One Hundred Years of Solitude: The optimal amount of incest is non-zero

Everyone loves Gabriel García Márquez' 1967 genre-defining classic One Hundred Years of Solitude.

At first we were charmed. But after trying to track a complex web of births and deaths and affairs and inc*stuous unions all taking place in the first 100 pages we found ourselves mired deep in the swamp.

When we reached the halfway mark we recorded an episode so hopelessly confused that we had to junk it. As we trudged through the second half, we fantasised about the devastating critiques we would unleash. then right on the very cusp of recording this pod, we all sheepishly admitted we were kinda back on board again??

Come on a journey with us to Macondo: often maddening but always magical.

The elephant in the room is magical realism: have we found our kryptonite? Rich accepts that we're meant to soak up the vibe rather than spergily analyse it, but still has problems with the genre. How can characters have meaningful stakes in an arbitrary world? is it even possible to write a non-fatalistic work? Can fiction be in some sense 'truer than true'? Cam advances the bold thesis that magic is cool, actually.

On the cyclicality of human decline: do the characters matter as individuals, or are they fractals of Macondo itsef? Is this a biblical post-eden loss of innocence story? A nod to Spengler's theory of cyclical civilizational collapse? Is historical determinism total bullshit? We're not sure but we don't love the fatalism here.

On the solipsism of the Buendia family: seriously, what's with all the inc*st?? why is there so little true love or tenderness? why couldn't they have called their kids Pedro or Juan or something? This book is supposedly critical of colonialism and material progress but Cam and Rich can't help coming away with a straussian reading in which GGM is mostly mocking his stupid inbred countrymen.

On the belovedness of this book, and why it missed the mark for us: Is there something here that only Latin American people can understand? Do you need to be familiar with the history of Colombia? Is the book better in the original Spanish? Is it a dose-dependent thing?

Plus: new book announcement. it's a big one

 

CHAPTERS

(00:00:00) first impressions
(00:06:40) The case against magical realism
(00:26:08) Fiction is ‘truer’ than real life (Baudrillard redux)
(00:31:45) Macondo as a fractal set of human failures
(00:38:37) Spengler’s theory of cyclical history
(00:43:00) biblical parallels: post-Eden loss of innocence
(00:44:53) A Straussian reading contra the anti-progress themes
(00:50:48) Back to Spengler: is historical determinism bullshit?
(01:01:34) ‘The optimal amount of inc*st is non-zero’
(01:10:55) Solipsism and lack of true connection amongst the Buendías
(01:16:34) Do we like this book? Would we recommend it?
(01:27:45) BIG SUMMER BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT

 

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• Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy