Una gran experiencia transcrita con todo detalle, un taller de cine, con la magia de la creación colectiva.

La Mala Hora. Gabriel García Marquez

Relato de un recién llegado. (1) De repente me encontré en este pueblo perdido del mundo, mas allá de las fronteras de la selva donde pense no encontrar la huella humana. Dicen que mis antepasados habitaron aquí en un tiempo perdido, llegaron un día con sus cosas y un día partieron sin dejar mas rastro que sus huellas en el camino. Cuentan las malas lenguas que las injurias y los pecados de la gente, mantenidos por tanto tiempo ocultos un día llegaron al pueblo en forma de pequeños pasquines que decían a voz en cuello lo que corría en boca de todos pero que nadie sabia. Era la voz del pueblo, el alma hecha palabra y no le quedo mas remedio a la gente de este pueblo que enloquecer o huir dejando atrás lo que habían atesorado durante tanto tiempo. Cuentan que solo quedo en el pueblo el viejo padre Angel en su iglesia inundada de ratas y el alcalde con vastos terrenos que no tenia como atender. Al final las personas que habían abandonado el pueblo volvían a saquear lo que quedaba y seguir en la guerrilla contra el gobierno. Solo el alcalde quedo luchando por lo que jamas fue suyo y saboreando un poder que de poco servia, pues un poder sin sirvientes, es como es el río seco del que solo nos queda el recuerdo... (2) La historia es densa y me hace recordar esos pueblos del sur de los EE.UU de los cuentos de Faulkner. Se puede sentir el calor y la lluvia en cada pagina así como la opresión de un pueblo que al final se subleva de sus mismas ataduras y se vuelve contra si mismo y su autoridad en la persona del alcalde, que solo ve en la situación imperante una forma de aumentar su fortuna a expensas del estado, de la gente y del miedo. Es una historia excelente, parece un cuento largo o una novela corta. Los críticos dirán que es un cuento largo pero corto.

Luis Mendez

One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of several generations of a Colombian family while supernatural occurrences and unbelievable events are described with unblinking sincerity. Marquez, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982, commands such mastery of language that his prose reads like verse. The beauty of his words wraps the reader inextricably into the fates of the Buendias. Their loves, their wars, their brutality, their death and dreams, are all told with Marquez's special gift of prose. One Hundred Years of Solitude is probably Marquez's finest work, destined to be a classic of world literature.

Aunque toda la obra de Garcia Marquez es brillante, considero que Ojos de Perro Azul goza de las caracteristicas de un cuento perfecto. Es magico e inesperado. Transporta al lector a un mundo de ensueño que se va revelando sutilmente. Definitivamente, vale la pena leerlo, mas de una vez.

Here is a real treat for hardcore Marquez fans, it's a booklong, albeit a short book, but a nonetheless booklong interview with the man himself. And, boys and girls, it is beautiful. Stellar. I thought there was no way I could like this little nonfictionthing as well as his similarly sized short fiction or bigger novels, but the universe proved me wrong once again, and I did. The best part of the whole thing is when he talks about, and he's totally serious here, not being able to write without yellow flowers in the room. The guy is a nut. But it's beautiful, you can't help loving it even as you laugh at it. Just a great little book.

Gloria Clark is the most amazing literary critic. She must have had a really good and supportive family while writing this book.

es simplemente un libro bueno y sólido, no hay porque negarlo, pero no es la gran obra maestra del siglo como muchos pretenden nombrarlo.... es basicamente entretenido y con muchas imagenes evocativas que te submergen en un mundo exagerado pero vivible. Si tienes doce años y quieres convencerte de que leer es entretenido lee esto. Si tienes 25 años y nunca has leído un libro en tu vida y te da verguenza, lee esto. Lo mas probable es que te guste y te sientas bien contigo mismo. Literatura para turistas fascinados con realidades multicolores que existen en el papel y nada más. Gabo es el novel de los que no conocen Latinoamerica, pero aún asi se le quiere.

