One Hundred Years of Solitude

Márquez beautifully and magically illuminated some themes that really resonated with me, such as…

The trickery of nostalgia that keeps you vying for moments and places where you’ve just been, but currently are not. The repetition of time through generations and patterns of behavior that are left un-rectified perpetually for the next of kin. The bone chilling effect of a solitude that can be felt in a house full of people - a solitude of the mind, whose very structure ensures no escape.

Time moves in a circle of war and peace, building and destruction, prosperity and calamity. People become characters, and sooner or later, strangers to themselves.

Humans are so messy in their feelings and so consistent in that messiness that history is replayed through generations as if dictated by a script. Building something beautiful only to destroy it, pining for a lover only to turn him away, rousing a crowd to start a rebellion, and later fighting to end that very war -

The juxtaposition of such opposing actions, the sudden change of spirit - it’s all so very human of us. Cities rise and fall, lovers turn against each other, and time goes on relentlessly, indifferently, apathetically, before repeating itself again.