Weekly Wrap-up for August 1, 2010.

This week started out super promising. I had some posts written and every intention of getting a few more done throughout the week. Then work happened.

One of our jobs this week was to rip out an old fence at a playground and put in a new one. The tearing down of the old rails was fine. I went a little crazy with an axe and tore those babies down pretty quickly, but when it came time to ripping out the old posts, well, we failed. We took the sledgehammer to them, as well as digging around them. Eventually we managed to get them all out before putting in new posts and new rails. At the end of the day, it looked marvelous.

But, by the time I got home, my body was aching and I was exhausted. It took me over two hours to fall asleep that night since I was in so much pain. I am still not back to 100% and I feel like the mono is back to kicking my butt again.

Now that it is officially August, I am getting more and more nervous about job prospects for this coming year. I have had a handful of interviews this summer, but I seem to be out of luck. I have been passed over for lack of experience, which really just bothers me. I cannot GET experience if no one will hire me. But, the rejection is okay. I am growing and learning from it. I am a stronger person for it and I know that eventually someone will realize what a great find I am and give me a chance to prove that I am an excellent teacher.

In the meantime, I'll just keep reading and writing and searching for meaning in words. It has saved me this past year, so I will keep at it.

In reading news, I did get some of the posts I promised up. I also finished One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I really loved and enjoyed. I have Love in the Time of Cholera sitting on my shelf as well, but I'll have to get to it in another couple of years (eek).

I also accepted my first ever book for review. I am still a little wary of this. When I started this almost a year ago, I told myself to reject books for review until I am finished with my list. And I was doing a great job of that until a query came into my inbox. Unlike some of the others, it was a personal letter that showed a lot of thought on part of the publishing house and writer. I was curious and checked out the book and decided I needed to read it.

I'm not sure if this means I'll accept any more for review, but I am going to try this book out. I still want to read from my list solely until I get all 250 completed, but another book here or there isn't going to kill me or my project.

Anyway, I plan on reading the book sometime this month, so look forward to a non-classic review, and a review of something published within the last year (woooo!). Oh, and the book in question is In the Fullness of Time by Vincent Nicolosi.

Since I have a few days off this week, I have some big plans. I really need to finish An American Tragedy. I started it before I went on vacation, then took a two week break from it to finish up some other things. Now I am reading it again and while it certainly offers a lot to think about, it is a LONG book. I am about 400 pages in...and I am barely at the halfway point. It is a big, dense book.

I've also been craving some Greek tragedy, so I think I may give my pal Sophocles a read this week. I haven't decided between Antigone or Oedipus Rex, but both are old friends. Either one will be a good read.

I'm not sure what else this week will bring reading wise, but if I can get those two things checked off, I'll be doing okay.

Happy Reading Everyone!

One Hundred Years of Solitude Post 2:

I am so glad that you all voted for this to be the next read-along. And while it wasn't as popular as the Cranford read-along, I am glad that I took the time this month to get acquainted with what I am now going to deem one of my favorite books ever.

I am not sure how to go about explain Marquez's masterpiece to those of you who haven't read it. When I attempted to explain what it was about to a girl at work, she thought I was crazy for saying that I liked it. But I can't help it. The book is marvelous and I really just want to go back and read it all over again.

For me, it was the writing style that made this novel what it is. Marquez's way of weaving magical bits of wonder into everyday life made the novel something completely different than anything else I have ever read.

While the novel is certainly about the town of Macondo, it is also about a family that thrives and suffers with the town. As the years pass, the reader gets to see the Buendia family in glory, shame, success, failure, and ruin. They live and breathe passionately and their tale is so intertwined with that of Macondo, I don't see how Marquez could have written it any other way.

I really loved certain characters. Ursula, the matriarch and wise woman of the family is always lingering in the background. She continually tries to get her family on the right path, and works hard to try to be a success. Her life was beautiful and the final sentences of that life were truly touching.

I also loved Rebeca, the girl who arrives with her parents bones in a bag and eats the earth out of fear and uncertainty. She marries her cousin and moves out, but becomes that image of beauty and insanity. The scenes of her late in life in her house all alone broke my heart.

I also was enthralled with Pilar Ternera, the woman who seduced two of the Buendias and cast their fates in her cards.

The alter Buendias did not hold the same level of passion for me. By the end, Macondo and the Buendias were faltering and dying. But the last pages of the novel were so beautifully and perfectly written I have to share a part:

"At night, holding each other in bed, they were not frightened by the sublunary explosions of the ants or the noise of the moths or the constant and clean whistle of the growth of weeds in the neighboring rooms. Many times they were awakened by the traffic of the dead. They could hear Ursula fighting against the laws of creation to maintain the line, and Jose Arcadio Buendia searching for the mythical truth of the great inventions, and Fernanda praying, and Colonel Aureliano Buendia stupefying himself with the deception of war and the little gold fishes, and Aureliano Segunda dying of solitude in the turmoil of his debauches, and then they learned that dominant obsessions can prevail against death and they were happy again with the certainty that they would go on loving each other in their shape as apparitions long after other species of future animals would steal from the insects the paradise of misery that the insects were finally stealing from man," (442).

