By: Mirabelle Cohen

        Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude transcends time and reality, whisking the reader away with a swarm of yellow butterflies into the legacy of the fictional Buendía family. Readers first discovered the magical town of Mocondo, Colombia when the novel was published in 1967, and the Mocondo parade of gypsies, prostitutes, war-heroes, and grandmothers continues to fascinate readers around the globe. Márquez honors the fabric of the traditional novel, but One Hundred Years of Solitude is something completely new. Márquez forms each character from different colored threads, and braids together an opus of Latin American literature that deals with the torment of time, generational trauma, forbidden incestual love, and the looming fear of giving birth to a human with a pig’s tail. 

        Márquez immediately reveals the magic of his writing with this famous first sentence: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Beundía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” This opening line has stunned writers and critics since it was first printed in Spanish. Surely, no respectable author would begin a story in the middle, and give away all the drama. Early critics cried blasphemy when they saw old reliable ‘Once upon a time’ kneaded and stretched like soft dough. Still, the tale is special because it is bold and surprising. Time does not function clearly in this novel. Márquez lyrically blends tenses as if to dare anyone to follow along with his narrative. The repetition of characters' names may seem muddling, but nothing is obvious about the protagonists, anyway. Time is illusive. Past, present and future bleeds together until we begin to see patterns that make sense.