This book is starting to get really confusing. All these new people are being added to the Buendia clan, and they all have the same names. Jose Arcadio Buendia, Jose Arcadio,and Arcadio are all different people, and they are all members of different generations. It's hard to remember who is whos son, and who is what age.
I think the author is doing this on purpose. It adds a sort of timelessness to the story. The town in which these people live is still relatively cut off from the world. There has been no death yet, and for a while they were suffering from an insomnia plague that kept the town awake all day and night for months. All of these factors, along with the seemingly interminable Buendia clan, add to a notion of timelessness, of perpetuality.
However, as they become more and more connected with the outside world, the virtual immortality and peace of the town becomes corrupted. A Magistrate is appointed to the town by the Outside Powers, foreign trade routes are opened, and a priest eventually makes residence in the town in the hopes of baptizing the residents. As these foreign influences take place an underlying change is apparent. The citizens flock to the church, driven by the "divinity" of the priest who claims the ability to levitate by drinking chocolate. The magistrate appoints armed guards to safeguard him and the town, and tries to order all the houses in the town painted blue for the national independence day.
In reaction to these changes, Melquiades, who was living with the Buendias, dies. Also, Jose Arcadio Buendia goes mad, and is eventually tied to a tree in the back yard because of this.
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I really like the insights you made about the timelessness of the book and how you supported them well with examples from the book. I do however think that after that you started getting into too much of a summary of the book, and not what you thought about it.
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