-Merriam-Webster Online
Page 23: "His voice had changed. An incipient fuzz appeared on his upper lip."
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude essentially begins at the end, with Colonel Aureliano Buendia going through memories from his earlier life. Jose Arcadio Buendia, Aureliano's father and the founder of the town, was a fervent supporter of the gypsies who frequently visited the town, bringing with them strange and wonderful wares. He trades much of his livelihood and possession for the fascinating contraptions, much to the dismay of his more practical wife, Ursula. His purchases range from magnets to navigation to alchemy. Because of his zany pursuits, Jose Arcadio becomes extremely isolated from his family and his community. In one of his wild tangents he becomes obsessed with finding other civilization, traveling in all directions in an unsuccessful search of something other than water. He plans to move Macondo, the village he founded, to another location, but without the support of his community or of his wife he never follows through. Disappointed, he becomes more interested in his children, the younger Jose Arcadio, who is brooding and seems to enjoy solitude, and Aureliano, the only character who sincerely seems to long for human contact regularly. The elder Jose Arcadio takes his sons to see the gypsies one last time and becomes transfixed by ice. The narrative then switches to long before Jose Arcadio Buendia and his wife were born. It turns out the two are cousins, with their great-grandparents having a business partnership and their families remaining particularly close ever since. In the early days of their marriage, Ursula was terrified to have children because of a child born with a pig's tail into another incest-based relationship within the family. Jose Arcadio is patient for a long time, but when he kills a man after a duel protecting his dignity, he forces Ursula to have intercourse with him. Haunted by the ghost of the man he murdered, Jose Arcadio and Ursula move, taking many neighbors with them, and found Macondo. The story switches back to the previous narrative, and this time Jose Arcadio and Aureliano work to establish a city of ice, while the younger Jose Arcadio carries on a secret love affair with an older woman, Pilar. When she becomes pregnant with his child, Jose Arcadio flees with the gypsies, and Ursula goes looking for him. She returns months later with a troop of people from a nearby village, and claims that although she did not find the gypsies, she found a flourishing town nearby.
3. The novel is written in the form of magical realism, a genre that I was previously unfamiliar with but have taken an immediate liking to. Everything is presented as larger than life, with extravagant exaggerations and unbelievable ideas thrown into what seems like reality. I found a line on page 9 very interesting and ironic. It is mentioned that Ursula must plug her ears and block out the sound of the singing birds throughout the village "so as not to lose her sense of reality." In a land of flying carpets and serenity in the face of a duel, Ursula's irritation at something as commonplace as birds seems highly ironic. A prevalent theme throughout the first two sections was progress, or lack thereof. Although Jose Arcadio Buendia formed Macondo in a progressive, innovative way, it was arguably the only progressive action of his that we've seen thus far. All of his explorative ventures since the foundation of the village have failed; his passionate experiments and purchases, although filled with well-meaning, have been highly unsuccessful. It seems that Jose Arcadio has hit a stalemate with progress. Even his marriage, as one of incest, is a standstill. Instead of connecting with others, progressing with new genes and relationships, the two families that Jose Arcadio and Ursula belong to have been intermingling for generations. When his son Jose Arcadio is faced with the prospect of progression in the form of new life, he flees. Instead of staying to raise his child, he leaves with the gypsies. Another theme that plays an important role in chapters one and two is solitude. Each character, with the exception of Aureliano, has shown a tendency toward isolation. The elder Jose Arcadio isolates himself through his ventures and experiments: his community does not understand nor do they approve, yet he squanders his time and resources freely. His wife, Ursula, lives in isolation because of her lack of connection with her whimsical husband. The younger Jose Arcadio isolates himself through his lack of willingness to participate with his family, particularly with his father's experiments. On page 17, Jose Arcadio Sr. takes the children to see the ice with the gypsies, and although he paid for them to touch the ice, "Little Jose Arcadio refused to touch it." When he begins his affair, it is not one of love; rather, it is one of isolation and lust. The sex begins during his formative teen years. He is a brooding, angst-ridden young man with an unexplainable attraction to an older woman. She seduces him, and they meet regularly, but there is no true love connection. They are together, but they do not speak when Pilar comes to his house during the day. Thus it is a solitude-based relationship, not a companionship-based one. Aureliano is the only character who does not seek isolation. He spends much of his time attempting to connect with his father and his brother, whether taking part in the former's attempts at alchemy or speaking to the latter about his sexual encounters. Because of the situation he is in, though, and the people he is attempting to connect with, Aureliano remains in a state of solitude.
4. Names were obviously chosen very carefully in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Aureliano, the son interested in alchemy, takes his name from gold, whose chemical formula is Au and has Latin roots in aurum, meaning "shining dawn." Ursula means little bear, indicative of her strong character. Remedios could refer to medicine, and Buendia literally means "good day" in Spanish. What is the significance of Jose Arcadio? Was Pilar chosen randomly?
Ice vs. Burning... I see the significance of it so far, as it's mentioned quite frequently. I'm not sure I'm fully understanding its meaning, however. From the "burning town" to the burning passions, and the stove that the great-grandma sits on, fire is obviously prominent. Likewise, Jose Arcadio dreams of ice walls, and the ice fascinates him. Are these two elements symbolic of something deeper?
This is probably not an easily answerable question, but was Gabriel Garcia Marquez at all inspired by Chaucer's Canterbury Tales? I was reminded heavily of them in the first two chapters, mainly because of the abundance of small, easy to miss falsities throughout the text. There are many hidden "treasures," if you will, that are easy to skim over but at closer glance prove to be absolutely ridiculous and impossible.
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