It's not everyday you find a guy standing up wearing a Star wars T-shirt, with his hair sweep alternating from left to right, while he narrates his critique without missing a beat; and talking about one of the greatest ever novels. And in my post-Christmas solitude I loved it.
Most impactful thing in this entire video (not to discount the rest of the discussion, it was so good I watched it twice back to back) but having different standards of love making it so easy to be lonely. Wow.
YEEEESS I THOUGHT THE SAME THING. I even had to pause the video and quote the phrase to a friend of mine. Either me or the autor of the video doesn't know how much it's gonna impact that quote in my life, it's really mindblowing. Este libro realmente me está haciendo encontrar análisis y enfoques increibles, muchas gracias Garcia Marquez y al autor del video
I didn't even think about how so many of the characters made decisions leading to loneliness. Very good point. Your video reminds me of the overwhelming feeling I got about this novel: that it was portraying the changes of time on the village.
That’s what stuck with me the most is how so many of these moments of “solitude” were decisions and how each character (or idea depending on how you look at the book) would push or pull them. Reminds me of Dostoevsky’s idea that Utilitarianism is a dream and we’ll always find ways to be unhappy and suffer, no?
@@TheCodeXCantinayou're making me reconsider my rsting 🤣 I'm usually fan of the "you made your bed, now lie in it" kind of literature, although there are some exceptions...Madame Bovary among them. That one I'd just TOO MUCH lol Trim that sucker DOWN, Flaubert! NOBODY LIKES EMMA! lol I think part of my problem here was that I really didn't care about the characters enough 🤷♀️
Really appreciated the notes on the translation you included. As a monolingual person, we forget how much a novel can change in translation and how we can lose nuance; thank you for restoring a little of that. 🙂 Fantastic review.
My pleasure! I find a great kick out of considering a new section "Translation Matters" when it's appropriate and I can. I enjoy the double meaning more than I should.
What I got from this video is the fact that 100 years of solitude basically means that the family spent 100 years without finding love! Not a single one of them found the love of their life and even tho they had happy moments, no one was ever HAPPY!
I just finished this book and I am awestruck, it was a rolercoaster of emotions for me, read it in portuguese-br with an impecable translation, definitely one of my all time favourite books
I recently re-read "Cien años de soledad" which, this time round, had an immense impact on me. The book displays a powerful and most expressive narrative right out of the gates. The Spanish is both beautiful and evocative, and words are expertly crafted. Interestingly, you're not likely to find such vibrant, imaginative and expressive use of Spanish in peninsular Spanish literature of the 20th and 21st centuries. When Macondo, the imaginary place where the action takes place, was settled, "the world was new and things were waiting to be named", the narrator said at the outset. And that is exactly the impression conveyed by the narrative, that a primaeval world is being described to the reader, to whom all seems new and magical. I did not resonate with Una's review in this video until 8'35''. I didn't think of the meaning of love nor even of the meaning of loneliness as such while reading the book. The book instead made me reflect on my life, family, genealogy and the society I live in. On top of that it's made me ponder on the different roles of males and females when building families and societies. In this novel, men seem driven by inventive, creative and somewhat reckless and destructive forces while females represent the amalgamating forces that allow families and life at large to go on. Ursula is the best example of that. Jorge Luis Borges once said genially that "Cien años de soledad" was a fairly good novel, but maybe fifty years too long". I only partially agree with this. It's true that after the first 150 pages or so the narration seems to grow somewhat tedious, where magic events and newborn Buendía offspring with recurring names become routine. But then the story regains momentum and reaches a fantastic climax by the end.
Thanks Carlos. I definitely took a different approach. I might be influenced by the group where we started to wonder why in the English translation it used “Solitude” so often and differently for each character. It’s not the most common word to use in translation. That led me down the rabbit hole of how each character seemed to have such strong and violent changes of heart at times and how it impacted people’s relationships. It just made me think of the relationships is all. I agree 100% about things being new and naming them. I was originally going to take a more historical angle w Colonialism being more of a focus but decided against it as someone else in the group talked about it already. I should probably have said this felt more of a subversive commentary.