It is a glorious novel and one that I cannot find the words to explain. I think this is a novel you have to read for yourself.

"...and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth," (448).

If anyone else finished it and has a post written, please leave a link here.

Jay
Cat

One Hundred Years of Solitude Post 1:

Today is the first post for the read-along of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. I was really excited to see that this novel won the poll, since it has been a book that I have long been curious about. I have also been a little curious about the author and since I have always been wary of new authors, this was a book and author who has lingered in limbo for some time.

I think I need to be a braver reader. I have found that diving into new books and new authors has opened a lot of doors for myself, especially when it comes to classics. So often we regard classics as these massive tomes of wordy prose that some old fat man wrote 200 years ago. That is not always the case.

In this novel, I found beautiful writing and a story that has truly captured me not only for the power of its voice, but because of the way in which it is told.

At first, I thought I had picked up a faulty copy. After all, I picked up my edition at my library's sale back in May (one of the few books left on the tables) and perhaps someone had cut it up and inserted random sections. However, I realized that was idiotic and I simply let the story flow, much in the same way as I do when I read Virginia Woolf.

The novel is told in magical realism, which is basically the style of adding magical elements to a realistic story. The magical elements seem to flow right in with the realistic and add to the overall feel and flair of the writing. I admit that it is hard to get used to, but Marquez blends the right amount of magic in with the world he has created.

In this first half of the novel (I finished on page 218 in my edition), we meet the Buendia family, one of the founding families of Macondo, a small village in Colombia. Throughout this first part of the narrative, we learn about the beginning of the village and the men and women who founded it. All of the story is told from the perspectives of the Buendias and they center the novel as the village grows and changes throughout the years. We meet the family and as they grow, we grow with them.

I did find the names confusing. The father's name is Jose Arcadio Bunedia and his wife is Ursula. You have their two sons: Jose Arcadio and Aureliano, and their daughter, Amaranta. They also marry and have children, who, among others have the names of: Remedios, Arcadio, Aureliano Jose, Jose Arcadio Segundo, Aureliano Segundo, Amaranta Ursula, and so on.

The names are confusing. The continuous use of the same family names made this harder to keep track of that Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (that should say something!). But I found that the novel spoke the strength of the family by the repetition and adds to the mystical qualities. You are never sure of the ghosts of the past have moved on or if the namesakes have truly passed on. Instead, the reader is left wondering if the dead are influencing the living and those who carry on their name.

We also see the small settlement change in this first section. Plague comes, as well as gypsies. Knowledge spreads, as does violence. Romance captures the young and insanity threatens the old. The realism flows in and out of this magical place, a place where no one died of natural causes for years and where the outside world had little influence.

It is a beautiful world and I love the grandeur of Marquez's words as he describes the way the world changes even the smallest things, and how one family can impact the course of events. Of course, I am not finished yet as I still have 200 pages to go, but I am looking forward to seeing how Marquez ends the tale of Macondo and that of the Buendia family.

Make sure you leave a link to your post in your comment so I can provide a way for participants and other interested parties a way of seeing your own thoughts!

One Hundred Years of Solitude Read-Along Sign-ups.

I am happy to announce that I will be hosting a read-along in July for Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. My readers selected this as their choice, so I hope you will consider this as a choice for your July reading.

If you are unsure if this is the book for you, here is a synopsis from BarnesandNoble.com:

"One of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world, and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize–winning career.

The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.

Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility -- the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth -- these universal themes dominate the novel. Whether he is describing an affair of passion or the voracity of capitalism and the corruption of government, Gabriel García Márquez always writes with the simplicity, ease, and purity that are the mark of a master.

Alternately reverential and comical, One Hundred Years of Solitude weaves the political, personal, and spiritual to bring a new consciousness to storytelling. Translated into dozens of languages, this stunning work is no less than an accounting of the history of the human race."

If you are interested in joining up, all you need to do is comment here saying that you are signing up, and I will make a link back to your blog to show your participation! It would also be helpful and wonderful if you would make a post, or mention it somewhere on your blog. That way we can generate more interest in the read-along. Read-alongs work best when there are a number of people participating, so spread the word and link it back here!

My edition of the novel is about 450 pages long, but I think it is best to split it into two posts, about halfway through. I am reading from the Harper Perennial Classics edition, and I have a chapter break at page 218. That is where I am planning on cutting it in half, but if you are reading from a different edition with different page numbers, you can make your best guess!

There will be two post days and they will be the following:

• Post 1 on first half of book: July 17
• Post 2 on second half of book: July 31

On each day I will have a post with my thoughts. As you complete your own post, comment here and I will create links to all of the posts from different participants. Then we can share, discuss, and comment to our hearts' content!

Again, if you are interested, comment here and I will begin making links!