One hundred years of solitude

I've finally finished reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It feels like as if I've only just woken from a century long dream. What a magical, ethereal adventure it has been. Im still not entirely convinced I've fully returned to reality. This book is no mere novel, it is a portal into an alternative fantasy world that mirrors our own. I think it'll be one of the few books in my life that I will read twice. It's left me in a state of surrealism and bewilderment. At the same time, i am overcome with a pervasive sense of loneliness and desolation.

The theme of solitude seems to pervade throughout the entire book. It permeates each page to the point of saturation. It is written in the lines, in the spaces between the lines, and even in the most desolate corners of each page. Although i cannot hope to fully grasp the magnificent scope of the underlying messages the author conveys through this literary masterpiece, i am certainly left with a better understanding of human solitude.

Human solitude is a dreadfully beautiful thing. It is an ideal, a state of being, and a way of life. The book portrays both facets of solitude. There is the desolate, hopeless and incapacitating misery that leaves one sobbing into ones own pillow at night, but there is also the quiet, soothing, solitary peace of ones own company. I don't know what saddens me more - the characters in the story who willingly choose to lead a life of solitude, or the ones who are left in solitude due to a twist of fate or the cruelty of life. But whether it is deliberate or indeliberate, it seems that all of the characters in the book cannot escape the eternity of solitude. Whether they are in the arms of a spouse, lover, or prostitute, each character seems to be irremediably alone. Even those who did manage to find true love found it through the understanding, solidarity and compassion gained from an existence of mutual solitude. In other words, a Hundred Years of Solitude is about a fictional society of people who are forever alone together, because it is lonely among people too.

Another pervasive theme is the unforgiving passage of time and the false promises of disillusionment and nostalgia. The eternity of time serves only to emphasize the fickleness of the human heart and how easily people can lose sense of reality in the labyrinth of memories. One quote that really made an impression on me perfectly embodies this idea - "The past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end." It seems that only in the lament of our own solitude, do we come to cherish all the memories we have shared in the company of others, no matter how mundane it may have seemed at the time. The simple act of eating a healthy home-cooked meal with one's family, which we seem to take for granted, might become a precious memory when we grow older and move out of the house. Nostalgia is an affliction that we will suffer with greater frequency as we age, until we cease to live in the present altogether, becoming lost in the annals of our life.

I guess what I've learnt from this book is that everything in life is ephemeral, be it friendship, wealth, or love. Time itself is eternal, but our time on this world is not. There's really no point in wasting time wallowing in the misery of self-inflicted solitude. Go find someone and have a sexy adventure rumpus instead. I know this sounds cliched, but enjoy the little things, and the people around you, because "races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth."