Q4 in-process 1

Everyday people die, but what if people vanished into thin air? Would people still have hope? For my quarter four reading I read The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta. The book follows those that are left behind after a rapture like event, where people suddenly vanished with no explanation. The town of Mapleton, from that moment on was never the same. The book follows the Garvey family and their lives after the rapture. Each family member, however, copes and grieves differently. Kevin, the patriarch of the family who becomes the mayor of the town and stresses that returning to a normal life is how the town will get over their losses. However, this does not prove so easily for the rest of his family. His wife, Laurie, leaves to join a religious group called the Guilty Remnant who take a vow not to speak and only wear white. Like his mother, their son, Tom, also leaves to join a movement known as the Healing Hug movement. The only one left is Jill, although still at home she use to be a straight A student and soon starts to fail after spending more time partying rather than studying. Each member of the Garvey family and the members of Mapleton are trying to survive and cope with the losses of their loved ones.

For research I want to research more about the rapture and what it means and why people believe it happened. To understand more about the rapture would allow me to better understand what Perrotta decided and the reaction of some of those within the book. I also want to research more about how people cope with grief and loss, specifically the five stages of grief. Researching more about the grieving process will help to understand how each of the characters react the way they do. Everyone deals with loss differently and to see how each of the characters way of dealing with it relates to that individual but also others and the community as a whole.

There seems to be a lot of religious overtones within the story that I want to better understand. Why would people randomly disappear and what could that possibly mean. In addition the group the Guilty Remnant is some type of religious symbol as a group of people that only wears white, doesn’t speak, and always smokes cigarettes. Overall, Perrotta’s book is one of loss, and while it makes sense that their are religious overtones, but I want to be understand them better and how they contribute to how one copes and grieves.

Synthesis

In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book One Hundred Years of Solitude throughout the entire book things are always changing but history is also reporting himself. Marquez asserts through the characters that even in their best efforts to understand something or be different in the end they're destined for a certain and that they won't be much different than the family members before them. The book takes you through six generations of the Buendia family and with each new generation they still resemble their ancestors making the same mistakes as before. For example Jose Acardio, the patriarch of the family becomes very removed after learning about magic from Melquides, a traveling gypsy. Like him his son Colonel Aurelaino also becomes isolated after the war. In addition it is also said that Amarata Ursula is "as much of a barbarian as her father", Aureliano Segundo (260). This repetition of history shows that depute our best efforts somethings are destined.

Also throughout the book there is no linear path. However, after reading the whole thing it makes sense. Marquez wants to allow his readers to see what's happening to the town of Macondo and that it becomes less and less innocent and also is forever changing. In the beginning of the book it is said that all the houses are "white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs" represents that at the beginning the town was pure and simple (1). However, by the end the town has changed and is no linger simple and has lost its innocence with modernization. For example after the "railroad" is brought in it changes the town because now they have more access to the outside world (221). By being exposed to a bigger world brings in "so many pleasant and unpleasant mementos, so many changes, calamities and feelings of nostalgia to Macondo" (222). The people become overwhelmed with these new inventions and don't know what to do which ruins there once simple town. Marquez allows his readers to see the juxtaposition between a town that use to be simple and pure turn lost and corrupt at the end. However, for a long time it seems that Ursula the matriarch of the family is the one trying to keep the family together. She's the one that can tell the truth and say what good and bad. Warning her family about children of incest and who should be in charge of Macondo. After she dies though "the house again fell into a neglect from which it could not be rescued" (345). Although the book is not linear it is clear however, that the Buendia family slowly falls apart and so does the town of Macondo.

I think that Foster's writing on point of view helped me the most in my reading. Because the book is centered around the Buendia family and most of them have the same names it can be hard to keep track of who is being talked about or who is talking. In addition the fact that the book is written in a non-linear way also makes it hard to understand what's happening at a given time. While someone may die at one point they may be talked about as if they were alive in the next chapter. It's important to listen to the narrator because often they give clues as to what period it is using past tense language or present and the names that they use. In addition at the beginning of the book their is a family tree that also helps keep up with what's happening because it was important to remember the different generations and who was born from who and who was married.

I would recommend this book for someone that likes a challenge and a non tradition text. Also I would suggest annotation it in some fashion because there's a lot to keep up with and add to existing knowledge as the book progresses. Much Like his book Chronicle of a Death Foretold information is given to you as you go, nothing is ever laid out for you perfectly and neatly. While the book is written entirely in third person it does not go in chronological order. The first page states "Many years later…"  to "The new house, white, like a dove…" shows the contrast between past and present (1,59). Also it can be difficult because of the variation of same names such as Colonel Aureliano, Aureliano Jose etc. Overall through I enjoyed the book because it had so much to offer and so many aspects to take into account that mattered from family history, to modernization, innocence and so much more.

In Process- 3

In the last chapters of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude all the pieces come together to explain what happened to the Buendia family and the town of Macondo. The town goes through terrible and serious weather and natural disasters which physically tears the town of Macondo apart and finally with the final act of incest in the Buendia family destroys what's left of the town and the Buendia family. And finally the town of glass and the book that Maquiades left makes sense.

