One Hundred Years of Solitude

De: Gabriel García Márquez, Gregory Rabassa - translator

Narrado por: John Lee

Includes a bonus PDF with a character chart!

One of the twentieth 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. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, 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. 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 account of the history of the human race.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©1964 Gabriel García Márquez (P)2013 Blackstone Audio

This story is meant to be listened to

I read this book in Spanish twice and in English once, but I had never enjoyed it as much as I do now, as I listen to it in my car on my way to work. The quality of the voice, its depth and resonance and the rhythm of the language have taken the story to new depths. Previous books by Garcia Marquez, have ben read by Latin accented narrators, and while I do not diminish their quality and professional talent, I believe that John Lee is a much better narrator for this book in its English version. I am genuinely bilingual and do not agree that a book has to be read by a Latino accented narrator just because it was originally written in Spanish. One Hundred Years of Solitude, is so big a story that it transcends cultures and gains when read by people in whose language it is translated. I live in Australia and I did not enjoy listening previous books by GM read with a heavy Hispanic-Californian inflection. That’s because this regional accent takes the story away from its narrative setting, Macondo, and locates somewhere in a neighbourhood of the United States where Hispanic people live. John Lee’s version gives this story its universality, and makes it a joy to listen, even when he has to round his vowels with a slight effort to pronounce Jose Arcadio Buendia, and that makes it special. In my humble opinion, an audio book works when there is harmony between a good story and an enjoyable sound, for it is sound that paints the picture. For example, I didn’t enjoy The Book Thief when I read it, but when I listened to its audio version, I was fascinated. Well done John Lee. I’m sure the master is happy.

This book is meant to be read!

This is one of the best books I've ever read. I've read it twice when I was in high school and was very intrigued by the complexity of the story. If you ever read it in paperback version, you'd know what I mean. The hierarchy of the family is complex with the same names being repeated over and over again, so it is a must to keep track of the hierarchy to fully understand the repetition of life and fate among the characters. Also, there are many small and subtle details throughout the story that convey lots of meaning, which is why I read it twice.

Well, all of those went wrong in this audio version. The narration is so fast that delivers almost no comprehension. Although I opened the hierarchy diagram from wiki while listening (which is very awkward and inconvenient), I got lost sometimes by very fast-paced narrating of names. Also, The break between paragraphs and stop/pause between sentences are terribly executed. I tried to slown down to 0.75x, but it was too much echo, so I gave up eventually.

I'm waiting for the kindle version to literally read it again and to enjoy every single detail of the story. It is truly a very good book.

Ignore the negative reviews

This is my first and likely only review of any book on audible. I was nearly dissuaded from getting this by the other reviews over their concerns of there being too many characters to follow. Don't worry about it. I'm not especially clever and had no problems and this story is such a treasure, it would be a shame to miss out on it. 10/10.

Enchanting!

John Lee is an excellent performer. The fact that I’ve enjoyed this book is largely due to his excellent narration style. It feels as though I’m listening to a one man play, and the rich characters are brought to life

Of course, the book is wonderfully written and fantastical. Still, I have struggled a few times to read the print version and failed miserably.

This is partly due to the circular manner in which it is written ( I don’t know how else to describe it!) and largely due to my terrible millennial habits. I find it difficult to dedicate large chunks of my day to a book unless on holiday which makes a book of such magnitude difficult to comprehend.

This audio version is captivating and when used together with the character PDF chart is easy to follow. I love the style of the story, even though it is not chronological because it reminds me of the way stories were told in my homeland but he olden days. I shall definitely listen to this again.

Excellent classic

A must read for this who like classical literature. The narrator takes the reader/listener through a wonderful and at times humorous journey of the town Macondo in South America and of it's residents. It is a brilliant narrative of Jose Arcacia Buendia and his wife, Urlusa told with ancient mysteries, family histories, and reflections from the minds of the key characters.