One Hundred Years of Solitude: I Gave It Four Stars

My first encounter with One Hundred Years of Solitude was back in high school. There was a supplementary Chinese textbook at the time, and my fondness for it far exceeded the “Chinese Language” textbook full of cannibalistic stories. The excerpt from the first chapter of One Hundred Years of Solitude was included in it.

Many years later, facing my computer, I can no longer recall that stuffy afternoon reading the excerpt from One Hundred Years of Solitude. I only vaguely remember Lao Gao saying, “This is a great novel.” But he also said that White Deer Plain, Jean-Christophe, and Ulysses were great novels. During one Chinese class related to rural China, he suddenly asked if anyone knew White Deer Plain and who wrote it. After a few seconds of silence, I recalled the novel in the bookstore about Erhei having an affair with a girl in the donkey grass, and answered, “Chen Zhongshi.” His eyes lit up as he asked if I’d read it. I shook my head, and he seemed quite disappointed, suddenly raising his voice: “Hey, you don’t even read such a great novel, what else are you reading!” As he spoke, his gaze swept over everyone.

So I approached the excerpt from the great One Hundred Years of Solitude with a classic attitude. “Many years later, facing the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía would remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to see ice.” This sentence structure completely overturned my sense of time, and I regarded it as a classic. Recently, I learned that many Chinese writers have imitated this sentence structure. It seems their boasted classics only stop at this style, while their works haven’t captured even half the essence of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

When I finally finished reading One Hundred Years of Solitude over three afternoons and evenings, I didn’t feel the so-called shocking pleasure they talked about. This is a strange novel that reflects the historical development of Latin America. It narrates the process of the village of Macondo, which constantly explores and develops itself, ultimately declining and disappearing under the impact of modern civilization. Macondo’s self-exploration had two stages. One was the gypsy stage. The gypsies traveling the world were just gentle facilitators. They brought the initial scientific products to Macondo but didn’t teach the scientific principles. The people of Macondo were only in a curious enlightenment period. The second was the civil war period. The country’s factional disputes gave people broader freedom and interest demands, but sometimes their war goals were unclear. Colonel Aureliano Buendía fought his whole life without even knowing why he was fighting. In the end, he just made small goldfish alone in a small workshop to pass the time. The modern civilization impact period refers to the banana planting period. The railroad-connected Macondo brought many foreigners to pan for gold here, but the people of Macondo needed more benefits, so the workers’ movement broke out. The coalition government of conservatives and liberals shot more than three thousand group-intellectually disabled plantation workers to protect foreign interests. Afterwards, they destroyed the bodies to cover it up and announced to the outside world that the workers’ movement had been properly resolved. It was a bit like 1984 or 1989—no one knew the truth, and the foolish masses only believed the official lies. Finally, after four years of heavy rain and ten years of drought in Macondo, Aureliano Babilonia, who fell in love with his aunt Amaranta Úrsula, deciphered the parchment, and the entire Macondo was wiped out in a hurricane, erased from the world’s memory.

What is the root of all this? I think it’s loneliness and selfishness. Because of loneliness, everyone was doing their own thing. Úrsula ran the candy store, José Arcadio Buendía explored the early world, the children were left to others to manage, Aureliano Buendía went to war because of loneliness, José Arcadio wandered the world because love had no place. Everyone was immersed in their own world, rarely communicating with others. Later, when victory was in sight, Aureliano Buendía didn’t understand his purpose and gave up the war to compromise with the conservatives, abandoning all affairs including money and fame to focus on making small goldfish. His selfishness stemmed from loneliness, ultimately leading to foreign invaders colluding with the government. Macondo ultimately failed when accepting the new culture. However, the responsibility can’t all be blamed on one person. During the war, the group worshipped the colonel; before the shooting, everyone was like a duck in the group collectively losing wisdom and being killed. Large-scale social ignorance was also one of the reasons.

In short, the story is wonderful. If I were Latin American, I would definitely give it five stars on Douban.

Honestly, I gave it four stars. Maybe I really should go read White Deer Plain.