The “discovery of ice” got lost in the translation. It wasn’t natural ice he was talking about but refrigerated ice like when a machine freezes water to into ice for the very first time. Plus in these places close to the equator some people have never ever experience extreme cold temperatures to recognize snow or frozen anything. Not hating just explaining a minor detail lost from Spanish to English. Thanks for your video.
I've always wondered how come this book is so famous, and so "universal", when in my opinion, you must know the history of Colombia in order to fully understand it. My only guess is that maybe the history of EVERYONE is alike, there is always left and right in politics, there is always war, there is always the smart and timid aureliano and the extrovert jose arcadios... everywhere in the world...
I mean, Macondo isn't real, and although you may need to know the history of Colombia to empathize with the characters, I think Marquez ensures that anyone can understand it
Perhaps the most interesting fact about magical realism in Latin America is the way it is actually part of our very world view. Talking to your elders in Latin America is always an exercise in time jumping narratives and a mix of fantastic and mundane. I'm not trying to undermine the work of all these great writers, but actually shed some light on how this narrative is not just an exercise of some great writers, it's the portrayal of who we are as a people and how we perceive ourselves
After reading the comments I'm almost inspired enough to just move to Colombia, become fluent in Spanish and read the book in it's original language. Almost. Spanish was my worst subject in college. I don't language good.
School learning of languages is a mythical entity. Your brain knows how to do it by itself, if you apply yourself :) good luck. (Duolingo can help at the beginning :P)
This book is a window at what growing up in Latin America culture feels like. The magical realism is very similar to the kind of stories your grandparents will tell you as a kid.
I read this book 2 years ago. It was the longest book I've ever had to read. Not because of it's number of pages, but rather because it was the hardest narrative I've ever had to put my mind to the task of following.
96213sam Well, aside from what it is said from the video there are many different interpretations of the book, one could see it as an allegory of Colombian history through the 19th and early 20th century. It is really up to the reader to give meaning to the book and I believe that is the beauty of it.
I once found this book (the original version in Spanish) in my aunt's house in Houston. Being a native Spanish-speaker (and at the time monolingual) it was the only book I could read while staying in USA. Now that I can write in English, I can assure you the book is worth learning Spanish for
Come on guys, don't do this to me :'( I'm already learning German for Rainer Maria Rilke. If only I had infinite time, I would learn Russian for Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Spanish for Marquez, Neruda and Borges and Sanskrit for the Mahabharata.
I'm a native English speaker but learned Russian over the course of a few years. Reading authors such as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol, etc. is very worth it.
I'm Venezuelan and the story of this book describes perfectly what I think is the essence of most "Latin" American history. Every character, event, "magic", all feels so familiar and made me rethink about how simple or not actually is every hidden village in the bast map of the continent, with lost memories that we will never know, buried in time and oblivion
It was wonderful for me as a Mexican who majored in literature to hear the analysis from your perspective. Many of the things you pointed out are kind of elusive for most Latin Americans, I think, because we are very emotionally attached to the way things happen in the novel. We are used to hearing about or witnessing violent events such as the ones depicted in the novel, for example, so the impact is very different. This video gave me the chance to really see how a novel can become "universal literature". It speaks differently to every reader. I definitely envy you, because I know this novel is a hundred times more magical to someone who has never actually been to a town like Macondo in real life.
I literally had goosebumps while reading the line in the culminating part where Aureliano reads that''First one would meet death tying with 🌲 and last one would be devoured by ants''.
Yeah, but in spanish the ice sentence is "Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo...". The verb in this case is "conocer" that can be translated to "know" or "to meet" instead of "discover".
I don't undestand how Rulfo can be so underapreciated when every single latinamerican author loves him. And well, let's be honest, if a book created magical realism it was Pedro Páramo.
This is my single favourite book. I really hope the second part of the episode covers the relationship between the Buendias repeating their same mistakes over and over, and the parallels to Colombian history, and us making the same mistakes in our country over and over. Either way, thank you so much John and everyone else at Crash Course for taking the time to cover a book that means so much to me! I really, really appreciate it :)
In the same way, it has a lot of parallels with peruvian history, i could relate so easily with the book seeing as how we peruvians also made the same mistakes over and over in the past T.T
The vivid imagery that this book offers is just mesmerizing. Talk about Amaranta's solitary monotonous life and of the aged Ursula who is used like a ragdoll by Meme's son Aureliano and her sister Amaranta Ursula!Simply brilliant !
A wonderful book that I'm also lucky to have read in Spanish. You really feel immersed in the magic of it all! I'm a native English speaker, tried to read a book in Spanish when I was 21 and it was a disaster. But I took a few years to work my level up to a strong professional level, and after that long time, reading this book as "Cien años de soledad" was a reward worth waiting years for :) As others have mentioned, you really do get another sense of things from the original (such as the "discover" word usage coming from *conocer* that others have mentioned). I worked as a translator for a while and I don't envy whoever had the intimidating task of translating this masterpiece in a way that was as close as possible to the original. Fun that most of the video was about timelines and the first sentence :D Looking forward to part 2!
I'm reading it in portuguese. I'm Brazilian, and I guess most spanish words are similar to portuguese, so hopefully I'll get the same experience. I'd like to read the original though. Maybe I will.
Benny Lewis hay libros que es mejor leerlos en su idioma original independientemente de la calidad de la traducción. Cien años de soledad es uno de ellos.
I just started reading 100 years of Solitude, and I am so thankful that I came across this video. It has really helped me gain me a better appreciation of the book.
Only weeks ago I realized that the three thousand deaths massacre of the banana plantation was less of a metaphor than I thought. It is called the Banana massacre. Look it up.
