One Hundred Years of Solitude | Book by Gabriel García Márquez

One Hundred Years of Solitude is pretty difficult to summarise… but I’ll do my best.

It’s the story of a family told across multiple generations. Characters are killed, new characters are born… some characters disappear for a generation and then reappear. The narrative cuts between time periods and characters in a way that at first feels jarring but quickly starts to feel normal… whichever book you read next is sure to feel pedestrian in comparison.

Dozens of miniature narratives blend together to become one epic history of a family. Throughout each narrative the boundary between reality and magic becomes blurred (much like in Love in the Time of Cholera). The town and surrounding area becomes characters in their own right, developing with time. Throwaway comments from earlier in the book suddenly become vitally important — every single word serves a purpose.