Good Morning :) I almost forgot to this blog Oops.
So far in the story, the concept of time become more and more confusing. Like what we discussed in class there is an extreme mixing bowl of time: days of the week, months of a year, time of day and life times. That concept had also crossed my mind on the idea of a hundred years. A hundred years is also how we measure a life time..for example we hear it sometimes as a life time being about a hundred years. Every time Jose talks about in his life time, it refers to the concept of within a hundred years and every other life has the same story. As unknown time passes in Macondo, the village is visited by the outside world and the inventions of the outside world. Everything is at the hands of Macondo. Yet, the village decides which of the inventions and gadgets of the outside world are worthy of acceptance.I was fascinated by the part when Bruni Crespi, the merchant brings the cinema to Macondo. A world of "illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience." The people of Macondo regect the unreal world of cinema and refuse an attempt at understanding what is not real. Futhermore, the mention of the captive-balloon business as an unsuccess because people considered it an invention backward after having seen and tried out the gypie's flying carpet.OK! so the people of Macondo don't accept movies( even though historical they revolutionized the rest of the world) because they don't like the idea of illusion yet they had been accepting of "magic carpets" and even more so, they truly believe themselves to be an "advancing" society because they reject the "backward invention" of the hot-air balloon. For me this rejection only limits there advancement and is just another sign of the cyclic vacuum representing the power repetition has over Macondo. The irony is that the people of Macondo are completely unaware. It is as if they feel the opposite effects. The book continues to be full of strange images, a collection of things, and time that has no actual reference. If only Macondo had the ability to escape its entrapment then perhaps they might truly have a chance a real advancement.
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I liked your referral to the one hundred years in the title. It got me thinking. I also think that it is interesting how you related the idea of one hundred years being the way to measure time in Macondo to how there is no specific time in the story. Time doesn't seem to exist in as concrete of a way as it does in our society (if we can call our time concrete). Time seems to be measured in terms of relativity . . . may relative to the length of life?
ReplyDeleteIt's true. As Macondo sits in it's little bubble of timelessness the surrounding world continues it's plodding through the decades. I've found it funny though how it is still difficult for the reader to date the time period due to ridiculous nature of these inventions: the giant magnet, the flying carpet, the compass to find gold. There are historical references, but on the whole I find that when I read the story I simply put it in it's own time...the time of magic, haha! The cyclic vaccuum idea that you present is very interesting. The story definitely seems to be on this cycle of 'non-advancement'. I wonder if Macondo will ever break this habit.
ReplyDeleteAh, but sometimes surely the population of Macondo are right to refuse "progress." For modernization also brings with it death, violence, exploitation, and so on.
ReplyDeleteIt's not quite a timeless bubble; the bubble is constantly pierced, and not usually with good results.
No wonder so many of the characters are in fact nostalgic for a lost past!
I like your view on the reasoning to the title of 100 years and I totally agree with you on the confusion of time
ReplyDeleteSi estoy de acuerdo contigo en que a veces los eventos se desarrollan de manera enredada. Es típico de Gárcia Márquez de empezar en medio del punto culminante de la novela, o siquiera el fin a veces. Sabemos lo que va a ocurrir pero no sabemos por qué ni como hemos llegado allí. Es un mecanismo que destaca su literatura y hace que no sea superflua.
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