Beyond all the points mentioned, this book still contains a hidden element and story structure that will be impossible to truly comprehend beyond the frontiers of Colombia. My grandmother always told me stories of when Marquez used to hang out with Rafael Escalona in the Cesar region. One hundred years of solitude is written in the form of a Vallenato. A Colombian originated musical genre that was born to tell the stories of those who traveled and met different fates on their paths. To truly comprehend the ways of the novel one must first understand why it was written the way it is. It’s an almost musical narrative novel, magical realism is not a device used for narrative, but rather something that flows in the blood of those Colombians who were born from the Caribbean Valley and live their lives as a forever vallenato song, and that’s what really gives this novel the richness that it contains.
Now for the story of a wealthy family that lost everything, and the one son that had no choice but to keep them all together, it's 100 Years of Solitude. Both 100YoS and Arrested Development feature: - A large family that all live in a crumbling house. - Identical twin brothers taking on each others identities. - Incest between cousins. - A brother going to war and losing his hand. - A war over bananas. - An ending in which the work itself is created (Maebe commissions the show, Melquiades writes the book)
As a Spaniard and lover of this book I am really glad you've covered it, I encourage you to keep on covering non-English language literature as there are lots masterpieces out there. First suggestion: Don Quijote de la Mancha, Best novel ever written according to experts.
The emotions that I went through when reading the final page, the final paragraph, the final sentence of this book are beyond words. I was fortunate enough to read it in Spanish, but in any language it must be a powerful experience.
Haven't read this novel, but I find significant Mr. Green's enthusiasm for its allegorical statements about the fluidity of memory and history, since he was so unwilling just last week to grant any worth to Lord of the Flies as an allegorical statement about the intrinsic savagery of clannish humanity.
I haven't had time to read "100 years" yet, but I read "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" about a year ago, and it was seriously one of the best books I've ever read. I'm reading Allende's "The House of the Spirits" right now, and I would love, *LOVE*, to see a CrashCourse on it, just so John might get others reading it.
Hi CrashCourse team! great video, but just a small correction. The picture at 5:36 belongs to the current chilean senator Isabel Allende Bussi, cousin of Isabel Allende Llona, the writer. Although is a very 100 Years of Solitude mistake to make :)
This book is so beautiful. I read it in Spanish and I am scared to read it in English. What if the magic disappears? And John Green speaking those Spanish names gave me life! SIGUE SIGUE MI GENTE-QUE VIVEN LAS RAZAS LATINAS!
I did a critical analysis on this book and biography on Gabriel Garcia Marquez for AP Literature and Marquez actually was very pleased with the English text's translation.
+sailoreric97 It took me a while as well. I was never introduced to my culture until my teen age years (I am not as young as I look). Practice makes perfect....and a english spanish dictionary, too!
The historical banana massacre in Colombia that Garcia Marquez mirrors in the novel actually only killed 300 people, not 3000. But 100 Hundred Years of Solitude has made such an impact on Colombian culture, that the media in Colombia has since reported 3000 deaths. That is the raw power of this novel!
so many things i want to talk about this novel!!!!!!! but i will settle on three: its kinda sad you cant enjoy it as it was intended to be read, in spanish, in my honest opinion, it does not compare as often translations do, but language is such an important part of this story as much as plot, i feel for whoever can't read spanish; second, omg is anyone gonna address that the fact that they were "cursed" of a hundred years of solitude was because of incest?!; and lastly THAT LAST SENTENCE IS THE BEST PIECE OF LITERATURE I HAVE READ WITH MY OWN TWO EYES! I WAS SO BLOWN AWAY I FELT THE TORNADO WAS TAKING ME AWAY WITH MACONDO AND THE TERMITES EATING ME ALIVE MY SOUL TRANSCENDED SUCH A PERFECT WAY TO END!!!!!!!
SAME! I remember feeling physically moved as my eyes scanned the last page, reading as quickly as I could so I might finish the book before the tornado blew me away. It was an incredible experience.
I wish John would talk about translation some time. I mean more than he just did. It seems to me that books in German really suffer in English translation. There must be some translation of a book that is better than the original, but you would have to know both languages equally well to judge this.
I plan to read this book in Spanish, but my first time through I decided on English in order to have a better understanding of what was going on. My ability to read Spanish serves well for reading newspapers and short documents, but wanes when length and complexity are increased as is the case for novels. Do you think having read the book in English will diminish my ability to enjoy it in it's original language?
This type of speaking (circular linking pas, present and future tenses using 'years/months/days latter") is very common in Spanish (and we have a lot more phrases for that), the fact that is surprising for English speakers tells me how much do Americans, and all English speakers for that matter, NEED to study a different language even is theirs is lingua franca.
100 Years of Solitude is without a doubt the best book I've ever read. It is in fact, a privilege to be able to read it n its original language. A few times along the book, it wows you so much, that you realize over and over why it was worth a Nobel prize. Such a beautiful book, the English language does not make it justice
I did read this novel in Spanish a long time ago and is still one my favorite novels of all times. One should read it on Spanish. So much is lost on translation and maybe that make it so emblematic on Latin America. Thanks a lot John for including it on CC Literature.
You should have mentioned Juan Rulfo. Gabriel mentions that Rulfo´s work, El llano en llamas, also called The Burning Plane in English, is one of his inspiration.
thank you for introducing me to books like this. and for getting me into reading books i wouldn't normally on my own. these videos as well as those of your bro are excellent.
I loved reading this book. I wonder if there are things that get lost in translation between the original language and the English translation. I read it in Spanish and I thought it had a wealth of vocabulary that wasn't easily translatable.
I've just finished reading this book today in Spanish. Gotta say this isn't like anything i've ever read so far. even though there is some magic in it, this is the most accurate portrait of the reality we live in. I felt so connected with each character. Each one has their own inner devil to fight off because of the trauma each had to go through.
