Although my favorite type of writing is non-fiction, my favorite piece of writing is not. I rarely read fictional tales but since a professor assigned 100 Years of Solitude, I see the genre in a different light. The book, which was written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Spanish then masterfully translated into English, is poetic and compelling. I felt lured into the story and I read it very quickly because I couldn’t stop. The characters of the story have their own stories that weave in and out and intertwine so that just when I want to know more about one character, Marquez pulls you away and thrusts you into another character’s life. The dream-like feeling of the whole novel is partially due to the strangeness of the scenario. All of the characters live in a place that does not exist in the real world and many of the characters have the same first name so that it becomes confusing, but entertainingly so, which one you are reading about. What I enjoy most about the novel is undoubtedly the beauty juxtaposed with the ugly and gritty reality but ultimately the ridiculousness of it all:
“Giving her some small, orphaned kisses in the hollow of her wounded hand, he opened up the the most hidden passageways of his heart and drew out an interminable and lacerated intestine, the terrible parasitic animal that had incubated in his martyrdom. He told her how he would get up at midnight to weep in loneliness and rage over the underwear that she had left to dry in the bathroom.”
I love that while such passages appear to be very deep and serious they are completely negated by other areas like when a girl ascends into the sky because she is so beautiful and not of this world. The overall effect is not one of silliness but of dreaminess.
I love “small orphaned kisses in the hollow of her wounded hand,” even though I have no idea what a “terrible parasitic animal” (no matter how metaphorical) is doing in his intestines.