100 Years of Solitude Part 2: Crash Course Literature 307 - YouTube (2)

He then melts them, remakes them, and melts them again.

This might be a peaceful thing to do, but it's pretty useless.

So how do we strike a productive balance between remembering and forgetting?

Well, if the form of the novel is any indication, one possibility is to adopt a sort of speculative approach to history.

This means combining the facts that we acquire from documentary sources with an understanding that springs from more creative works.

And it also means including more voices in the "true story" of what "happened."

Knowing that 300 or 3,000 people died in a massacre doesn't really mean anything.

Numbers don't really penetrate our defenses and often neither does language.

But for me, at least, this novel's combination of realism and myth gets through my defenses.

It is a story, to paraphrase William Faulkner, concerned not so much with the facts as with the truth.

Lastly, I just wanna turn to the consolations and risks of solitude.

So reading 100 Years of Solitude is a solitary act.

Like the enormous Spanish galleon that José Aracadio Buendia discovers in the jungle, this novel seems,

"to occupy its own space, one of solitude and oblivion, protected from the vices of time and the habits of birds."

But you emerge from that reading experience exposed to voices that you never heard before and you never would have heard otherwise.

That makes you less alone, or, more precisely, more aware that you were never alone.

In fact, you are deeply connected to the people, both past and present, who experience various forms of violence and exploitation on behalf of your interests.

It is difficult and rare to hear those muted voices, especially those from the past, and that awareness is García Márquez's gift to you.

What you do with it is your choice.

Thanks for watching. I'll see you next week.

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