This book is very strange. The more you read the more complex and intertwined the relationships get. The introduction of Aureliano Segundo and Jose Arcadio Segundo made the book much more difficult and it felt as though a new chapter was formed. I find the novel weird because as soon as we start to understand the pattern of repeating names and understand the characteristics of the Aureliano’s versus the Jose Arcadio’s there becomes an intergation (or a blur) between the two different characterizations; for example through the creation of the great-grandsons of Ursula (ie. Aureliano Segundo and Jose Arcadio Segundo) . This part of the novel feels like there is a new beginning, like we have understood the past history of the family and now we are going to concentrate on the family of Colonel Aureliano Buendia, by focusing on his extended family. For me all the previous information was just background info and now the novel will really focus in on a certain point and will be specific to these characters. I am still very suprised that Ursula is basically the leading lady, and the description that she is nearly 100 years old but is blind becuase of the cateracts makes the novel very personal, because I feel as though I have travelled with her through the successional generations of her family tree and have expierenced her pain. Her pain to me is centered around some of the themes of the novel: being crazy, craziness, and genetic mutations. I find it strange that the women, especially Ursula, always bring up the fact that one would not want to have childern in an incestuous relationship yet many of the charcters have some form of incest and they still continue to have kids and anytime something is “strange” or different about them they blame it on the fact that they were concived in a not ideal situation. So im not too sure about the logic behind the continuation of having kids or the real relation this situation has to do with the family being crazy. I would like to know why they refer to this family as being crazy and why it seems as though Ursula believes it more and more as more generations pass.
March 27, 2007 at 2:26 am |
I agree with you about the Aureliano’s and the Jose Arcadio’s. Just when I thought I was gettings things straight in terms of figuring out characters, their personalities, behaviors, and similarities related to name, the “Segundo twins” mix everything up. While this is confusing for the reader, (who has no doubt put up a fight up until this point to keep everything straight), it once again forces you to pay extra attention, and reinforces the fact, as with many other aspects in this novel, that if you think you know what is going on/what is going to happen, you will be thrown for a loop. That is one of the things that while frusturating, I really enjoyed about this book. While reading, I have often thought, if it is this hard to read the book, imagine what it was like to write it.
Kerry