Product Description

This magical realist novel tells the history of the Buendias family, the founders of Macondo, a remote South American settlement. In the world of the novel there is a Spanish galleon beached in the jungle, a flying carpet, and an iguana in a woman's womb. It won the 1982 Nobel Prize for literature.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #114578 in Books
• Published on: 1996-01-11
• Original language: Spanish
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Customer Reviews

Good, but not great
I bought this book because it was one of the one hundred books of the century on a few lists, and finally picked it up off the shelf because it seemed like everyone was talking about it.
It was good, but not great. I think it had been built up in my expectations and didn't live up to it. The quirky style, hundreds of people with similar names and the lack of any particular plot at times that many people find endearing I have come across before and done better. I think Louis de Bernieres does this kind of South American brutal and bizarre story telling much better e.g. The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts or The Troublesome Offspring. Going away from South America his Birds Without Wings is fantastic.
Back to this book and there were long parts where nothing much of interest happens and I know someone else who almost gave up several times. Confusion over characters often takes the reader back to the family tree, which fortunately this version of the book has at the front (study it well).
Overall: read it, but don't expect the genius some people rave about.

Best book of... The last 100 years!
It's a bit annoying when a book is listed with four different editions that the reviews treat each edition as a separate book. Therefore if you want to see other reviews of this book you should look at the other editions listed on the site. The other annoying thing is that the amazon.com website has a different (and much larger) set of reviews to this and most other books.

Memorable, magical and profoundly original
This is a book you will never forget. Marquez creates a world that glitters with magic. It is a world of extremes, a world of infinite possibility. Just as this allows for happiness we are exposed equally to profound sorrow and suffering. But the humour of Marquez pervades the novel always and he has a unique way of bestowing a certain charm on the gravest of events. You will put this book down in a daze, never to look on our world in quite the same way again.