I was going to comment that this is my favorite book, but upon reading that frase I realize it is way more than that, this book, and many like it are the very reason i love being venezuelan and latin america, this book here is more than a classic, more than required reading, it is part of our culture, of our personalities, of our way of viewing the world, it almost isn't a book, it is its own category of greatness
This is one of my favourite books. It's a masterpiece. I think It isn't right to quote the last sentence. That sentence is pure magic. That ending and 1984's one are the best ends that I've ever read.
This novel like no other has captured in the most successful way imaginable what it truly means to be Latin American. And this feeling that reality and magic interlace and become ond grows even stronger as you go to the smaller towns where time sits still and nothing has significantly changed in decades, if not centuries. Where you can truly feel solitude.
If you guys are looking for more pieces like this one, I'd recommend "Chronicle of a Death Foretold", also from García Marquez and famous for being an absolute "screw you" to linear stories. "Like water for chocolate" of Laura Esquivel, another magical realism novel. Also, "El Llano en Llamas" and "Pedro Páramo" of Juan Rulfo. And one of my personal favorites, "The Old Man Who Read Love Stories" from Luís Sepúlveda, this one doesn't adhere to magical realism, but is wonderful.
One of the best books written in the Spanish language and one that i kept reading multiple times since I read it first time with 14 years. I also love how it well captures the spirit of South America and how the language and the expresions sound actualy like the Spanish talk there when they tell their stories; which the first time I read made a huge impression of me, being a peninsular spanish speaker, who saw the book as something different, but at the same time familiar (it also reminds of how stories are told by eldres where I'm from, even if I come from the other side of the atlantic as Marquez). I guess it's just one of these books that trascends barries and can feel local and universal at the same time.
My professor and friend gave me a copy of this book in Spanish. I had to read it and write a paper in Spanish. I loved it. It's now a great memory of one who has departed.
YEEEEEES!!!!!! FINALLLY!!!! Please talk more about the history of Colombia in the next part, so the world can learn a little bit more about our complex history, in which One Hundred Years of Solitude is based on. In the future, please do more Garcia Marquez's works: Love in time of Cholera and the Autumn of the Patriarch. Both AMAZING books, almost better than 100 years... Greetings from Colombia!! Gracias John Green, y un abrazo a todos los hermanos latinoamericanos!
This is my favorite book ever. Its makes me cry, laugh, to feel that I understand eternity while been amazed by life it self. And perhaps its because I am Colombian, and a scientist, a biologist...But most likely is because this is a real master piece.
I read "One Hundred Years of Solitude" in Spanish years ago. It's incredibly beautiful, the Spanish in which this novel is written. I almost cried in the scene where Jose Buendia dies and the yellow flowers fall from the heavens. The Spanish was just so poetic and lovely. I doubt this could be translated well into English. Maybe I should read the novel both in Spanish and then in English to see if that's true...
"Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo."
Thank You Thank You Thank You! This is my all time favorite book! My dad actually gifted it to my mother when he was trying to get her to fall in love with him back in Cuba and many years late I got to experience the magic in this book through the same copy they read.
"Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo." Definitely worth reading in its native Spanish. Also, it bothers me that non English speakers add the accent in the wrong place. That's why it's there. To let us know what part of the word to emphasize. So, my dear John, it's not MarQUEZ, It's MÁrquez. That's why the accent is there.
Vasti Flores EMPHASIS, not accent. In English, emphasis is where the word is stressed. Accent is the musicality of the speech varying region to region.
I was so ready for this episode! And thank you for mentioning the one and only Pablo Neruda; one of the greatest poets who ever lived. '100 Years' is probably my most beloved latin american novel, certainly, a person who read it is not the same who started the book. Although I have my doubts: does the translation to english make justice to the original spanish? To me, some expressions certainly make far more sense in spanish, so I'm curious.
I was so happy to hear you were going to be discussing this book. I picked it up from my college library after seeing it on a must read book list and was totally blown away. I've since been trying to convince my friends to read it so I could discuss it but have yet to succeed. Thank you for the wonderful video!
"Discover" is indeed a funny word there, namely because in the original spanish version it reads as "conocer" which means "to know" or to "become aware of" as he firstly suggested. I really think it is sad how easily one can get lost in translation; this is, in my opinion, the best reason to study a language. There are a lot of amazing pieces of literature out there that cannot be fully appreciated if not readed in their original language, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a perfect example of this.
I've read it in both English and Spanish, and it's really difficult to convey how different the book feels in Spanish than in English. I think it all comes down to the way that language is culture and culture is language. I guess in every language there are some things you can only experience within the language itself, and no matter how good a job the English translators do, people who have only read the book in English will have a hard time understanding the way Spanish-language readers experience it. I think it's still worth reading, even in translation, though.
I read that last summer for lit even though i didn't quite know what was going on, I still loved it because literally every other sentence just sounded so pretty
Actually in spanish the verb "descubrir" (to discover) but "conocer" (to meet) which does not imply at all that he was discovering the ice as Colombus "descubrió América". "Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo."
Great video... BUT where was the Colombia? The novel didn't take place in vacuum! It was set during several wars, including (I assume) La Violencia. Aureliano was a Colonel. There is a rich historical context that is often overlooked in English analysis of the book. And doing so does no justice to the country that produced it and the people that inspired it
No no... the most important war is "the 1000 days war" between 1899-1902 that ended with the Neerlandia agreements between the USA government, and both the Liberal and Conservative Party. The Massacre of the Banana Company, took place in 1928, and is the one described in the book. LA VIOLENCIA, was between 1948-1953 and started by the killing of Colombia's most prominent political figure in april 1948: Gaitán. That event started huge bloodsheds between Liberals and Conservatives, and the day that Gaitan was killed, the masses filled with anger almost destroyed Colombia's capital city: Bogotá. That day, the seed for guerrilla group, FARC, started. The oldest (and still active) guerrilla-terrorist group in the world. Since 2012, the Colombian government and FARC have been in peace negotiations, to end the 50 year war between them. This year, in 2016, a "end to fire" was agreed, and in some months, colombians have to decide in a referendum if they agree or not with what the government and FARC have agreed in this peace talks, to put an end to guerrilla warfare and the longest conflict in the Americas...