@@TheCodeXCantina Just out of curiosity, was that group made up of female readers mainly? I believe female readers tend to focus on emotions and interpersonal relationships. In any event, it's most enriching that each one makes different readings from the same book depending on their background or personalities. I think it was Borges that said that a book is in fact infinite books as there is just one author but infinite readers. I've ammended some English mistakes in my comment above :-)
@@Idazle 100% We have two Borges short stories planned later this year. What other Latin literature do you think would be a good fit for us/our channel?
@@TheCodeXCantina Like Borges, I'm a Spanish speaking person (actually Spanish, the son of a Latin American father and a Spanish mother) mainly interested in English and American literature. But now I'm committed to change that and read more Latin American books. My personal 2021 challenge includes Borges' Ficciones (Fictions, allegedly his best collection of tales, included in Le Monde's best 100 books of the 20th century), Cortazar's short stories and Bolaño's "The Savage Detectives". Many acquaintances of mine that are really into Latin American literature and whose opinion I have in high esteem have persuaded me that these are all must-read. www.amazon.es/Fictions-Penguin-Modern-Classics-Borges/dp/0141183845/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_es_ES=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=Borges+Ficciones&qid=1612706840&refinements=p_n_feature_browse-bin%3A831442031&rnid=831437031&s=books&sr=1-1 www.amazon.es/Bestiary-Theselected-Stories-Julio-Cortazar/dp/1784875856/ref=sr_1_3?__mk_es_ES=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=cortazar+short+stories&qid=1612707214&refinements=p_n_feature_browse-bin%3A831442031&rnid=831437031&s=books&sr=1-3 www.amazon.com/-/es/dp/B002LGWI4C/ref=sr_1_2?__mk_es_US=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=bola%C3%B1os+detectives&qid=1612706646&s=audible&sr=1-2.
Thanks for the thoughtful and insightful review! I was drawn to your review after hearing your thoughts on “The Brothers Karamazov”. I was interested to see how you at least talked about “Trigger Warnings”. While I found the writing in “100 Years of Solitude” engaging, and I love magical realism as a genre, the crude sexual references, bestiality, pedophilia, and incest really put me off. What I really found strange was that NONE of the commenters I found discussed that aspect of the novel and would love to hear others thoughts on the topic. The only justification I can see for these elements was to heighten the sense of the family’s isolation. What I took away from “100 Years of Solitude” is that isolation (physical, emotional, or spiritual; of the individual or of a group) leads to suffering, decline, and decay. Is this respect I was reminded of Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” a great deal. Thanks again for the thought provoking content!
Francis Drake was killed in Havana by a slave who won his freedom when he saved the city from the pirate. I think that reality is more magical than fantasy.
I recommend reading The Courthouse, the introduction to William Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun. Over 40 or so pages, Faulkner tells us of the foundation of the city of Jefferson. Towards the end of that intro, he speaks of things that will remain after a hundred years and of things that will not remain. There are echoes of Jefferson in the foundation of Macondo, but of course the most important part of GGM's storytelling are the stories he heard from his maternal grandparents as he grew up as a child. I read Cien años de soledad when I was 17 years old, and re-read it the following summer. I read Requiem for a Nun 30 years later.
@@TheCodeXCantina I should get back to reading more Faulkner. Maybe The Hamlet or If You Forget Me, Jerusalem. I read Sanctuary some time around the turn of the century, more or less. Faulkner is possibly the greatest writer in English since James Joyce, but of course there are so many that I have not read.
@@TheCodeXCantina For me it's Joyce and Faulkner in English (sticking to the 20th century), and Juan Carlos Onetti and Julio Cortázar in Spanish. And Albert Camus, who I can read in French (with effort), but I prefer to read him translated to either of my two mother tongues. I recently re-read The Outsider in English, but I usually read Camus in Spanish translations.
