Hello, Students.
Jane, Michael, Wendy and Nina (a.k.a. the English Department) would like to welcome you to our first summer reading blog. We hope that you are enjoying One Hundred Years of Solitude.
This blog will provide a forum for your questions, brainstorms, and observations about Garcia Marquez's exciting and challenging novel. If you would like to pose a question for discussion on the blog, please email it to us at nina.lacour@gmail.com OR mjditmore@comcast.net. (Jane and Wendy are traveling this summer.) Let us know in the email if you would like your questions/observations to be anonymous.
We hope you all are enjoying the summer, and look forward to your insights.
10 comments:
We want to read all of your questions. Nothing you want to know about this book is unimportant to us. We also want to know how you feel about the book as well as any critical insights you might want to share with us and you fellow students.
In the mean time, I have a question for you. How many 'chapters' are there in the novel, and what are we supposed to make of the fact that the sections aren't numbered or named (which is why I put scarequotes areound the word 'chapters')?
Numbers imply sequence and this novel is not told in sequential order. Therefore, in one sense, there are no chapters.
If we are supposed to "try to mold [ourselves] to [the author's] perspective and ... understand his experience as much as [we] can," what should we make of the comment made by the author: "Most critics don't realize that a novel like One Hundred Years of Solitude is a bit of a joke, full of signals to close friends; and so, with some pre-ordained right to pontificate they take on the responsibilty of decoding the book and risk making terrible fools of themselves"?
It seems as though the author is saying that no critic can ever understand the author's perspective, no matter how much he analyzes the book.
Are we being "terrible fools?"
Zomgosh! Blog... dis so coool!
I'm a new student going into freshman year this coming fall... and I'm kind of nervous with this first reading assignment. My name's Hero by the way, but I was just thinking about the question on why the chapters have no numbers.
Having no chapters leaves you not knowing where you are, so in order to find where you are I believe you have to keep reading, but since the same story is not usually told back to back or in a consecutive order, it makes it difficult. Being scattered through the book makes knowing anything somewhat difficult, just like, gregory r-k said,
"It seems as though the author is saying that no critic can ever understand the author's perspective, no matter how much he analyzes the book.
Are we being "terrible fools?"
just a thought.
Hi Hero. Please read my commentary on Robert's question on the main page of the blog. Also check out some of the links to Marquez related sites I've just added. The Nobel Prize speech is particularly interesting.
Thanks Michael
I'll take a look at those
-Hero
I've been reading through the book, and Marquez mentions "The Wandering Jew" multiple times. Does anyone have any idea as to what he's referring to?
I know I just posted something asking if anyone knew about the wandering Jew, but poking around on google, I found what the actual term definition for "the wandering jew" is:
"The Wandering Jew is a figure from Christian folklore. The legend relates that a Jewish shoemaker, taunting Jesus on the way to crucifixion, was told by him to "go on forever till I return". The shoemaker was thus punished for his indiscretion by being forced to wander the earth until the second coming of Jesus."
reference definition in book:
"In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, the Wandering Jew is a strange mule-like creature that spoils crops."
http://www.arthistoryclub.com/art_history/The_Wandering_Jew
Thank you for your research, Hero!
One interesting fact that I noticed is that the character "Ursula" has been in the story from the beginning of the story and is one of the few that still has a large impact on the story. Does anyone have a comment on that or anything similar? Thanks and Enjoy the book...
--Frank
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