‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ in the Time of Netflix

The problem with a making a movie in this case is that it will freeze the subtle imagery into someone’s specific format. The original plays out in your mind as a myriad of flitting images, no doubt different for every reader and for every time the reader picks up the book again. That, I believe, is a huge part of its charm, and something that should not be replaced by a film that plays the same every time and for every person.

Look, "100 Anos de Solidad" by Garcia Marquez is an extraordinary master work of Latin American literature that is on the level of Huckleberry Finn by Twain. It defines an incredible time and culture in Colombia that is beyond time and space and close to heart of human experience. It reveals a way of knowing another mode of perception. It is not "Roma". It is immortal so we really don't want to kill it. I find it difficult to believe that Netflex could ever do justice to this classic. Maybe they could make a burlesque comedy out of it? I don't look forward to it at all. Nix to Narcos too.

Many people considered the first Netflix season of Arrested Development a disappointment, but it provided a fascinating look at how more temporally/structurally complex stories could be told onscreen. I remember thinking at the time that it would have been a great vehicle for Ken Kesey's second novel, Sometimes A Great Notion. I think the same could be said for One Hundred Years of Solitude. I look forward to the series adaptation.

Oh, I hope and pray Netflix does it justice. This novel is truly special and means so much to so many around the world.

The absolute best film adaptation of a book was, IMO, Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead, Revisited" on PBS in the 1980s. The limited series was faithful to the book, even down to the dialogue, and the casting and sets were perfection. So, yes, it can be done, and I so hope it will be.

The book will still be there, whether or not the screen adaptation is any good or does it justice. If you cherish the book and insist on its singular purity, then don't watch the series. Save your indignation for something more worthy and consequential.

Solitude was published in Spanish in 1967, English 1970. Thornton Wilder's novel, The Eighth Day, was also published in 1967. This adventure in mystical magic realism is considered a masterpiece in Germany and Russia, not as much in the US. The writer of Our Town, the standard for Magic realism, preceded Solitude by nearly 30 years; The Bridge of St. Luis Rey, by 40. His shortest plays by 50, all mystical treasures. Wilder had not been given his due for many years before a collection of essays appeared in 2001 that correlated a lifetime of work as a life-long profound search for magical moments be they good or not. He said: "I praise all living, the light and the dark," and "Of all the forms of genius, goodness has the longest awkward age." His full goodness awaits! David Garrett Izzo is an English professor emeritus and the editor of and contributor to, Thornton Wilder: New Essays.

Whatever Garcia-Marquez may have said to Anthony Quinn, his objection, stated on the record elsewhere, was not to the limits of feature film form, but to the violence TV and film do to the response to literary works: in his words, quoted in the very Times article linked to here, readers "always imagine the characters as they want, as their aunt or their grandfather, and the moment you bring that to the screen, the reader's margin for creativity disappears.'' Let's hear it for not replacing reader creativity with Netflix's algorithms.

I was also a voracious reader as a kid. I reread LOTR a half dozen times. When in college I was assigned Cien Años... It was difficult at the start, but I made a considerable effort to keep the Buendias separate, but it is the Gypsy or Jewish Melquiades the itinerant merchant that holds my fascination. In the end I was blown away...This is my number one book. I should take the time to read it again I suppose. It does require effort, but it has defined modern literature. fyi my brother brought it home in Spanish after spending 9 month in Chile, which he arrived in just prior to the Coup...it was the book there to read.

I remember well that, having been a reader since childhood, I always felt a moral necessity to finish a book once started. This was the first book where I said, "No! Enough! I do not have to finish this silly book."

Puzzling novels that are difficult to read, or even unreadable e.g. Beloved, this book,but still critics nail them great. I can’t remember where but I once read an article I think called great books I never read. Ulysses headed the list. Movies are like that too. Critics can call some great but they can’t make you view them.

I shudder to think of watching Remedios ascend by any means other than words.

If done correctly, 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' could become the 'I, Claudius" of this generation. If done incorrectly, it could be a total flop. Unfortunately, at its best, it will only entertain when what the world truly needs is a revolution. In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of us all. When we understand all this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity. See RevolutionOfReason.com

Any adaptation needs to play a careful balance: do justice to the written world by creating its own fictional space. There are clear things that are easily adaptable: the violence, the romance, the change of family generations. Others are not too easy: magical realism, the physical supernatural characteristics of some characters, the critical but still separate point of view. It will be a challenge. However, a series is a great format to create the suspense and tension of the novel. I hope it succeeds!

I read both Solitude and Autumn of the Patriarch back in the 70s. Solitude mystified me, and I can’t remember much of anything. Patriarch, on the other hand, gripped me so that I read it after work in two nights. I couldn’t put it down. Why isn’t it mentioned in articles like this one?

Jacob Bronowski described literature as the language of life. " One Hundred Years of Solitude " is written in GGM's remarkable artistic dialect. What an incredible challenge for Netflix. To capture the tone and sense of place, in this Magical Realism masterpiece, is a daunting task. The idea of a 50 episode series where you could attempt to capture most of the iconic, surreal, moments, would seem to be the only way to portray the essence of this iconic piece of literature.