Debo haberla leido unas 15 veces. En todos los casos sin poder detenerme hasta el orgásmico final de la historia. Gabo siempre tuvo debilidad por las revoluciones sociales, su admiración por el sátrapa Fidel lo prueba, pero en su obra literaria, la revolución liberal es sólo una metáfora. El no conocer la historia colombiana no le quita al libro el atractivo de lo real maravilloso. Un deicidio, como decía Vargas Llosa. Asesina la realidad y nos entrega un nuevo mundo con lógica invertida, donde Remedios la bella puede volar e ir en cuerpo y alma al cielo, donde Macondo puede desaparecer sin dejar rastro ni siquiera histórico, donde el alma del muerto sigue influyendo en la vida de los demás, donde se encuentran tesoros en sánscrito que serían imposibles de encontrar en otro rincon del planeta. ¿Cuánto de autobiografía habrá en la novela? por ahí oí que GGM se encerró varios años para escribirla. ¿Habrá acumulado bacinicas? ¿Habrá hecho pescaditos de oro? Para los latinoamericanos es una lluvia eterna que seguirá maravillándonos por siglos, aunque la falta de sueño nos haga perder la memoria.

Para ser franco, en realidad no soy muy buen crítico de libros ni mucho menos. Simplemente estoy de acuerdo con muchas de las personas que catalogan a esta novela como una obra cumbre de la literatura hispana. He leído tres veces este libro y debo confesar que cada vez me ha interesado más, me ha atrapado más. En conclusión: esta obra se ha convertido en mi biblia. La recomiendo para todos aquellos lectores que se consideren dignos de leer un libro que es más que una novela; es una gran historia que yo considero muy real y explico el porque: analizando muchas notas periodísticas realizadas a su autor e investigando sobre la vida del mismo, uno puede notar las "coincidencias" que hay entre las historias de cada personaje y la historia del mismo García Márquez y todo su entorno (su pueblo, su familia). Además, realizando estas investigaciones, me encontré con la siguiente declaración de la esposa de "Gabo": "cuando estaba escribiendo 'Cien años de soledad', y llegado el momento de la muerte del Coronel Aureliano Buendía, para poder escribirla pasó una semana de muy mal humor, encerrado en su escritorio. Sólo bajaba para cenar. Hasta que un día me enfrentó y con profunda tristeza me dijo 'ya lo maté'". Se nota en esta declaración que es tan profunda la relación entre el escritor y los personajes que para aquella persona que conoce esta historia, les puedo asegurar que le apasiona mucho más la lectura de este libro.

For readers, this is a four-star entree meal. Garcia's prose is richly seasoned. His characterization is complete and immensely human. With his style of writing, he creates for the reader a prose that is complex, ornate, baroque, and deeply satisfying.

The novel's scope ranges over the youth and old age of three characters, caught in unrequited love, surviving civil wars, deforestation of landscapes--both psychological and also natural--and outbreaks of cholera. Behind this hubris, Garcia details the fine distinctions of love and love lost.

This novel, finally, gets better when you finish reading it; the sensual prose seeps into the reader's memory and makes for a haunting, echoing satisfaction. Yes, the ending is fulfilling. In fact, the last 50 pages of the book are simply incredible, but of course, the readers needs to read everything prior to this--as set-up--to get the reward of the finale.

This is an incredibly satisfying novel.

Love in the Time of Cholera written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a truly marvelous love story. As you read the book you'll find that you are effectively drawn into the steamy backwater of coastal Columbia a century ago, with all of the sensual stimula of unrequited love.

The author's powerful descriptive narrative quickly transforms the scene as the reader will feel a master storyteller totally engrossing. The story is about a love between a man and a woman, a love so strong that after being rejected early on in life carries on to later life... yes, fifty-one years later the love is rekindled. Truly making this story one of shear beauty.

Not only this, but the author makes this story unbearably touching, your heart will be taken away by the power of this love story. If you haven't read any of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's books, this is where to start as compelling as this story is... the true nature of this story bursts with the magic of ordinary life told with a rich human flair.

This is a book that simply cannot to be ignored. Lush, sensual and poetic in its prose, Marquez spins a vivid tale about a man's love for a woman that waits fifty years to come to fruition. Beneath the imagery and romance, however, lies Marquez's sharp observations on the nature of relationships, marriage and old age -- all told with Marquez's brand of humor, wisdom and unflinching veracity.
The imagery pops alive in the mind's eye like no film can. In a tropical Caribbean setting, sometime between the close of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the environment becomes just as much a character as Florentino Ariza, and the dramatic story unfolds of his love for Fermina Daza. I'd love to recommend this for mature teens, but to truly savor it, you'll have to have lived a little. In the end, no matter what age, you will be the better for having read this masterpiece!

