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Reading this book is like learning to read again. It reawakens the child
who is able to perceive reality with magic, a reality both terrible and
beautiful. 'One Hundred Years of Solitude,' which reads almost like a
faerie tale for adults, charts the lives of the Buendia family. Incredibly
rendered by Marquez's magical realism, the Buendia family exists both
vividly and fantastically. Characterized by various quirks, myths, and
magic, these characters occupy a remarkable world where nothing is
impossible; folklore holds the secret of science, a girl eats dirt to taste
of her ancestors, a child carries the noisy bones of her parents, the
beautiful float away into the sky. Yet the childish innocence which so
often accompanies such magical worlds is tempered by the vibrant humanity
exhibited by the Buendia family in their solitudes, sadness, failures, and
deaths.