282
A
s its name suggests, the
Latin American boom was
an explosion of literary
creativity that occurred in South
America in the 1960s. Although
Jorge Luis Borges had ignited a
slow-burning fuse some 20 years
before with Ficciones—a puzzle
box of short stories that broke all
literary conventions—the boom
years saw the publication of stellar
works that gained worldwide
attention for authors such as Gabriel
García Márquez, Julio Cortázar,
and Mario Vargas Llosa. These
intellectuals engaged with the
political struggles of Latin America.José Arcadio and Úrsula have two
sons—a lusty giant, also named
José Arcadio, and his anxious,
prescient brother Aureliano. Their
names, physical traits, and
personalities are repeated down
the generations, while characters
such as Pilar Ternera, the village
prostitute, both enrich the gene
pool and complicate it, by coupling
with and bearing children for
multiple Buendías.
Through all this complexity, the
beating heart of Macondo is always
the matriarch Úrsula, whose long life
allows her to protect and maintain
the Buendía family in every new
generation after each invasion of
incomers and the episodes of
insanity that follow them.Invasion
Each generation is faced with its
own fresh catastrophe, many of
which parody an episode in Latin
American history or reflect the
continent’s rich tradition of myth
and legend. Although he is an artist
at heart, Aureliano is soon caught
up in civil wars that ravage the
country for years. He becomes
a famous colonel, renowned
throughout the land as much for
his poetry as his military exploits.ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE
IN CONTEXT
FOCUS
The Latin American boomBEFORE
1946–49 Guatemalan Miguel
Angel Asturias blends
Modernist techniques with
surrealism and folklore in Mr.
President and Men of Maize.1962 In The Death of Artemio
Cruz, Carlos Fuentos layers
memor y, p o et ic i m age r y,
stream of consciousness,
and multiple perspectives to
explore corruption in Mexico.1963 Argentinian Julio
Cortázar allows readers to
choose their own path through
his radically experimental
work Hopscotch.AFTER
1969 The shattered society
of 1950s’ Peru is revealed at
lightning speed in a discussion
between two men of different
classes in Mario Vargas Llosa’s
Conversation in the Cathedral.Time was not
passing ... it was
turning in a circle ...
One Hundred Years
of SolitudeTheir writing was fueled by the
counterculture of the 1960s, and
their narratives frequently make
use of innovative and experimental
techniques such as nonlinear time,
shifting perspectives, and magic
realism—a technique regarded by
many to be an invention of South
American literature.Isolation
Often considered the masterwork
of the boom, Colombian García
Má rquez’s One Hundred Years of
Solitude brings together Bible
stories, ancient myths, and South
American traditions of magic,
resurrection, and regeneration in a
metaphorical commentary on the
continent’s history.
The story spans one century and
seven generations of a single family,
the Buendías. Macondo, the town
that they found, represents the
history of Colombia at large. At the
story’s opening, Macondo is a small
village of adobe houses, wedged
between mountains and swamp.
Its isolation from the modern world
is complete; no route stretches back
over the mountains. Established by
José Arcadio Buendía and his wife
Úrsula Iguarán, it is a utopia where
everyone is younger than 30 years
old and no one has yet died.The house in Aractaca, Colombia,
where Gabriel García Márquez grew up
is now a pilgrimage site for fans of the
author, who come to visit the place that
inspired the creation of Macondo.US_280-285_Solitude.indd 282 08/10/2015 13:10