way, how we witness the entirety of the Buendia family line, from Jose Arcadio Buendia to the last Aureliano. However, that can't really be true, because of course Jose Arcadio Buendia had to have ancestors as well. Still, it makes the realm of the book have more meaning and feel more complete, and less random. One of the things that the novel brings up consistently is how history repeats itself. It would be interesting to discover if this really happened as much in real life. People don't really name their children repeatedly the same things all that often, though. 

I enjoyed reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. It was beautifully written and I loved how we saw the creation, progression, and ultimate destruction of Macondo. 

Week Five

Welcome to Week Five, and our last week week of blogging. This week's post should be on your overall thoughts about the book. It must be a ten sentence summary. You do not need to comment on anyone else's blog, but your post should be up here by Sunday, March 29 You should have made up any missing work by then as well.

week four!

why do you think love gets so easily 'passed around' in this book?
for example in chapter six, and slightly in five, everyone seems to either find love or lose love and get remarried. is it just the lifetstyle of macondo? or is it the way things operate outside of America? is Marquez trying to make a statement about human nature, or was it just coincidence?

open ended question - week quatro

Is the unruliness of Macondo the people, the times, or the result of a fictional town?

It seems like some kind of uproarious activity or scandal is taking place in Macondo. The intense war and all of it's side effects, the multitude of deaths, the interactions between lovers and friends. Are these events a byproduct of the people and their personalities? Or is it because it was a different time period than ours? Or is it because Macondo is fictional, so Marquez could make anything spectacular happen that his heart desired? Or something else entirely?

Discuss.

Week Four

Welcome to Week Four!

For this week's blog you will post a thought-provoking question that does not have only one answer. Remember that you must make 10 comments this week, not 5. Please do not leave this until the last minute, you have the whole week to get it done.

week three!

Personally, I'm getting along very well with this book, despite previous posts/comments where I have insisted on its puzzling nature. Marquez's poetic long sentences are usually chock full of figurative language. Sometimes, though, I find it hard to distinguish metaphors from his fantasical world. So far one of my favorite sentences is "The new house, white, like a dove, was inaugurated with dance." The house is personified, and Marquez uses a peculiar verb, inaugurated, to demonstrate the house's sort of "dance". The sentence is very simple really, and pretty far ahead in the book (only page 59) but I have remembered it through out the story. In some books it seems like the author has to think about their similies and metaphors, and they seem forced and not connected. But with Marquez, it seems as though he slips them in and the sentence works quite well with them.

week three ~ figurative language

The figurative language in One Hundred Years of Solitude is weaved throughout the story. You don't always realize while reading how much of there it is, but going back and specifically looking for it, I found plenty. Marquez uses the language to make everything seem more fantastical. There are bright descriptive words and illustrating similes.
On page 118, of Pietro Crespi, it says,
"Sometimes, over a watercolor of Venice, nostalgia would transform the smell of mud and putrefying shellfish of the canals into the warm aroma of flowers. Amaranta would sigh, laugh, and dream of a second homeland of handsome men and beautiful women who spoke a childlike language, with ancient cities of whose past grandeur only the cats among the rubble remained. After crossing the ocean in search of it, after having confused passion with the vehement stroking of Rebecca, Peitro Crespi had found love."
That's an example of his descriptive qualities, molding floaty sentences with colorful words that help you picture whats going on and enjoy reading it all the more.
There is a constant flow of paragraphs such as this. On the next page, an obvious use of figurative language, is the simile comparing Amaranta to a small animal.
"Amaranta did not tremble at the contact with his icy hands. She withdrew hers like a timid little animal and went back to her work."
This shows us that Amaranta pulled away quickly and bashfully, like a small forest creature might. It enhances the prose greatly. If Marquez had simply said, "she withdrew hers and went back to her work", not only would it have been more boring, but we wouldn't have known how Amaranta reacted to his cold touch.
Marquez expertly blends and integrates his metaphors and descrpitive language with the story of these people's lives. It adds a lot to the reader's understanding of the events, as well as makes the telling of it more beautiful.