What it do yo? This week we need some freakin’ CONDOMS with One Hundred Years
of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
One night, stone cold playa Jose Arcadio Buendia has a trippy dream bout a
swanked-out city that got mirrors for walls. The name that ragin through his head? Macondo.
It’s at dat moment that he tells the other homies in posse: “Yo hold up. We settin
up shop here.” And thus, Macondo is born.
So he settles there with his biddy Ursula Iguaran where they get freaky on the
reg and she pops out a swoel batch of kids. But Jose don’t pay them much mind. Instead,
fool like to isolate himself in his stuffy-ass digs and get geeked up bout life’s mysteries.
At first Macando was a fly spot where nobody got beef and people ain’t even
die. But eventually, the civilized world starts gettin all up in their turf and a civil war
busts out.
As the text go on, we kickin it with Jose Arcadio Buendia’s kids, then their
kids, then their kids- 7 generations of bustas with basically the same name.
But it ain’t only the names they be sharin.
Over time, we seein the Buendias and baby Buendias doin the same things over
and over- makin babies with family members, isolating themselves, getting obsessed with
mysteries, I could go on playa.
Eventually, the railroad tracks make it to Macando and things starts gettin
real dirty- a bunch o shysti capitalists set up a banana plantation and straight up ICE
homies that refuse to hustle. Between dat and the Buendias’ fatal habits, we seein
Macondo fall straight to sh**.
Eventually, the town breathes its last breath when a big-ass hurricane drops
in to town. Just then, the great, great, GREAT grandson of Jose Arcadio Buendia translates
a secret code spittin that errrything that happened to his family was already written
100 years ago. Da hell?
Now listen up and let me school you on this book’s title, son. One of the PHATTEST
themes Marquez slangin up in here is the theme of solitude.
From the moment yo ass get yanked straight from yo mama’s oo- wee,
you in this game all by yo- self. The rest of yo life becomes a process of realizin yo
separated from the rest of the hood, hustlin’ relentless to try to fix it, then cruisin
down that last lonely road: death. And each one of them Buendia playas reppin they own
solitude.
For example, our boy Jose Arcadio Buendia’s always dippin out of his regular
life cuz he jonezin for somethin’ new and fresh.
But eventually Jose realize dat the so called new and fresh ain’t nothin but
an illusion. On the real, life is a cycle where the same mess happen over and over.
You can peep dat theme reflected in the dankest symbol of this book: mirrors.
Images of mirrors bein slung all up in this text like Marquez don’t even give a fu**!
Jose see mirrors in dreams, the twins Aureliano Segundo and Jose Arcadio Segundo act like
mirrors to one anotha, and Macando even called a city of mirrors.
And in this crazy-ass city, the Buendia family is like a house of mirrors.
Cuz errything that Jose Aracadio Buendia do reflects on all 7 generations of dem Beundias.
Not only are all dem cats repeating the same stupid sh** over and over, but it all happening
at the same time. Marquez’s style preachin that time, place, character- none of dat mess
mean nothin. We’re just in this big- ass flow where time don’t matter at all, cuz
errything and errybody bleeds together.
But by the end of the book, the idea that time don’t matter gets flipped
right on it’s ass: when Aureliano finally translates da one hundred year old code, he
realize errything bout the Buendias- including his own death, was already in the cards.
Gonna have to reflect on that reflection, yo. But don’t worry playboy:
It’s also foretold that you gonna hit that SUBSCRIBE button OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Catch
y’all playas later. Peace.