The colonel is actually acting almost entirely out of listless pride, certainly wasn’t trying to create some perfect utopia. His choices were based in selfishness, boredom, and yes perhaps most of all coldness.
@@TheCodeXCantina And thank you very much for your response. Can not believe you actually saw this and responded. Keep producing the excellent content!
@@TheCodeXCantina I'm glad to see your interest. In my opinion, of of the most beautiful parts of Plato's story is that it was irrespective of gender. To them take that celebration of love between humans and torn it into yet another celebration of heteronormative is small-minded. Plato didn't believe that and certainly, Aureliano Buendia didn't either.
@@jc8847kvkc I'll have to think some more on that. You've read further into things I hadn't really been purposefully considering so I'll have to check my assumptions next time. I hadn't thought of this in regards to LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness but your comments make me want to relook at it through that lens.
It's not everyday you find a guy standing up wearing a Star wars T-shirt, with his hair sweep alternating from left to right, while he narrates his critique without missing a beat; and talking about one of the greatest ever novels. And in my post-Christmas solitude I loved it.
😂🤣 calling me out on the camera flip! I think you’re the first to at least call that out 🤣👍
@@TheCodeXCantina I'm very SWITCHED on!
Most impactful thing in this entire video (not to discount the rest of the discussion, it was so good I watched it twice back to back) but having different standards of love making it so easy to be lonely. Wow.
I’ve really been thinking about how applicable it is how we can be lonely today when we have so many different needs and definitions
YEEEESS I THOUGHT THE SAME THING. I even had to pause the video and quote the phrase to a friend of mine. Either me or the autor of the video doesn't know how much it's gonna impact that quote in my life, it's really mindblowing. Este libro realmente me está haciendo encontrar análisis y enfoques increibles, muchas gracias Garcia Marquez y al autor del video
I didn't even think about how so many of the characters made decisions leading to loneliness. Very good point.
Your video reminds me of the overwhelming feeling I got about this novel: that it was portraying the changes of time on the village.
That’s what stuck with me the most is how so many of these moments of “solitude” were decisions and how each character (or idea depending on how you look at the book) would push or pull them. Reminds me of Dostoevsky’s idea that Utilitarianism is a dream and we’ll always find ways to be unhappy and suffer, no?
@@TheCodeXCantinayou're making me reconsider my rsting 🤣 I'm usually fan of the "you made your bed, now lie in it" kind of literature, although there are some exceptions...Madame Bovary among them. That one I'd just TOO MUCH lol Trim that sucker DOWN, Flaubert! NOBODY LIKES EMMA! lol I think part of my problem here was that I really didn't care about the characters enough 🤷♀️
No words other than that was beautiful visually and in its analysis.
Mighty kind of you, sir.
Really appreciated the notes on the translation you included. As a monolingual person, we forget how much a novel can change in translation and how we can lose nuance; thank you for restoring a little of that. 🙂
Fantastic review.
My pleasure! I find a great kick out of considering a new section "Translation Matters" when it's appropriate and I can. I enjoy the double meaning more than I should.
What I got from this video is the fact that 100 years of solitude basically means that the family spent 100 years without finding love! Not a single one of them found the love of their life and even tho they had happy moments, no one was ever HAPPY!
Real uplifter, eh?
I just finished this book and I am awestruck, it was a rolercoaster of emotions for me, read it in portuguese-br with an impecable translation, definitely one of my all time favourite books
Awesome! Glad you enjoyed it 🤗
Love your channel, man. Keep it going I need to read cien años de soledad again.
Thanks! Will do!