This book is about the feeling on living in a tiny town in latinoamerica, at that time, where people are naive and they just got surprised of every "new thing" that showed up in town. My relatives are from a small town from Nicaragua, and the way they speak and how they believe things that they were told when kids, it is really similar to the people in this book. It is a really cool book to read if you want to be transport to a small town in the country side, probably in any place in latinoamerica in 1960. The Magican realism is used to explain how many traditions and customs are in latinoamerica, that wouldnt be able to explaing without it.
When analyzing the opening sentence, you made a point about the discovery ice and the author's intention that no one "discovered" or "invented" ice. The original Spanish uses "conocer", not "descubrir". Like the French "connaître" (I don't speak much Spanish, so I'm reading the French translation) "conocer" means "to know" and in this case, it means getting to know.Great choice BTW.
Fun fact, even if Márquez did wanted to mess time up, the "first sentence" was supposed to go in the middle. But when he send the manuscripts he accidentally switched the first and second half, resulting in the book as it is... He thinks (well used to) that is kinda funny how everyone thought it was revolutionary.
Marquez wrote an essay about how there was no magic in his works called "Something More on Literature and Reality". For example, a man in Colombia really was born with a curly tail. And psychology undergrad can tell you that insomnia really does cause terrible memory loss of the scale talked about in the book. It is a brilliant essay
One of my favorite books. I read it in high school as part of world literature course. I love all the ways of looking at the work with all its layers and facets.
the picture for Isabel Allende does not correspond with the aforementioned writer. instead, the photography used is one of her cousin (homonym), whom happens to be a politician and the daughter of the former president of Chile Salvador Allende.
One of my preferred books. I reread it from time to time. The original text in Spanish has a flavor of mango; guayaba, maracuya and arepas, and breathes balancing the phrases, it's almost poetry in prose. The French translation is pretty nice but the breathing of the phrases is lost with most of the flavors. Translation is a very tricky exercise. I feel that the translator in English had suffered greatly. He got the meaning but not the music, the balancing swing of the Spanish. That was impossible.
Actually, the word from which discover is translated from spanish is literally "to know"(like knowing a person); ice was more of a personal new experience of the Colonel than some kind of deep message about history.
If you need a reason to learn Spanish, reading García Márquez's work (not only 100 Años de Soledad, but also the short stories, Love in Times of Cholera, About Love and other Demons) and Alejo Carpentier and Julio Cortázar is absolutely worth it. I could be wrong but I don't think works of literature quite like these have ever been written in other languages.
It was awesome: "lou rial maravilosou" It´s my favorite book I´ve read it like 10 times and everytime I find something new, It was also awesome to learn how an english speaker would see the book... and its history which is also our history.
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I read that book 30 years ago and when, exhausted, I finally finished it, I declared it the most amazing book I would never read again.
The “discovery of ice” got lost in the translation. It wasn’t natural ice he was talking about but refrigerated ice like when a machine freezes water to into ice for the very first time. Plus in these places close to the equator some people have never ever experience extreme cold temperatures to recognize snow or frozen anything. Not hating just explaining a minor detail lost from Spanish to English. Thanks for your video.
Oh my god. This is my favorite book I've ever read. Very glad to see this. *floats into the sky with the laundry*
This book is mainly about what ??
And Fernanda is still waiting her sheets back.
I've always wondered how come this book is so famous, and so "universal", when in my opinion, you must know the history of Colombia in order to fully understand it. My only guess is that maybe the history of EVERYONE is alike, there is always left and right in politics, there is always war, there is always the smart and timid aureliano and the extrovert jose arcadios... everywhere in the world...
I mean, Macondo isn't real, and although you may need to know the history of Colombia to empathize with the characters, I think Marquez ensures that anyone can understand it
yes! absolutely
Perhaps the most interesting fact about magical realism in Latin America is the way it is actually part of our very world view. Talking to your elders in Latin America is always an exercise in time jumping narratives and a mix of fantastic and mundane. I'm not trying to undermine the work of all these great writers, but actually shed some light on how this narrative is not just an exercise of some great writers, it's the portrayal of who we are as a people and how we perceive ourselves
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This is just like conversations I have with my stepson.
That's fascinating.
and here I was looking for the comment I would like to write, and I found it :-)
here in asia same thing happen
Reaching the end of this book gives you the most odd feeling in the world.
Yes! I read this years ago and the thing I remember the most is the feeling in my stomach when I finished it. It's a kind of unique feeling
I've never had an experience like that before or since. It's definitely unique.
pezotecom It's almost like by finishing the book, you destroyed that entire world.
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It does
After reading the comments I'm almost inspired enough to just move to Colombia, become fluent in Spanish and read the book in it's original language. Almost. Spanish was my worst subject in college. I don't language good.
Case and point: it's languaged Colombia. (sorry Wheezy, had to take the opportunity).
Once again the mythical country of Col "u" mbia strikes again.
You're terminated
School learning of languages is a mythical entity. Your brain knows how to do it by itself, if you apply yourself :) good luck. (Duolingo can help at the beginning :P)
+ Not languaging good can be a big problem, Craig! Maybe you can read it in English, since you language that so well. Also, you just moved!
This book is a window at what growing up in Latin America culture feels like. The magical realism is very similar to the kind of stories your grandparents will tell you as a kid.
I read this book 2 years ago. It was the longest book I've ever had to read. Not because of it's number of pages, but rather because it was the hardest narrative I've ever had to put my mind to the task of following.
Here in Colombia reading that book is nearly as important as reading the bible.
what is it about?
That is one of my single favourite books in the world!!!!!
