Sthomson06 USA

The blurb on the back of my edition states "This is...the book that encapsulates the angst of the post-World War I generation, known as the Lost Generation." In fact, every character in the book, from the impotent protagonist Barnes to the self-destructive femme fatale Brett, is lost in his or her own way. This is set against the backdrop of cosmopolitan joi de vivre (in France) and decadent hedonism (in Spain).

When looking over the Amazon.com reviews for this book, I see that many people love it and more people hate it (usually for its descriptions of incest, intergenerational marriages, and even a brief mention of bestiality). I would be terribly wrong, however, to judge this book based on a sensationalized account of the sins contained therein. Yes, the Buendia family is deeply troubled, each member acting out his or her internal terrors in a different way. In Macondo, everything beautiful becomes twisted. This is the real tragedy of this sometimes humorous, sometimes troubling novel. Anyone who comes away hating the Buendias was just treading the surface of meaning and missed the underlying madness that haunted the town of Macondo since its founding.

"The Remains of the Day" snuck up on me, like the long slow slide into nightfall on a warm summers day. Unreliable narrators are my guilty pleasure, and it seems that Mr. Stevens, the butler at the heart of this novel, was bred to be self-deceptive, to wear his position in British society like a suit of armor against the world.

"Wicked" was much better than I expected, especially when I got through the rather troublesome beginning. At times, it was achingly bittersweet. Otherwise, the whole thing was a bit exhaustive. Perhaps if I had read the original "The Wizard of Oz", I would have been more enthralled with the whole thing.