One Hundred
Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez [1967] is
an epic that tells the story of six generations. It is a kaleidoscopic novel
that blends myth and philosophy, history and magic, humour and grief so
seamlessly that it defies classification. Literary critics have given the label
of ‘magical realism’ to Marquez’s style. His books lie beyond any facile label,
however.
It is difficult to interpret
Marquez’s novels for the same reason. Layers of meaning emerge as we read them.
The more you read, the profounder the meanings appear. Profoundly complex.
One Hundred
Years of Solitude transcends any simple
interpretations. This post looks at just one character: Colonel Aureliano
Buendia. The novel begins with him and ends with him, so to say. “Many years
later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember
that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” That is
the opening sentence of the novel. Towards the end of the novel, the parish
priest of Macondo – the place discovered and developed by the Buendias – says
that “there used to be a street here with that name (Colonel Aureliano
Buendia) and in those days people had the custom of naming their children
after streets.”
Colonel Aureliano is one of
the protagonists of this epic. Yet he ends up without even a public
remembrance. He is not even a memory, let alone part of history.
What is human
life but a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury but signifying nothing?
Marquez reminds us of that Shakespearean wisdom again and again. Colonel
Aureliano is the best example for that, perhaps.
The Colonel was a Liberal
rebel who led no less than 32 armed uprisings against the Conservative
government and lost each one of them. He was such a national hero that women
came to have sex with him in order to bear his son. Thus he begot 18 sons all
of whom were named Aureliano in his honour. Yet this man would die alone without
offspring of his own. Without even being remembered by anyone. A sad, mad end leaning
against the same chestnut tree to which his insane father was tied in the last
many years of his life. This man who survived 14 attempts on his life by
rivals, 73 ambushes, and a firing-squad, dies an ignoble death. He was already
forgotten by the people even before his death. No wonder, his every existence
is in doubt a few decades later. “There used to be a street here by that name…”!
That is what human life is. A
walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and
then is heard no more. Sound and fury that lead to nothing in the end. Lead
to degeneration, in fact.
“The world must be all fucked
up,” says one of the minor characters of the novel, towards the end, “when men
travel first class and literature goes as freight.” Macondo’s history of one
hundred years shows that evil is an integral part of human life. Macondo is paradisaical
when it is founded by Jose Arcadio Buendia, Colonel Aureliano’s father. Like
every paradise, Macondo is destined to lose its pristine innocence sooner than
later.
Politics enters Macondo from
outside like a plague. Plague too enters from outside, in fact. Religion too.
Politics destroys the pristineness of the place altogether. Religion is no
less degenerative. Look at what Father Petronio does to Jose Arcadio Segundo,
Colonel Aureliano’s brother’s grandson. As a boy he goes to a priest for his
first confession and the priest questions him whether he has committed any
sexual act with any animal. “There are some corrupt Christians who do their
business with female donkeys,” says Father Petronio whom the boy approaches for
more information. The boy becomes more curious and the old, sickly priest is
finally forced to say, “I go Tuesday nights. If you promise not to tell anyone
I’ll take you next Tuesday.” Thus the boy is initiated to sex with a donkey by
none less than a priest of the Church and the boy soon becomes addicted to it.
It is indeed a fucked-up
world. The Conservative government proves to be a bunch of hypocrites who
preach one thing and do the opposite. They can take away your kitchen tools
and then arrest you for keeping deadly weapons to fight in the civil war
against the government.
But a rebellion doesn’t solve
anything. The world is doomed to be evil. There’s no escape. No redemption.
History is not progressive. It is cyclical. It is a vicious cycle. The sound
and fury are real. They are the only reality perhaps.
Related Post: Remedios
the Beauty and Innocence
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