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Hi Cecily. Your reaction almost mirrors my own after my first reading 13 years or more ago. Then I read it for a second time last fall, I found a glorious tale. (And yes, the use of the same names is even worse than the name affliction that I suffer in Russian literature.)

Ha! Yes, the same problems with the (limited) number of Russian novels I've read.

I remember this only vaguely: I read it shortly before I joined GR, hence the very brief "review". Evidently a good way to gain likes for old reviews is just to put them on a new shelf. Several ancient, inadequate reviews seem to have gained unexpected attention in this way (not that I'm complaining).

When I tried* to read War and Peace some years ago I grabbed an A4 sheet of paper and wrote down the long Russian names with as many identifiers as I could think of to remember who was who. Still didn't work. Likewise the names in OHYoS give a hard time due to their similarity. But I think the repetition of names is intentional, to emphasise the circularity of time for each succeeding generation (here we have Borges speaking through Marquez, methinks). Midway through the novel all Buendias fell into place, effortlessly, some retrospectively.

*W&P remains unfinished :(

Yes! That link from Borges is exactly why I need to read or reread some Marquez now that I've read some Borges.

I think you're absolutely right about the circularity of the names. (Like you with W&P, I jotted the names down; only after I finished did I notice a family tree at the back.)

Cecily wrote: "only after I finished did I notice a family tree at the back"

The family tree is now in the front, in my edition anyway. Nicely summarized there, Cecily. I have just completed it (well, actually, stalled with last 70 pages to go). Looking at the family tree, I realized how the author had cunningly hidden a spoiler by way of naming them all the same.

Hope you will re-read this someday. I like to hear what you think the point of the story was. That, I am still wondering.

Alfred wrote: "The family tree is now in the front, in my edition anyway."

That's good to know.

Alfred wrote: "Hope you will re-read this someday. I like to hear what you think the point of the story was. That, I am still wondering."

Maybe, but probably not. I ought to return to GGM, but I'll more likely read one I've not read before.

I'm currently reading this one, Cecily. Some people really adore this novel, I have mixed feelings about it. This is my second try at reading it, and I am now half way through. I will finish it this time, but yes, confusing names and meandering plot. Love the insomnia plague and the discovery of ice.

Nick wrote: "I'm currently reading this one, Cecily.... I will finish it this time, but yes, confusing names and meandering plot..."

I expect it will be easier second time round. It's nearly a decade since I read this, and at least half a dozen years since I read any GGM. Yet another for the TBR.

Every time I make a go at this, never seem to get far. Maybe it's just not for me.

I stopped temporarily at 2/3 because... reading it felt like a slow but exquisite boat ride down a beautiful river but I resumed to completion after a couple days' reading break. For what it's worth, the last 1/3 and the ending are worth sticking through. It's a lovely book but not a re-read for me.

I also haven't read it in over a decade - but when I did, it was the best book I've ever read. [which has also been the reaction of everyone I know IRL who has read the book].
What's it about? The nature of human existence, I guess. It's also obviously a satirical history of Colombia, and apparently it can also be read as paralleling the Bible, although to be honest I didn't get that at the time.

I didn't have any problem, myself, with the huge cast and the repeating names - this may be an advantage of having grown up reading epic fantasy, which I guess OHYOS could be seen as a particularly literary example of. [Likewise, incest and potentially underage relationships - not a problem for epic fantasy fans...]

Wastrel wrote: "What's it about? The nature of human existence..."

Isn't that what all great art (including literature) is about?

If that's how you define "great", I suppose. I'm not sure how useful that criterion would be outside of literature, though - most classical music isn't "about" anything, for instance, and a lot of classical painting isn't really about much beyond "fwoah, look at the tits on her!" (I believe there may be a more technical phrase in art criticism that I'm missing there, but you get my point). Similarly, architecture is often not about much, though sometimes a building seems to be about tall things being cool, and at other times a building may also, again, be secretly about "fwoah, look at the tits on her!" (cf. the Radcliffe Camera).

Even within literature... I'm not sure I can think of a clearly "great" counterexample, but I think there are certainly very good books that have little intention of saying anything much about human existence. A novel like Pratchett's Maskerade, for instance, is very good, but I think that it's human-existence-discussion elements are tertiary to its "telling a fun murder mystery adventure story" and "being very funny" ambitions.

Whereas in the case of OHYOS, I think García Marquez is actually setting out to say something about the nature of "a race condemned to one hundred years of solitude", and many moments make more sense taken as commentary on general human existance than they do as progression of a coherent plot. And indeed I think even the structure of the story - its magic realism, its rich allusiveness, its meandering flow - are chosen in order to say something about the way that people experience life.

Wastrel wrote: "If that's how you define "great", I suppose. I'm not sure how useful that criterion would be outside of literature, though - most classical music isn't "about" anything..."

Well, it was a rather flippant comment, but I think it holds a grain of truth - for me. Certainly for literature, film, and painting.

A criterion that I think works for all mediums is that great art bears repetition/revisiting and - most importantly - you get something new every time. Not necessarily dramatically new or different, but something.