I certainly found the third part of Cien Anos very interesting to read. It has taken on a life of its own as I read it. The part that caught my attention was the chapter on Ursula as she looked back over her years and coming to the realization that she was losing her vision. However, she cleverly kept that information from the family. She used her sense of hearing to pay attention to voices. She used her sense of smell. In the darkness of a room for instance, she could thread a needle. She discovered that people had rhythms and patterns to their lives and used that ability to find Fernanda's ring when no one else could.
But the biggest changes came from her solitude of being blind. Through the solitude she saw truths of the family that she had never seen before. She realized for instance, that Colonel Aureliano Buendia had not lost his love for the family because of war but because he never loved anyone including Remedios. He was a man incapable of love.
The passage of time makes a difference in people's lives. It's as though the things one feels such as passion, outrage, or the need to control simply fade with intensity. They are replaced by wisdom, a clearer understanding of people and the unusual gift of letting most of it go and focusing on what really matters in the end.
For me it feels that Gabriel Marquez explored that process as he wrote the novel. He explored the passion and drive of youth with all its invincibility and adventure and as time progressed, people changed and the passion and drive were replaced by guilt, sadness, acceptance and the ever ending struggle to remember how it was.
There is a saying...."I wish I knew then what I know know" about sums it up.
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2 comments:
Hola Cheryl
It’s interesting how one usually has to lose something before they can make heads or tails of something else. What I am talking about is the fact that Ursula had to lose her sight before she came to the realization of certain facts, such as the fact that her son is incapable of love. This theme at times overpowers certain novels but here it is another style that Marquez uses in his complex novel. This is one of the reasons why this novel offers so much to the readers. It is complex enough that each and every person can interpret it in so many different ways. I truly enjoy how he explores this side of human nature but what makes even more interesting is that it does not become an all encompassing vision that he continues to use.
I also enjoyed this part of the novel a wee bit more than the middle half. For some reason I could understand a lot more of what was happening.
As you say, Ursula's blindness, despite bringing her to a greater understanding of her family, serves to reinforce her solitude. I tend to think she is the most important character in the story that her 100 or so years of solitude reflects the title of the book.
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