It is a wonderful journey where the author takes you back and forward in a smooth way through the live in Macondo the little town in the middle of nowhere.It may takes you a while to understad I read the book 3 times the first time I had it and so far I read it 8 times in my lifetime and it never stops to excite me.You want to forget your problems, travel to Macondo and learn about making gold and many other things! discover another world.

'One Hundred Years of Solitude', as most of the other reviewers agree, is a tremendous achievement. In a sometimes indirect fashion, it chronicles the soul and psyche of 19th century Colombians as the 'civilized' world sweeps into their lives, turns it upside-down, then recovers. The author achieves this by tracing generations of an extended family in a remote village, glued together by a strange mixture of heredity, emotion, and mysticism. This is not historical fiction by any means. However it perfectly projects a sense of ... I don't know ... spirit? soul? of the local people. One cannot help but feel that the author has written something unique.

Despite all this goodness, the book is difficult to read. At times the author seems to be rambling aimlessly, talking about the (too) many characters with identical (or nearly identical) names. But I sense not a single word was written without a strong purpose. Therefore I recommend NOT reading the book alone but rather share it, discuss it with folks interested in Latin American society. I did not do this, and I fear I simply read many portions of the book without fully appreciating what was written.

One Hundred Years of Solitude, the greatest of all Latin American novels is the magic and multi-layered epic of the Buendia family and the story of their jungle settlement, Macondo.

Like many other epics, this book has deeply-rooted connections with historical reality, i.e., the development of Colombia since its independence from Spain in the early 19th century. The story of the Buendia family is obviously a metaphor for Colombia in the neocolonial period as well as a narrative concerning the myths in Latin American history.

The finest example of magic realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a wonderfully comic novel, yet the book also exudes a pervading sense of irony; a strong undercurrent of sadness, solitude and tragic futility. The intermingling of the fantastic with the ordinary keeps readers in a state of constant anticipation, especially where the generations of Buendia men are concerned.

Some of this extraordinary novel's most important effects are achieved through the interplay of time as both linear and circular. The founding of Macondo and its narrative, for the most part, follow time in a linear sense, as does the history of the Buendia family, who form a series of figures symbolizing the particular historical period of which they are a part.

The book, however is almost obsessively circular in its outlook, as characters repeat, time and again, the experience of earlier generations. The book's fatalism is underscored by this circular sense of time. Even a name a person is given at birth predetermines his or her life and manner of death, e.g., the Aurelianos were all lucid, solitary figures, while the Jose Arcadios were energetic and enterprising, albeit tragic.

The characters in One Hundred Years of Solitude represent the purest archetypes; they are two dimensional and are used to convey certain thematic points. This enhances the beauty of the novel rather than detracting from it, for One Hundred Years of Solitude is thematic and metaphorical in nature rather than psychological.

The male figures are obsessive, and full of ambitious projects and passionate sexuality. They are, however, given to extreme anger, irrational violence and long periods of self-imposed solitude.

The female characters also lend themselves to categorization. With the exception of the Remedios, the women in the book exhibit either common sense and determination or passionate eroticism. But while the men are dreamy and irrational, the women are firmly rooted in reality. Both sexes, however, embody a similar fatal flaw; they lack the ability to relate to the world outside of Macondo. They fall victim to their own constructions, plunging them into a harsh and long-lasting solitude.

Macondo is fated to end the moment one of its inhabitants deciphers Melquiades the Gypsy's manuscripts regarding the town's history. In a sense, however, Macondo does survive. One of the few who take the advice of the Catalan bookseller and leave the town before its destruction is Gabriel Garcia Marquez, himself, who escapes with the complete works of Rabelais.

This self-referential ending, pointing to the world beyond Macondo from which Garcia Marquez is telling the story tells us that whatever life is to be lived in Latin America should not be the magic but self-defeating experience of the Buendias, but rather an ever-widening life of learning and moving on; the development of an awareness of doing what each situation requires.

