One Hundred Years of Solitude – Book Review

The first man of the family was tied to a tree, the last man of the family was eaten by ants.

In what way should we view the Buendía Family?  Among the multiple generations of people, there are ones can craft art, ones brave and strong, ones knowledgeable and clever, ones hard-working, and ones brilliant and charismatic…… they have the eyes with determination, the characteristic of never withdraw – whether it is travelling in distances, or enjoying the evening for fun, they can use their special charisma to charm women with beautiful figure and great personality.  I can’t see the weakness of this family, but they only last a few hundred years. Then the wind came, and their life, their descendents, and their memories, soon disappeared without a trace.  Yet there seems to be nothing to regret about.

In what way should we view the book ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’? I didn’t recall any special feelings of excited or grief.  I feel like the words flow in front of my eyes, even though the family tree is hard to understand, the place and history is unknown to me…… every aspect that disrupts my rhythm of reading was accepted by me.  I read this book continuously, page after page.  What was I thinking when I was reading?? I don’t know. What was I doing? I don’t know. However, incredibly, while reading this book that is not a comedy story, I started to feel the happiness and joy of peace and solitude.  It is like that even I know human would age and die, but at the moment when sunlight shines upon human, I still can’t help but smile.

This is a story without love but yet romantic.  Everyone is using their own approach to resist solitude – participating in the revolution, repeating manual labour, addicting to lust and sex, reading and translating books …… this book contains the all possible ways for human to resist solitude.  If someone got time, he can totally turn this book into a tool book with name “One Hundred Effective Ways to Resist Solitude”.

It might sell more than “One Hundred Years of Solitude”.

In articles that are a little hypocritical, we often see solitude flooding in the city.  As a matter of fact, life never leaves solitude. No matter the birth, the growth, the relationship or our success and failure, until the last moment, the solitude, like our shadow, exists with our life.  You don’t know what to do when it jokes.

There are sunny days, there are rainy days.  There are relationships, there are solitudes. In fact, it is no big deal.  There is no point to spend so much time to resist it.  Write a book, have a sex, go to a good place, love a good woman, make some money then make some more money…… these things are good, but do not use them to resist solitude.  Varieties of experience are just parts of life, but not as the chips to battle with solitude. Solitude cannot be resisted, cannot be forgotten.  It will not become weak with time; will not go away with lovers.  Solitude is there, makes a cold joke once a while.

When solitude appears, what can we do? Go along with it and smile.  After thinking for a bit, solitude is not any cruel enemy, he is with us from our birth, yet he will be with us when death comes.  It reminds us to cherish what we have, it urges us to experience the life, it clears our mind upon success, and it gives us a smile upon failure.  It let me feel that many things in this world worth trying, and many things are not so important.  There are things, from birth to death, others cannot replace, cannot taken away – solitude is one of them, it follows with my blood and engraved into my bones, it makes live real – it makes me know who I am when I am alone.