It's the same here in Mexico
96213sam Well, aside from what it is said from the video there are many different interpretations of the book, one could see it as an allegory of Colombian history through the 19th and early 20th century. It is really up to the reader to give meaning to the book and I believe that is the beauty of it.
Lawrence Calablaster Same here!
I once found this book (the original version in Spanish) in my aunt's house in Houston. Being a native Spanish-speaker (and at the time monolingual) it was the only book I could read while staying in USA. Now that I can write in English, I can assure you the book is worth learning Spanish for
Lope de Vega is the reason I learned Spanish
Amen. I still have yet to read it in English. No es lo mismo en ingles
I'm a native English speaker, but I've read Marquez in Spanish, and it was amazing. Totally worth it.
Come on guys, don't do this to me :'( I'm already learning German for Rainer Maria Rilke. If only I had infinite time, I would learn Russian for Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Spanish for Marquez, Neruda and Borges and Sanskrit for the Mahabharata.
I'm a native English speaker but learned Russian over the course of a few years. Reading authors such as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol, etc. is very worth it.
I'm Venezuelan and the story of this book describes perfectly what I think is the essence of most "Latin" American history. Every character, event, "magic", all feels so familiar and made me rethink about how simple or not actually is every hidden village in the bast map of the continent, with lost memories that we will never know, buried in time and oblivion
It was wonderful for me as a Mexican who majored in literature to hear the analysis from your perspective. Many of the things you pointed out are kind of elusive for most Latin Americans, I think, because we are very emotionally attached to the way things happen in the novel. We are used to hearing about or witnessing violent events such as the ones depicted in the novel, for example, so the impact is very different. This video gave me the chance to really see how a novel can become "universal literature". It speaks differently to every reader. I definitely envy you, because I know this novel is a hundred times more magical to someone who has never actually been to a town like Macondo in real life.
I literally had goosebumps while reading the line in the culminating part where Aureliano reads that''First one would meet death tying with 🌲 and last one would be devoured by ants''.
Yeah, but in spanish the ice sentence is "Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo...". The verb in this case is "conocer" that can be translated to "know" or "to meet" instead of "discover".
ignacio mayorga alzate i would probably translate it “see for the first time”. The subtle intricacies of language.
Thank you!! I know I'm years kate here, but he was driving me crazy with his analysis
Juan Rulfo's Pedro Paramo, another masterpiece of magic realism, served as inspiration for GGM. A must read if you liked 100 years
I don't undestand how Rulfo can be so underapreciated when every single latinamerican author loves him. And well, let's be honest, if a book created magical realism it was Pedro Páramo.
+Ricardo Sandoval Tello in fact Marquez copy his style from Rulfo.
I love Pedro Paramo! Glad to see someone else has read it.
I'm waiting for future novelist to write "Love in the time of Coronavirus"
This is my single favourite book.
I really hope the second part of the episode covers the relationship between the Buendias repeating their same mistakes over and over, and the parallels to Colombian history, and us making the same mistakes in our country over and over.
Either way, thank you so much John and everyone else at Crash Course for taking the time to cover a book that means so much to me! I really, really appreciate it :)
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I found you here! I swear I'm casually reading comments, no stalking :P
Long live the queen!
In the same way, it has a lot of parallels with peruvian history, i could relate so easily with the book seeing as how we peruvians also made the same mistakes over and over in the past T.T
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I used to think this 100 Years of Solitude was Garcia Marquez' greatest novel. Then I read The Autumn of the Patriarch.
The vivid imagery that this book offers is just mesmerizing. Talk about Amaranta's solitary monotonous life and of the aged Ursula who is used like a ragdoll by Meme's son Aureliano and her sister Amaranta Ursula!Simply brilliant !
A wonderful book that I'm also lucky to have read in Spanish. You really feel immersed in the magic of it all!
I'm a native English speaker, tried to read a book in Spanish when I was 21 and it was a disaster. But I took a few years to work my level up to a strong professional level, and after that long time, reading this book as "Cien años de soledad" was a reward worth waiting years for :)
As others have mentioned, you really do get another sense of things from the original (such as the "discover" word usage coming from *conocer* that others have mentioned). I worked as a translator for a while and I don't envy whoever had the intimidating task of translating this masterpiece in a way that was as close as possible to the original.
Fun that most of the video was about timelines and the first sentence :D Looking forward to part 2!
What, your here?! ¡Hola!
I'm reading it in portuguese. I'm Brazilian, and I guess most spanish words are similar to portuguese, so hopefully I'll get the same experience. I'd like to read the original though. Maybe I will.
Benny Lewis hay libros que es mejor leerlos en su idioma original independientemente de la calidad de la traducción. Cien años de soledad es uno de ellos.
Discover is descuvrer
I just started reading 100 years of Solitude, and I am so thankful that I came across this video. It has really helped me gain me a better appreciation of the book.
He got a haircut!
That's exactly what a ROBOT would do to throw people off...
THIS ONE HAS DISCOVERED THE TRUTH.
DESTROY HIM!
Lawrence Calablaster NORMAN, COORDINATE.
JohnGren.exe has crashed
Nacho Chips Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto....
That was pretty good 🙂👏
Only weeks ago I realized that the three thousand deaths massacre of the banana plantation was less of a metaphor than I thought.
It is called the Banana massacre. Look it up.
Yes!
american interventionism is beautifull isn't it?
Beyond all the points mentioned, this book still contains a hidden element and story structure that will be impossible to truly comprehend beyond the frontiers of Colombia. My grandmother always told me stories of when Marquez used to hang out with Rafael Escalona in the Cesar region. One hundred years of solitude is written in the form of a Vallenato. A Colombian originated musical genre that was born to tell the stories of those who traveled and met different fates on their paths. To truly comprehend the ways of the novel one must first understand why it was written the way it is. It’s an almost musical narrative novel, magical realism is not a device used for narrative, but rather something that flows in the blood of those Colombians who were born from the Caribbean Valley and live their lives as a forever vallenato song, and that’s what really gives this novel the richness that it contains.
