Totally, which is why it's so weird. I can see 100YOS slipping through (though I'm pretty damned positive that I've seen it on banned lists) because people will be too slow to link the fruit company business, but I suppose HOS is different in the sense that it definitely sides with the working class, and has a nicely argued pro-socialist point of view (without going over to communist indoctrination, which is partially why I like it so much), and I imagine that anytime you mention "a victory over the bosses", somewhere, a republican trembles. The sex might definitely have flipped them out, but far as I remember 100YOS had about the same amount, no?
Aside though, I like HOS much more than 100YOS...for one thing, I found the magical realism in 100YOS really, really forced, and at times it seemed like GM was just showing off, whereas Allende totally captures the effective use of magical realism, that is to say, the incorporation of normally surreal elements without the actual aknowledgement that they are impossible. In truth, GM's effort in 100YOS kind of reminds me later of the later Dali's and Picasso's, where they were mainly just say, "Hey! Hey!...I'm Salvador Dali, and I'm going to paint a vagina here for no reason." I think he was much more on the right track with Chronicle of a Death Foretold.
Oh, and another thing: I didn't find 100YOS so difficult to read, actually, and I wonder if maybe you read a translated version or something (I read it in Spanish); it was a little convoluted at times, but I don't recall it having been a special headache - what do you mean, precisely? The recycling of the character names? In comparison to HOS, though, I just found the characters and the stage set in Allende's novel to be much prettier/entertaining/more well-written, overall.
It's difficult in that it requires more effort to sort out than a normally-narrated book. The circular time and the recycling of names and even the ways GGM describes things are unlike most things people have read before. The first time I read it I had to go back occassionally to remember where in "time" the narration actually was, and I imagine that people who don't care about the book won't bother to try to understand.
Continuing the aside: I am a huge fan of 100YOS. And GGM in general, for that matter. I really liked HOS, but 100YOS is my favorite book ever. I read 100YOS before and also many more times than HOS (which I have only read once), but to me it seems that 100YOS is incredibly lush and complex compared to HOS. And the imagery is absolutely amazing. I didn't find the magical realism overdone at all; for me it just adds to the magnificence that is the plot and the setting and the characters. And circular time, mmm. But I think the reason why I liked 100YOS more than HOS is because I don't care too much for politics; I am a complete aetheticist. I'm still not exactly clear on what happened between the liberals and the conservatives in 100YOS, but I will remember for the rest of my life that scene in which Jose Arcadio Buendia dies and it rains yellow flowers. And the butterflies that follow Mauricio Babilonia. And the part in HOS where Blanca and Pedro Tercero (I think) meet for the first time on the farm as children and fall asleep naked under a table together. 100YOS has plenty of politics in it, but it seems like it plays a much smaller role in the story than it does in HOS.
Aside to the aside, did you ever read Everything is Illuminated?
Ah, see, we suffer from the same disorder :) - I read HOS spirits frist, so I fell madly in love with Allende, and I thought GGM to be the biggest poseur ever with 100YOS, even though I do believe he wrote it first. It's not the politics though (I could care less, for the most part), I really do feel she just deals with the magical realism better in that she incorporates it perfectly into the story, whereas, again, I dunno...I just found some of it in 100YOS to be totally forced. I think the essential difference that I recall is that Allende uses her magical realism as a side detail so well incorporated into the story that one comes to fully accept it, whereas in 100YOS I recall being absolutely annoyed by the ants eating the baby at the end - it was just one instance in which GGM took it way to far, and had the magical realism interfering directly. I feel kind of passionate about it in the sense that magical realism is a major part, in my opinion, of hispanic culture overall, and I can definitely relate more to Allende in the sense that, in my personal life, my [totally rational] family incorporates similar types of rambling anecdotes into the family history, featuring elements quite difficult to explain, which are completely accepted - i.e., in the same way that we all accept that my parents left Cuba via the Peter Pan flights, everyone accepts the fact that a great-great-uncle inexplicably appeared and announced his death to my great-grandmother a few days before a telegram arrived from Spain conveying that same news - it's just an unquestioned anecdote. Well, in the same way Allende drops that one of the girls had green hair, that the other was clairevoyant, and while nobody debates it, she doesn't go completely overboard with it. I think that's what I love about her...there's a definite art to going so far, yet knowing when to limit one's self, and it captures the culture perfectly.