I recently re-read "Cien años de soledad" which, this time round, had an immense impact on me. The book displays a powerful and most expressive narrative right out of the gates. The Spanish is both beautiful and evocative, and words are expertly crafted. Interestingly, you're not likely to find such vibrant, imaginative and expressive use of Spanish in peninsular Spanish literature of the 20th and 21st centuries. When Macondo, the imaginary place where the action takes place, was settled, "the world was new and things were waiting to be named", the narrator said at the outset. And that is exactly the impression conveyed by the narrative, that a primaeval world is being described to the reader, to whom all seems new and magical. I did not resonate with Una's review in this video until 8'35''. I didn't think of the meaning of love nor even of the meaning of loneliness as such while reading the book. The book instead made me reflect on my life, family, genealogy and the society I live in. On top of that it's made me ponder on the different roles of males and females when building families and societies. In this novel, men seem driven by inventive, creative and somewhat reckless and destructive forces while females represent the amalgamating forces that allow families and life at large to go on. Ursula is the best example of that. Jorge Luis Borges once said genially that "Cien años de soledad" was a fairly good novel, but maybe fifty years too long". I only partially agree with this. It's true that after the first 150 pages or so the narration seems to grow somewhat tedious, where magic events and newborn Buendía offspring with recurring names become routine. But then the story regains momentum and reaches a fantastic climax by the end.
Thanks Carlos.
I definitely took a different approach. I might be influenced by the group where we started to wonder why in the English translation it used “Solitude” so often and differently for each character. It’s not the most common word to use in translation. That led me down the rabbit hole of how each character seemed to have such strong and violent changes of heart at times and how it impacted people’s relationships. It just made me think of the relationships is all. I agree 100% about things being new and naming them. I was originally going to take a more historical angle w Colonialism being more of a focus but decided against it as someone else in the group talked about it already. I should probably have said this felt more of a subversive commentary.
@@TheCodeXCantina Just out of curiosity, was that group made up of female readers mainly? I believe female readers tend to focus on emotions and interpersonal relationships. In any event, it's most enriching that each one makes different readings from the same book depending on their background or personalities. I think it was Borges that said that a book is in fact infinite books as there is just one author but infinite readers. I've ammended some English mistakes in my comment above :-)
@@Idazle 100%
We have two Borges short stories planned later this year. What other Latin literature do you think would be a good fit for us/our channel?
@@TheCodeXCantina Like Borges, I'm a Spanish speaking person (actually Spanish, the son of a Latin American father and a Spanish mother) mainly interested in English and American literature. But now I'm committed to change that and read more Latin American books. My personal 2021 challenge includes Borges' Ficciones (Fictions, allegedly his best collection of tales, included in Le Monde's best 100 books of the 20th century), Cortazar's short stories and Bolaño's "The Savage Detectives". Many acquaintances of mine that are really into Latin American literature and whose opinion I have in high esteem have persuaded me that these are all must-read.
www.amazon.es/Fictions-Penguin-Modern-Classics-Borges/dp/0141183845/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_es_ES=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=Borges+Ficciones&qid=1612706840&refinements=p_n_feature_browse-bin%3A831442031&rnid=831437031&s=books&sr=1-1
www.amazon.es/Bestiary-Theselected-Stories-Julio-Cortazar/dp/1784875856/ref=sr_1_3?__mk_es_ES=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=cortazar+short+stories&qid=1612707214&refinements=p_n_feature_browse-bin%3A831442031&rnid=831437031&s=books&sr=1-3
www.amazon.com/-/es/dp/B002LGWI4C/ref=sr_1_2?__mk_es_US=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=bola%C3%B1os+detectives&qid=1612706646&s=audible&sr=1-2.
@@Idazle thanks! That’s one of our goals too over the next few years is get more familiar with this area
Great video guys
Thanks so much!
Thanks for insight and the channel recommendations 👍🏽
Our pleasure!
Thanks for the thoughtful and insightful review! I was drawn to your review after hearing your thoughts on “The Brothers Karamazov”. I was interested to see how you at least talked about “Trigger Warnings”. While I found the writing in “100 Years of Solitude” engaging, and I love magical realism as a genre, the crude sexual references, bestiality, pedophilia, and incest really put me off. What I really found strange was that NONE of the commenters I found discussed that aspect of the novel and would love to hear others thoughts on the topic. The only justification I can see for these elements was to heighten the sense of the family’s isolation. What I took away from “100 Years of Solitude” is that isolation (physical, emotional, or spiritual; of the individual or of a group) leads to suffering, decline, and decay. Is this respect I was reminded of Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” a great deal. Thanks again for the thought provoking content!