Now for the story of a wealthy family that lost everything, and the one son that had no choice but to keep them all together, it's 100 Years of Solitude.
Both 100YoS and Arrested Development feature:
- A large family that all live in a crumbling house.
- Identical twin brothers taking on each others identities.
- Incest between cousins.
- A brother going to war and losing his hand.
- A war over bananas.
- An ending in which the work itself is created (Maebe commissions the show, Melquiades writes the book)
As a Spaniard and lover of this book I am really glad you've covered it, I encourage you to keep on covering non-English language literature as there are lots masterpieces out there. First suggestion: Don Quijote de la Mancha, Best novel ever written according to experts.
I love how much Mr. Green clearly loves literature. I hope one day someone presents my works with such adoration.
The emotions that I went through when reading the final page, the final paragraph, the final sentence of this book are beyond words. I was fortunate enough to read it in Spanish, but in any language it must be a powerful experience.
Haven't read this novel, but I find significant Mr. Green's enthusiasm for its allegorical statements about the fluidity of memory and history, since he was so unwilling just last week to grant any worth to Lord of the Flies as an allegorical statement about the intrinsic savagery of clannish humanity.
I haven't had time to read "100 years" yet, but I read "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" about a year ago, and it was seriously one of the best books I've ever read. I'm reading Allende's "The House of the Spirits" right now, and I would love, *LOVE*, to see a CrashCourse on it, just so John might get others reading it.
Hi CrashCourse team! great video, but just a small correction. The picture at 5:36 belongs to the current chilean senator Isabel Allende Bussi, cousin of Isabel Allende Llona, the writer. Although is a very 100 Years of Solitude mistake to make :)
I am traveling this weekend and I was undecided on which book to read. I love Gabriel Gracias Marqués. You just made my decision for me.
I read _Love in the Time of Cholera_ in college, but, this video just makes me want to read this one too. Will add to Google library.
This book is so beautiful. I read it in Spanish and I am scared to read it in English. What if the magic disappears?
And John Green speaking those Spanish names gave me life! SIGUE SIGUE MI GENTE-QUE VIVEN LAS RAZAS LATINAS!
I did a critical analysis on this book and biography on Gabriel Garcia Marquez for AP Literature and Marquez actually was very pleased with the English text's translation.
I would recommend sticking to the Spanish.
Una obra así de bella es mejor leerla en su lengua original si es posible.
+Liliana Lancheros I know enough Spanish to read his comment but not enough to read the text of the novel in Spanish 😂😂😂
+Liliana Lancheros Exactamente! Eso mismo es lo que yo creo!
+sailoreric97 It took me a while as well. I was never introduced to my culture until my teen age years (I am not as young as I look). Practice makes perfect....and a english spanish dictionary, too!
The historical banana massacre in Colombia that Garcia Marquez mirrors in the novel actually only killed 300 people, not 3000. But 100 Hundred Years of Solitude has made such an impact on Colombian culture, that the media in Colombia has since reported 3000 deaths. That is the raw power of this novel!
so many things i want to talk about this novel!!!!!!! but i will settle on three: its kinda sad you cant enjoy it as it was intended to be read, in spanish, in my honest opinion, it does not compare as often translations do, but language is such an important part of this story as much as plot, i feel for whoever can't read spanish; second, omg is anyone gonna address that the fact that they were "cursed" of a hundred years of solitude was because of incest?!; and lastly THAT LAST SENTENCE IS THE BEST PIECE OF LITERATURE I HAVE READ WITH MY OWN TWO EYES! I WAS SO BLOWN AWAY I FELT THE TORNADO WAS TAKING ME AWAY WITH MACONDO AND THE TERMITES EATING ME ALIVE MY SOUL TRANSCENDED SUCH A PERFECT WAY TO END!!!!!!!
SAME!
I remember feeling physically moved as my eyes scanned the last page, reading as quickly as I could so I might finish the book before the tornado blew me away.
It was an incredible experience.
I wish John would talk about translation some time. I mean more than he just did. It seems to me that books in German really suffer in English translation.
There must be some translation of a book that is better than the original, but you would have to know both languages equally well to judge this.
Really! I have to read this book... I hope it will still be amazing in English!
it is!!
I plan to read this book in Spanish, but my first time through I decided on English in order to have a better understanding of what was going on. My ability to read Spanish serves well for reading newspapers and short documents, but wanes when length and complexity are increased as is the case for novels.
Do you think having read the book in English will diminish my ability to enjoy it in it's original language?
This type of speaking (circular linking pas, present and future tenses using 'years/months/days latter") is very common in Spanish (and we have a lot more phrases for that), the fact that is surprising for English speakers tells me how much do Americans, and all English speakers for that matter, NEED to study a different language even is theirs is lingua franca.
100 Years of Solitude is without a doubt the best book I've ever read. It is in fact, a privilege to be able to read it n its original language. A few times along the book, it wows you so much, that you realize over and over why it was worth a Nobel prize. Such a beautiful book, the English language does not make it justice
OMG. Yes! Thanks John. My favorite book of all time. Now I'm just hoping they make a movie about it. RIP Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
I did read this novel in Spanish a long time ago and is still one my favorite novels of all times. One should read it on Spanish. So much is lost on translation and maybe that make it so emblematic on Latin America. Thanks a lot John for including it on CC Literature.
You should have mentioned Juan Rulfo. Gabriel mentions that Rulfo´s work, El llano en llamas, also called The Burning Plane in English, is one of his inspiration.
thank you for introducing me to books like this. and for getting me into reading books i wouldn't normally on my own. these videos as well as those of your bro are excellent.
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This sounds like a book I wouldn't be able to read without getting confused every other minute
it's not that confusing, they make us read it in high school. what you may miss is the subtext.
