One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Harper Publishing. Originally published in June of 1967.  457 pages. Source: Audio Library

First sentence: Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonial Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

Plot: The brilliant, bestselling, landmark novel that tells the story of the Buendia family, and chronicles the irreconcilable conflict between the desire for solitude and the need for love—in rich, imaginative prose that has come to define an entire genre known as "magical realism.

My thoughts:  My mind is numb from this one.  It was the longest most drawn out nothing that I can ever remember reading.  I know I have vowed not to continue reading a book I didn't like but I thought at some point it had to get better.  IT didn't.  

Generations and generations, seven I believe, in a town founded by patriarch Jose Arcadio Buendia, live really messed up lives. This story didn't really seem to have much purpose.  I wasn't sure what I was supposed to take away from it.  

The Old Man and The Sea

The Old Man And The Sea. Ernest Hemingway. 1952. Charles Scribner's Sons. 132 pages. Source (purchased Betterworldbooks.com)

First sentence: He was an old man that fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.

Plot: It is the story of an old Cuban fisherman and his supreme ordeal: a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Using the simple, powerful language of a fable, Hemingway takes the timeless themes of courage in the face of defeat and personal triumph won from loss and transforms them into a magnificent twentieth-century classic.

My thoughts: From the beginning I felt sorry for this old Cuban man.  He's all alone except for this very thoughtful boy who brings him food without making him feel like a charity case.  Good kid!  
Now he's out at sea, alone, fishing and he hooks the biggest fish he has every caught.  It's a struggle for days!  Me being the worrier that I am fretted through most of the story.  Will he be lost at sea, will this fish capsize his little boat?

If I go into much more I will spoil the story for you.  It was a good little read though.  I read it in just two sittings.