Cultural Geography Blog

“Writing is a hypnotic act.” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez As it's the first week of the Christmas holidays, I've been diving into a series I've been anticipating for a while. I've also been re-reading some of the reviews and the genesis of this adaptation of a book that Garcia-Marquez himself felt was unadaptable. He said that any film of the book would need to be a hundred years long to do it justice... It's the Netflix adaptation of the classic 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' - a masterpiece. It tells the story of the Buendia family over five generations. It is dense and magical and powerful in its description of the growth of Macondo, a town which is founded by the Buendias and others, and slowly gets drawn into the politics of the country in a story as complicated as the family tree. I'm four hours in, and so far it's doing a good job of capturing the myriad storylines and set piece moments. Vanity Fair piece goes into detail on the production of th...

Macondo is the fictional village which is the location for the main action in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's classic 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'. “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” Now the village of Aracataca , which is the basis for the village is poised for an influx of new tourists as a result of a new Netflix adaptation which is going to be appearing soon.  It will have 16 episodes. This Guardian article explores the impact on Marquez's hometown in Colombia. Some locals feel betrayed that the series was not filmed there. Instead, it was shot in the industrial city of Ibagué, 430 miles to the south. “We’re disappointed that Netflix decided not to film here, but we all know that anyone inspired by the series will have to come to Aracataca, as the heart of Macondo lies here,” said Robinson Mulford, a local high-school teacher.

This is a classic book  and in the top ten books I have read if I was pushed. This is the edition I have in paperback. It was written in 1967 by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I first read this book 40 years ago, the year after the author won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I read most of his other books as well. Some people prefer a later work 'Love in the time of Cholera' but there is a great deal of geographical interest in this book as well as the author's characteristic "magic realism". There are some remarkable descriptive passages and memorable characters: notably the mysterious Melquiades. There are some particularly geographical scenes and stories peppered throughout the book, including an introduction to ice in the opening chapter which introduces the idea of 'magic realism'. I love the description of the rocks in the river bed of Macondo: like dinosaurs eggs. There is the invasion of the banana company who force their way into the jungle and fence off ...