It's confusing, but that's the magic of it. Take it slow, one word at a time. You'll get around to it.
I loved reading this book. I wonder if there are things that get lost in translation between the original language and the English translation. I read it in Spanish and I thought it had a wealth of vocabulary that wasn't easily translatable.
This "discovering ice" is because of the translation. In the original version the word is "conocer", which means to "know" or even "meet".
"Levitation by means of chocolate."
Now there's a skill I'd love to have!
I've just finished reading this book today in Spanish. Gotta say this isn't like anything i've ever read so far. even though there is some magic in it, this is the most accurate portrait of the reality we live in. I felt so connected with each character. Each one has their own inner devil to fight off because of the trauma each had to go through.
I was going to comment that this is my favorite book, but upon reading that frase I realize it is way more than that, this book, and many like it are the very reason i love being venezuelan and latin america, this book here is more than a classic, more than required reading, it is part of our culture, of our personalities, of our way of viewing the world, it almost isn't a book, it is its own category of greatness
This is one of my favourite books. It's a masterpiece. I think It isn't right to quote the last sentence. That sentence is pure magic. That ending and 1984's one are the best ends that I've ever read.
This novel like no other has captured in the most successful way imaginable what it truly means to be Latin American. And this feeling that reality and magic interlace and become ond grows even stronger as you go to the smaller towns where time sits still and nothing has significantly changed in decades, if not centuries. Where you can truly feel solitude.
If you guys are looking for more pieces like this one, I'd recommend "Chronicle of a Death Foretold", also from García Marquez and famous for being an absolute "screw you" to linear stories. "Like water for chocolate" of Laura Esquivel, another magical realism novel. Also, "El Llano en Llamas" and "Pedro Páramo" of Juan Rulfo. And one of my personal favorites, "The Old Man Who Read Love Stories" from Luís Sepúlveda, this one doesn't adhere to magical realism, but is wonderful.
One of the best books written in the Spanish language and one that i kept reading multiple times since I read it first time with 14 years. I also love how it well captures the spirit of South America and how the language and the expresions sound actualy like the Spanish talk there when they tell their stories; which the first time I read made a huge impression of me, being a peninsular spanish speaker, who saw the book as something different, but at the same time familiar (it also reminds of how stories are told by eldres where I'm from, even if I come from the other side of the atlantic as Marquez). I guess it's just one of these books that trascends barries and can feel local and universal at the same time.
My professor and friend gave me a copy of this book in Spanish. I had to read it and write a paper in Spanish. I loved it. It's now a great memory of one who has departed.
YEEEEEES!!!!!! FINALLLY!!!! Please talk more about the history of Colombia in the next part, so the world can learn a little bit more about our complex history, in which One Hundred Years of Solitude is based on.
In the future, please do more Garcia Marquez's works: Love in time of Cholera and the Autumn of the Patriarch. Both AMAZING books, almost better than 100 years...
Greetings from Colombia!! Gracias John Green, y un abrazo a todos los hermanos latinoamericanos!
Read it in Chinese, favorite book of all time.
Cool!😊
Nice haircut, John. I notice you from the past always has the same haircut as you from the present. That's some pretty precise coordination.
This is my favorite book ever. Its makes me cry, laugh, to feel that I understand eternity while been amazed by life it self. And perhaps its because I am Colombian, and a scientist, a biologist...But most likely is because this is a real master piece.
I read "One Hundred Years of Solitude" in Spanish years ago. It's incredibly beautiful, the Spanish in which this novel is written. I almost cried in the scene where Jose Buendia dies and the yellow flowers fall from the heavens. The Spanish was just so poetic and lovely. I doubt this could be translated well into English. Maybe I should read the novel both in Spanish and then in English to see if that's true...
I read this from your recommendation and it's literally one of my favorite novels. Simply amazing
Thank you so much for taking the time and analyze part of this (one of the greatest stories of all times)
"Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo."
Thank You Thank You Thank You! This is my all time favorite book!
My dad actually gifted it to my mother when he was trying to get her to fall in love with him back in Cuba and many years late I got to experience the magic in this book through the same copy they read.
So many great quotes within this video from John
One of the best books I've read in my entire life. Reading Uslar Pietri right now and I hope one of his books get covered in this series.
Sometimes madness make more sense than logic and reason.
"Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo."
Definitely worth reading in its native Spanish. Also, it bothers me that non English speakers add the accent in the wrong place. That's why it's there. To let us know what part of the word to emphasize. So, my dear John, it's not MarQUEZ, It's MÁrquez. That's why the accent is there.
Vasti Flores EMPHASIS, not accent. In English, emphasis is where the word is stressed. Accent is the musicality of the speech varying region to region.
I was so ready for this episode! And thank you for mentioning the one and only Pablo Neruda; one of the greatest poets who ever lived. '100 Years' is probably my most beloved latin american novel, certainly, a person who read it is not the same who started the book. Although I have my doubts: does the translation to english make justice to the original spanish? To me, some expressions certainly make far more sense in spanish, so I'm curious.
I was so happy to hear you were going to be discussing this book. I picked it up from my college library after seeing it on a must read book list and was totally blown away. I've since been trying to convince my friends to read it so I could discuss it but have yet to succeed. Thank you for the wonderful video!
"Discover" is indeed a funny word there, namely because in the original spanish version it reads as "conocer" which means "to know" or to "become aware of" as he firstly suggested. I really think it is sad how easily one can get lost in translation; this is, in my opinion, the best reason to study a language. There are a lot of amazing pieces of literature out there that cannot be fully appreciated if not readed in their original language, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a perfect example of this.
You meant JUAN RULFO instead of Borges.
PEDRO PÁRAMO is the KING of Magic Realism.
My second favorite book. The first is algo magical realism, "like water for chocolate" by Laura Esquivel.