Yes, that's a great way to look it. I want to get back to that Poe story someday soon
Wonderful video Una 😊
Thank you 😁
Wonderful explanation, still wondering why this video is so underrated !!
Thanks for the kind words
Great vid. Some great points here. Great work, keep it up.
Thanks, will do!
Francis Drake was killed in Havana by a slave who won his freedom when he saved the city from the pirate. I think that reality is more magical than fantasy.
Wonderful analysis, that use of 'unwinding' resonated enormously. The graphics, mate! Too awesome!!
Thank you kindly!
❤️ this. That's an interesting comparison to Canterbury Tales.
:D Always looking for new angles!
Una. WT... This is FABULOUS!! 🤯🤯🤯
Awww shucks.
I recommend reading The Courthouse, the introduction to William Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun. Over 40 or so pages, Faulkner tells us of the foundation of the city of Jefferson. Towards the end of that intro, he speaks of things that will remain after a hundred years and of things that will not remain. There are echoes of Jefferson in the foundation of Macondo, but of course the most important part of GGM's storytelling are the stories he heard from his maternal grandparents as he grew up as a child.
I read Cien años de soledad when I was 17 years old, and re-read it the following summer. I read Requiem for a Nun 30 years later.
Will do. We’re doing Sanctuary this Summer and will follow up on RfaN aftern
@@TheCodeXCantina I should get back to reading more Faulkner. Maybe The Hamlet or If You Forget Me, Jerusalem. I read Sanctuary some time around the turn of the century, more or less. Faulkner is possibly the greatest writer in English since James Joyce, but of course there are so many that I have not read.
@@mangstadt1 he’s my favorite writer
@@TheCodeXCantina For me it's Joyce and Faulkner in English (sticking to the 20th century), and Juan Carlos Onetti and Julio Cortázar in Spanish. And Albert Camus, who I can read in French (with effort), but I prefer to read him translated to either of my two mother tongues. I recently re-read The Outsider in English, but I usually read Camus in Spanish translations.
The colonel is actually acting almost entirely out of listless pride, certainly wasn’t trying to create some perfect utopia. His choices were based in selfishness, boredom, and yes perhaps most of all coldness.
Thanks for sharing
@@TheCodeXCantina And thank you very much for your response. Can not believe you actually saw this and responded. Keep producing the excellent content!
I learned a lot from this! One if my favorite novels. Great job, Una!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Kindly discuss intertextuality in the novel one hundred years of solitude
I'll get on that with the next video. Cheers
I really want to read this novel after watching Encanto
Heh, they might be a bit different
hold up, col.B wife died before he had the tons of sons, right?
Amatonormativity much?
I had to look this word up
@@TheCodeXCantina I'm glad to see your interest. In my opinion, of of the most beautiful parts of Plato's story is that it was irrespective of gender. To them take that celebration of love between humans and torn it into yet another celebration of heteronormative is small-minded. Plato didn't believe that and certainly, Aureliano Buendia didn't either.
@@jc8847kvkc I'll have to think some more on that. You've read further into things I hadn't really been purposefully considering so I'll have to check my assumptions next time. I hadn't thought of this in regards to LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness but your comments make me want to relook at it through that lens.
@@TheCodeXCantina No that would be a fascinating video to see. gender roles and relationship status interpreted through Ursula LeGuin's novels.
Fantastic thoughts Una. The ways Love and Loss are shown in this text are too many to name, what a ride 😊
Many different ways to slice an apple. How many ways can I show people choosing sadness
@@TheCodeXCantina if you get close to Marquez you'll be doing well