As readers know, I am embarked on a campaign to read the supposedly great fiction of the world, some of which I first read long ago, some of which I never read. Into the latter category falls One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Nobel prize winner. I only got maybe a fourth of the way into the book before I just gave up. It seemed completely pointless to me, no clear plot, just meanderings about a group of characters who represented nothing meaningful. The book is set in western Chile and my wife tells me it is representative of a genre called magical realism that is popular among Hispanics and others. I skimmed more of the book and it never seems to get beyond the meandering and I discerned no message or theme. It certainly has an element of fantasy about it. Some of you may have read it and gotten great enlightenment; the reviewers gushed, but maybe they did because they thought they were supposed to. I am not going to recommend it, but what do I know. Good luck finishing if you start on that journey. I am too old to waste time on novels I don’t find enjoyable; too many other great works to focus on.
If you want to give magical realism another try, check out Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin. Just stay FAR AWAY from the movie adaptation!
Your honesty is a breath of fresh air.
There are very few books that I do not finish, as I feel that I owe the authors a reasonable chance to arrive at a meaningful plot, with characters who interest me, and an acceptable, even if not completely satisfying, conclusion. That book was one on which I gave up, …fairly early on as I recall.
“Pointless” is an excellent single-word summary of my reaction as well….
(I have read science fiction that was more believable and entertaining than that mess.)