Garcia Marquez is more than a Nobel Prize winning author. He is a magician par excellence; someone whose unique ability to produce a magical realm where anything is possible and everything is believable is unrivaled. This is the overwhelming reason why this dazzling masterpiece does, and will continue to attract, convince and hypnotize readers for decades to come.

Let me say this first: this is not a book for the fainthearted! If you have someone you care about in Colombia, you will drive that person (and yourself) crazy if you read this book!! (Unfortunately, I speak from experience.. *gentle smile*)

Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez is best known for his beautiful classic novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude". "News of a Kidnapping" is very different from the other novels I have read of García Márquez, but still very interesting and well written. If one were not familiar with the kidnappings that have occurred in Columbia, one might just believe this was just another brilliant novel by Garcia Márquez.

"News of a kidnapping" is a true-life story of one of the evils of Colombia and Latin America. García Márquez writes about the kidnappings of Colombian journalists, and other well-known persons or their relatives, ten in total. "News of a kidnapping" is the story of how these people lived during their endless months in captivity. While held hostages they were not tortured nor abused, but just being away from their families and loved ones for many months and the lack of news from the outside world wore them out. The emotional suffering was made even worse by the attitudes of their abductors. One moment they could be very nice to them, and in the next moment they could be behaving like wild animals. Parallel to the memoirs of the imprisoned journalists, we follow their families and their anxiety; and the fight to have the ones kidnapped set free.

In Colombia people live in constant fear of being the next victim of kidnapping, or maybe even worse, that their loved ones will be. All too often we hear of famous athletes, celebrities, or other high profile people being held ransom for money or to achieve other political goals. That Garcia Márquez has dared to write such a book is rather amazing, bearing in mind that he probably risked his life by doing so. This book will for sure change the way you look upon your personal freedom!

After finishing this book I realized that living in Norway is maybe not that bad after all. It is not the belly on earth, and not much is happening here, but Hey! maybe that's not so bad after all..

If one were not familiar with the kidnappings that have occurred in Columbia, one might just believe this was a brilliant piece of fiction. Unfortunately this is not the case and Marquez does a fantastic job of recounting the terror that the hostages had to go through in their ordeal. This a true life tale of one of the plagues of Latin America. It is all to common to hear of prominent atheletes, entertainers and other high profile individuals being held ransom to fullfill a political cause. This is a story of Pablo Escobar, the notorious drug lord and how he conducted his reign over Columbia. This is the story of the Medellin cartels attempt to pressure the United Staates into not exradicting any of it's members. The portrayl of the drug lords and their lackeys is brilliant, showing the human side of people who are inhumane. The captives are so real, as portrayed by Marquez that one becomes very emotional over the conditions they had to endure. This book details the kidnapping of various journalists, ten in all, one by one. An easy enough book to read one will finish this book quickly as the suspense is, to use a pun, captivating. That Gabriel Garcia Marquez would write such a book is amazing considering that he risks his life by doing so. True to his his journalist roots he did it at the urging of the released captives suggestion. Marquez is to be applauded for his effort and his bravery as well as he shed some international light on a terrible malady of Latin America. After reading this you will appreciate your freedom and and all the luxuries it affords.

I read News of a kidnapping(Noticias de un Secuestro) of colombian writer, Gabriel García Márquez in spanish, and for me it was one of those book that I found myself cryng while reading it. Does it loose something with the translation?,I don't know; Does it loose something with the cultural gap?, maybe.Maybe if you don't live in a country were your physical integrity its in constant risk, you'll find this novel an odd version of Magic realism, but one musn't forget that García Márquez began his career as a journalist, and in his collected journalist works you could find in seed what you can fully appreciate in News of a kidnapping: That Gabo is almost as talented in non-fiction as he is in fiction. He might not be your typical or classical journalist, his works are so interesting and well written that you might think that you're reading fiction. Lástima that this is not the case: in Colombia, and lately in Venezuela, people live in constant fear of beign the next prey of the kidnappers,or maybe even worse, their loved ones. These menace is for everybody: Young, old, women, men, children, poor people, rich people. I think that García Márquez dared to write about something that few would: the kidnappings of a number of colombian journalists.How they lived during their endless months in captivity; their families and their desperation; the negotiations; the sacrifices of human life for what: An ideal...or greed? News of a kidnapping its a wonderful books of a horrible contemporary latinamerican issue.