Don't get me wrong though: I adore GGM. I just, bizarrely, found 100YOS to be my least favourite of his works - despite the fact that, overall, I did actually quite like it. I think Chronicle of a Death Foretold is brilliant, and captures the magical realism aspect perfectly (if you've read it, I hope you appreciated the bit about the letters, separately); in the same way, his collection of short stories, Strange Pilgrims, holds similar gems (Light is Like Water, in particular, is amazing). I even really liked the stories contained in Nobody Writes to the Colonel (which the rest of my class hated) - The Funeral of Mama La Grande in particular is awesome because it kind of evokes Kafka's Letter from the Emperor. But yes, I remember having paused a bit over the time thing. I think I was fine because I read it during a time when I could basically focus on it exclusively and devote all my attention to the novel.
And, no, I haven't read EiI, but I've wanted to for ages. Have you heard of Life of Pi? Haven't read it either, but it sounds pretty fascinating.
Aside though, I like HOS much more than 100YOS...for one thing, I found the magical realism in 100YOS really, really forced, and at times it seemed like GM was just showing off, whereas Allende totally captures the effective use of magical realism, that is to say, the incorporation of normally surreal elements without the actual aknowledgement that they are impossible. In truth, GM's effort in 100YOS kind of reminds me later of the later Dali's and Picasso's, where they were mainly just say, "Hey! Hey!...I'm Salvador Dali, and I'm going to paint a vagina here for no reason." I think he was much more on the right track with Chronicle of a Death Foretold.
Oh, and another thing: I didn't find 100YOS so difficult to read, actually, and I wonder if maybe you read a translated version or something (I read it in Spanish); it was a little convoluted at times, but I don't recall it having been a special headache - what do you mean, precisely? The recycling of the character names? In comparison to HOS, though, I just found the characters and the stage set in Allende's novel to be much prettier/entertaining/more well-written, overall.
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Continuing the aside: I am a huge fan of 100YOS. And GGM in general, for that matter. I really liked HOS, but 100YOS is my favorite book ever. I read 100YOS before and also many more times than HOS (which I have only read once), but to me it seems that 100YOS is incredibly lush and complex compared to HOS. And the imagery is absolutely amazing. I didn't find the magical realism overdone at all; for me it just adds to the magnificence that is the plot and the setting and the characters. And circular time, mmm. But I think the reason why I liked 100YOS more than HOS is because I don't care too much for politics; I am a complete aetheticist. I'm still not exactly clear on what happened between the liberals and the conservatives in 100YOS, but I will remember for the rest of my life that scene in which Jose Arcadio Buendia dies and it rains yellow flowers. And the butterflies that follow Mauricio Babilonia. And the part in HOS where Blanca and Pedro Tercero (I think) meet for the first time on the farm as children and fall asleep naked under a table together. 100YOS has plenty of politics in it, but it seems like it plays a much smaller role in the story than it does in HOS.
Aside to the aside, did you ever read Everything is Illuminated?
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Don't get me wrong though: I adore GGM. I just, bizarrely, found 100YOS to be my least favourite of his works - despite the fact that, overall, I did actually quite like it. I think Chronicle of a Death Foretold is brilliant, and captures the magical realism aspect perfectly (if you've read it, I hope you appreciated the bit about the letters, separately); in the same way, his collection of short stories, Strange Pilgrims, holds similar gems (Light is Like Water, in particular, is amazing). I even really liked the stories contained in Nobody Writes to the Colonel (which the rest of my class hated) - The Funeral of Mama La Grande in particular is awesome because it kind of evokes Kafka's Letter from the Emperor. But yes, I remember having paused a bit over the time thing. I think I was fine because I read it during a time when I could basically focus on it exclusively and devote all my attention to the novel.
And, no, I haven't read EiI, but I've wanted to for ages. Have you heard of Life of Pi? Haven't read it either, but it sounds pretty fascinating.
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