I've been waiting for this for weeks!
FAVOURITE AUTHOR AND FAVOURITE BOOK
Actually Macondo is based in García Márquez's hometown, a town in the northern region of Atlantico called Aracataca.
Regards from Colombia!
4:30ish - History is named by those who have the privilege of naming. Which is why my high school mascot was a bulldog, and not a bull shark.
As an Spanish speaker that has been reading mainly foreign literature, you've convinced me to give this book a try
I've read it in both English and Spanish, and it's really difficult to convey how different the book feels in Spanish than in English. I think it all comes down to the way that language is culture and culture is language. I guess in every language there are some things you can only experience within the language itself, and no matter how good a job the English translators do, people who have only read the book in English will have a hard time understanding the way Spanish-language readers experience it. I think it's still worth reading, even in translation, though.
I read that last summer for lit even though i didn't quite know what was going on, I still loved it because literally every other sentence just sounded so pretty
Actually in spanish the verb "descubrir" (to discover) but "conocer" (to meet) which does not imply at all that he was discovering the ice as Colombus "descubrió América".
"Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo."
Great video... BUT where was the Colombia? The novel didn't take place in vacuum! It was set during several wars, including (I assume) La Violencia. Aureliano was a Colonel. There is a rich historical context that is often overlooked in English analysis of the book. And doing so does no justice to the country that produced it and the people that inspired it
I think this will be covered in part 2
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Like the other commenter said, hopefully this will be addressed in part 2
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No no... the most important war is "the 1000 days war" between 1899-1902 that ended with the Neerlandia agreements between the USA government, and both the Liberal and Conservative Party. The Massacre of the Banana Company, took place in 1928, and is the one described in the book. LA VIOLENCIA, was between 1948-1953 and started by the killing of Colombia's most prominent political figure in april 1948: Gaitán. That event started huge bloodsheds between Liberals and Conservatives, and the day that Gaitan was killed, the masses filled with anger almost destroyed Colombia's capital city: Bogotá. That day, the seed for guerrilla group, FARC, started. The oldest (and still active) guerrilla-terrorist group in the world. Since 2012, the Colombian government and FARC have been in peace negotiations, to end the 50 year war between them. This year, in 2016, a "end to fire" was agreed, and in some months, colombians have to decide in a referendum if they agree or not with what the government and FARC have agreed in this peace talks, to put an end to guerrilla warfare and the longest conflict in the Americas...
This book is about the feeling on living in a tiny town in latinoamerica, at that time, where people are naive and they just got surprised of every "new thing" that showed up in town. My relatives are from a small town from Nicaragua, and the way they speak and how they believe things that they were told when kids, it is really similar to the people in this book. It is a really cool book to read if you want to be transport to a small town in the country side, probably in any place in latinoamerica in 1960. The Magican realism is used to explain how many traditions and customs are in latinoamerica, that wouldnt be able to explaing without it.
When analyzing the opening sentence, you made a point about the discovery ice and the author's intention that no one "discovered" or "invented" ice. The original Spanish uses "conocer", not "descubrir". Like the French "connaître" (I don't speak much Spanish, so I'm reading the French translation) "conocer" means "to know" and in this case, it means getting to know.Great choice BTW.
Fun fact, even if Márquez did wanted to mess time up, the "first sentence" was supposed to go in the middle. But when he send the manuscripts he accidentally switched the first and second half, resulting in the book as it is... He thinks (well used to) that is kinda funny how everyone thought it was revolutionary.
There are so many great works of literature in spanish, i am sad that so many of them are overlooked here in the US.
Marquez wrote an essay about how there was no magic in his works called "Something More on Literature and Reality". For example, a man in Colombia really was born with a curly tail. And psychology undergrad can tell you that insomnia really does cause terrible memory loss of the scale talked about in the book. It is a brilliant essay
One of my favorite books. I read it in high school as part of world literature course. I love all the ways of looking at the work with all its layers and facets.
the picture for Isabel Allende does not correspond with the aforementioned writer. instead, the photography used is one of her cousin (homonym), whom happens to be a politician and the daughter of the former president of Chile Salvador Allende.
I never understood this book but all the comments are making me want to try again.
Discover is a bad translation: the phrase in Spanish is more akin to meet/to know
Guillermo Garcia Viesca you don’t meet ice in english nor does knowing ice hold the same meaning
My favorite book ever👏 A proud Colombian here 😊
One of my preferred books. I reread it from time to time. The original text in Spanish has a flavor of mango; guayaba, maracuya and arepas, and breathes balancing the phrases, it's almost poetry in prose. The French translation is pretty nice but the breathing of the phrases is lost with most of the flavors. Translation is a very tricky exercise. I feel that the translator in English had suffered greatly. He got the meaning but not the music, the balancing swing of the Spanish. That was impossible.
Actually, the word from which discover is translated from spanish is literally "to know"(like knowing a person); ice was more of a personal new experience of the Colonel than some kind of deep message about history.
If you need a reason to learn Spanish, reading García Márquez's work (not only 100 Años de Soledad, but also the short stories, Love in Times of Cholera, About Love and other Demons) and Alejo Carpentier and Julio Cortázar is absolutely worth it. I could be wrong but I don't think works of literature quite like these have ever been written in other languages.
It was awesome: "lou rial maravilosou" It´s my favorite book I´ve read it like 10 times and everytime I find something new, It was also awesome to learn how an english speaker would see the book... and its history which is also our history.
Also, it's interesting to notice GGM was also inspired by Faulkner's novels and his use of provincialism and family legacy.
as a latino (Brasil), is fascinating to see a gringo talking and teaching Garcia Marquez
Thanks, Crash Course, for spreading some Colombian culture around.
Ah...I can listen to your voice all day.
NETFLIX IS MAKING AN ADAPTION Y'ALL. MY BODY IS READY.