Wednesday, June 9, 2010

What is Remedios Named After?

From Wikipedia: 

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Spanish: Cien años de soledad) is a novel written by Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez. It was first published in Spanish in 1967. The book was an instant success worldwide and was translated into over 37 languages. Lauded critically, it is the major work of the Latin American "boom" in literature. It was also an immense commercial success, becoming the best-selling book in Spanish in modern history, after Don Quixote. It is widely considered García Márquez's magnum opus.


The novel chronicles the history of the Buendía family in the town founded by their patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía. It is built on multiple time frames, playing on ideas presented earlier by Jorge Luis Borges in stories such as The Garden of Forking Paths.

Fourth generation of family:   Remedios the Beauty

Remedios the Beauty is Arcadio and Santa Sofía's first child. It is said she is the most beautiful woman ever seen in Macondo, and unintentionally causes the deaths of several men who love or lust over her. She appears to most of the town as naively innocent, and some come to think that she is mentally retarded. However, Colonel Aureliano Buendía believes she has inherited great lucidity: "It is as if she's come back from twenty years of war," he said. She rejects clothing and beauty. Too beautiful and, arguably, too wise for the world, Remedios ascends into the sky one morning, while folding laundry.

Tom says: Rob and I are troubled by the reference to the deaths of several men who lust after Remedios. We are not sure if they might be pirates. We are also reluctant to ever do Pat's laundry, even if it is just a pair of shorts tossed into a bucket of our clothing. We might post more on this later. We might not.

1 comment:

  1. The reference to her being naive and innocent may be telling. Perhaps it is really a story of those who are naive and innocent lusting after her. Thus, we have 3 naive, if not innocent, men lusting after the experience of her beauty at sea. Hmmm . . . are you sure your wives have approved of this venture?

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