As I was reading OHYOS I kept trying to pin down the fantastic elements. But there were so so many and none of them were fantastic enough to be fantastic in my mind. No matter what I was reading (a man followed by butterflies, people paying to view ice, a girl just floating up and disappearing, a man just going crazy and speaking Latin) my brain never registered it as out of the ordinary. I was very cognizant that I was reading a book that was fantastic (it was for this class after all) yet I was explaining away the extraordinary. It took me a while to realize I was reading the novel through COVID-19 glasses. This whole experience has been almost otherworldly and, I hate to say it, so dystopian that it’s flipped my understanding of what is possible/believable. Especially with the case of the insomnia sickness in the first half, I wasn’t focused on the implausibility of people being able to live without sleep and instead just losing memory, but I instead latched onto the process of them trying to contain and manage the contagious sickness. With anything that was crazier than that, my brain just went “Sure, why not.” The mass hysteria of the real world –the misinformation, the shopping craze, the widespread panic –made me read all unnatural events as moments of panic or miscommunication. This story is told as a family and town history by a non-biased author, but I realized I was reading it as a crazy tabloid news article: kinda getting the gist but exploding with incorrect facts and exaggerations. See any connections to media today?
So, long story short, this pandemic has bent how I understand the world around me. Things that seemed impossible and so far out of reach have become part of my daily life now. I can’t decide if I want it to stay like this or if I want to move on as quickly as possible.
On a completely separate note: one particular irony of OHYOS had me so uncomfy. The beginning two chapters Ursula is so concerned about giving birth to incest children with pig tails. Then she goes on to lead the most incesty family I have ever read about. I am really curious about the purpose of/thoughts behind including such an *ahem* interwoven family with all of the same gosh dang names. If we were meeting tomorrow, that’s something I’d definitely ask about.
As I live in my own isolation, I feel the dystopia around me when I go out for supplies and there is virtually no traffic. It’s peaceful in some ways but ultimately I’m learning my own strengths and weaknesses as an individual. I just have to remember that I’m not the only person this is happening to. Normalizing this lifestyle has not been easy.
Kaia: I’m interested in your thoughts — and your classmates’ thoughts — on the question of incest — or, at the very least, inbreeding — in the novel. My immediate thought is that if we are meant to see Macondo as a microcosm of the world (the fall of paradise, the development of science, the establishment of government, etc.) and all of its disastrous consequences, then the residents of Macondo are, in essence, the descendants of Adam and Eve — or, in a less biblical translation, the descendants of the first humans. From that perspective, of course, we are all related.
But, of course, I don’t think that’s in any way the entire answer. For one thing, Garcia Marquez is exquisitely interested in perversity. I don’t mean that term in its most limited sense of sexual aberration but in the broader sense of possessing appetites or longings or desires that run counter to what we would consider “normal.” Of course, if everyone possesses such appetites or longings or desires, they aren’t exactly perverse. They’re normal.
I was also quite unsettled by the amount of incest in this novel; as I read, I saw it mainly as a byproduct of Macondo being so isolated from the real world–the perpetrators all saw it as normal because they knew nothing of “normal” behavior. It reminded me a little of Dogtooth, a 2009 film from the Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos; the story revolves around three children whose parents have kept them isolated on the family’s property for their entire lives, teaching them all kinds of strange lies about the outside world in order to prevent the children from leaving. As a result, the siblings begin incestuous relationships with one another, thinking that there is nothing wrong with this behavior.
Kaia,
I am glad that you discuss how this pandemic has shaped your perspective of what “normal” is. While I agree with you on this point, I am going to contribute something off topic to what you discussed (still related to perspective, of course).
I think it was about a week ago, I read an article of Facebook called “Self Isolation is a Privilege.” What an interesting title, so I clicked on it (duh, I have nothing else to do…expect for make up these comments EEK)!
The whole point of the article was her explaining how blessed she is to have running water, internet, cable, a warm bed, food on the table, etc. during a time when there are others who don’t have this, leading to her message of her quarantine being a privilege for her.
THIS put a lot of perspective for me, as I am in the same situation. While this is a difficult time for all of us, I would rather focus on helping others who are in need, than reminiscing about things that could have been.