Gabriel Garcia Marquez; One Hundred Years of Solitude.

"During that interminable night, while Colonel Gerineldo Marquez thought about his dead afternoons in Amaranta's sewing room, Colonel Aureliano Buendia scratched for many hours trying to break the hard shell of his solitude." How we can empathise with Colonel Aureliano Buendia, as we become more and more engrossed in One Hundred Years of Solitude we soon realise the book has in turn made us one of the many isolated figures the book depicts.

Usually in this part of the blog I would give a general overview regarding the book, unfortunately in a book of this scale it is hard to say what the book is "about." One Hundred Years of Solitude is the quintessential postmodernist text, it uses the abstract and the unusual to form a tale of epic proportions. Even the characterization is bizarre, within 420 pages of literature there are over twenty characters whom at some point could be considered the "main character," only to consequently die and be replaced.

If this book is about anything it is about the passage of time and how time is recorded through the experience of our families. There is little description that can be added to that; that will not give away the plot or under-sell the story in some way. The only narrative point that seems pertinent is that offered by the blurb; "Through plagues of insomnia, civil war, haunting and vendettas, the many tribulations of the Bunedia household push memories of the manuscript aside. Few remember its existence and only one will discover the hidden message that it holds..."

To close, this is perhaps the most ambiguous of all my blog posts but unfortunately there is little I can say to do service to such a marvellous book. A book of such epic proportions and huge scale can only be understood through reading. Reading is all too frequently described as an "experience," or an "adventure," but if there was ever a time for such clichés this is it.

Ian McEwan; Enduring Love

How far can we believe those we love when what they are telling us seems so very improbable? When the version of the world they portray contains sexually obsessive monsters. Where God represents all that is evil. Where your life is controlled by the actions of strangers.

Enduring Love is concerned with the life of Joe Rose, a member of the affluent middle classes. His life is changed forever when alongside a set of strangers he attempts to moor a hot air balloon which has torn free of its moorings. The men all grab the balloon but upon realising they may die if the balloon goes to high they let go, bar John Logan who falls to his death. From here on in a member of the group, Jed Perry, becomes sexually obsessed with Joe and believes he is the only means in which he can find God. Jed's obsession is born out of de Crembault's syndrome which is an illness that rationalising dangerous sexual obsession. This obsession quickly begins to threaten Joe's life and family; soon enough Joe is driven near to murdering Jed.

The book explores the tension between chance events such as the hot air balloon accident and those who bring stability to our lives such as Joe's family. Jed can be seen to embody this instability. He is a man of God which suggests the unpredictable nature of forces we cannot see or control play a huge role in our lives. He is also suffering from an illness which makes him hugely irrational and dangerous further indicating his representation of instability. On the other side of the coin we have the stability of Joe's previous life, he is middle class, he is happily married, and he has a good job. The introduction of this instability in Jed threatens to unravel Joe's once perfect life.

The book itself is exceptional well written. We are all aware that McEwan is unable to write a poorly crafted sentence. Time and time again the biggest frustration that can be found with his work is that it is so uncomfortably middle class. His protagonist is a struggling journalist with a wife who is a university lecturer. Everything about Joe is middle class, unfortunately this means that when he encounters a character such as Jed who is clearly unwell we find it hard to empathise with his constant complaints of a man he is often cruel to.

Make no mistake this is an excellent book. An accurate commentary on the real workings of people's lives and relationships? It certainly is not.

Ian McEwan; Saturday

Hello once again, recently my updates have been sparse and I am sure my five followers are bereft at this fact. Do not fear, my exams are over and I will be able to regularly blog once again, whether you choose to read it or not I leave to your own fine judgement. Anyway, on with the book!

To begin, we all know that Ian McEwan is incapable of writing a bad sentence. Saturday is no exception, throughout his use of prose is brilliant, at times bordering on being melodic. However, for all his writing may be wonderful at times this affects the progress of the story. I genuinely can't see how nearly fifteen pages describing a game of squash could be fundamental to story progression. More so, his protagonist’s obsession with his father in law wastes valuable narrative space, at the climax of the story the father in law bizarrely becomes the centre of attention rather than the men robbing his house.

It is truly a shame that McEwan's obvious talent is wasted in this novel. Perhaps worst of all is the odious family he presents us with. The surgeon father, the poet daughter and rock star son could not be more stereotypically middleclass. All in all this book is well written, but at times frightfully dull, long winded and ultimately disappointing that McEwan believes the middle-class are truly like this.
Sorry for such a short post, but now I am back in to doing it they will improve. Cheers for reading.