In the last chapters of the book their are several references to disasters such as five years of rain, a heat wave, red ants, and child of incest all lead to the destruction of Macondo. Although it rained for "four years, eleven moths, and two days" this doesn't seem to be enough of a message for the people of Macondo to know that something is wrong and should leave (315). It is only from here that things start to go down from here. After the rain ends the Buendia family members continue to dwindle as Ursula the matriarch of the family dies and so does Rebeca who was Jose Acardio's wife. With Ursula's death "the house again fell into a neglect from which it could not be rescued even by a will…" marks the beginning of the Buendia family (345). And the there's a heat after Rebeca dies that "the birds in they confusion were running into the walls.." (343). Then after the heat wave there are also talk of red ants that were"exterminated" but were "walking across the porch in broad day light" but later return (345).
Finally the last act the bring about the last of the Buendia family and the town of Macondo is when Amaranta Ursula and her nephew Aureliano sleep together and have a child out of incest. One day while the two "made love on the floor of the porch" they were "awakened by the torrent of the carnivorous ants who were ready to eat them alive" (406). Marquez is trying to make a point hear when the ants reappear after they have been "exterminated" earlier. It seems that the ants should serve as a sign that Amaranta Ursula and Aureliano shouldn't be together. Then after Amaranta gets pregnant and gives birth to their son, who they name Aureliano (surprise surprise) notice that something is wrong. The original fear in the Buendia family was that a child of incest would be born with a pigs tail. Fially this is what happened when "after cutting the umbilical cord…turning him on his stomach did they see that he had something more than other men, and they leaned over to examine him. It was the tail of a pig" which almost marks the end of the Buendia family except that Amaranta Ursula dies soon after his birth (412). With all of these disasters it's clear that it's all over but why did it take so long? What was Marquez doing by having the characters go through different cycles and making similar mistakes that it ended this way?

In Process- 2

In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book One Hundred Years of Solitude the Buendia family continues to grow and change in the small town of Mancondo. The town continues to grow and change as the politics change after the war and there are new leaders of Mancondo. Also the town becomes more modern when trains, ice buildings, and a banana plantation are added that effect the people drastically. In addition the Colonel Aureliano Buendia and the children and grand children of Acradio and Santa Sofia de la Piedad play a huge role in the change that the town is going through.

Since the end of the war Colonel Aureliano is greatly effected by the end of the war and continues to become more and more "solitary" and unemotional after the war. He soon becomes "enclosed in his workshop, his only relationship with the rest of the world was his business in little gold fishes" (198). This shows that because of the war that he is becoming more and more distant and doesn't connect with others anymore.
Then a few years later there is to he a celebration for "another anniversary of the Treaty of Neerlandia" which Colonel Aureliano organized at the end of the war (214). However, this does not bring him happiness and he and the rest of his family do not attend the celebration. It seems that Colonel Aureliano is not happy with the way that the war ended and wanted it to end differently and was "tormented by the certainty that it had been a mistake not to have continued the war to its final conclusion" shows that he's not happy and that is part of the reason he's become so disconnected (237). He seems determined to stay alive until something can be done to change how the war ended when he says " 'a person doesn't die when he should but when he can' " which shows his determination to see a change in what has happened in the war. Later it is told that Colonel Aureliano has "kept in touch with rebel officers who had been faithful to him until the defeat" and later decides to ask Colonel Gerineldo Marquez to "start a mortal conflagration" (242, 243). However, Colonel Marquez denies his request because he has accepted the way that the war has ended and does not want to go back to battle and fight which makes Colonel Aureliano grow "harder ever since Colonel Gerineldo Marquez refused to back him up in a senile war" (263). It is his constant obsession with the war that Colonel Aureliano dies and is not found until a day later when Santa Sofia de la Piedad goes to throw out the trash and sees "descending vultures" (267). It is clear that Marquez is trying to send a message with Colonel Aureliano not being able to let the war go that remains in the family, but what I don't understand is how it effects everyone else. All the different generations of the Buendia family follow some cycle that they can't break out of.

In- Process 1

For my first quarter independent reading I'm reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The book tells the story of the Buendia family that lives in the magical town of Macondo. The story goes between past and present from how the patriarch of the family Jose Arcadio and his wife Ursula come to live in Macondo and their family as it grows and expands rapidly as they get their kids get married and have their own kids. In the first couple of chapters you get to know Aureliano, Jose, and Amaranta who are Jose and Ursula's kids but the soon Aureliano and Jose have their own kids that have the same name as past family members (Not going to lie it can be confusing).

However, the book switches easily between what is happening now in the kids now that they're adults and what happened to them as children. For example at the beginning it states" Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice", while only the first sentence Marquez is talking about the present and states that it will then move to the past (1). It can sometimes be hard to tell what order things are happening in, like when "Colonel Aureliano Buendia organized thirty-two armed uprisings and he lost them all…" and then later "The war was over in May.. Colonel Aureliano Buendia fell prisoner" (103,121). Marquez writes with the purpose to write like this that I'm not completely sure at this moment but it's very evident that it's important to go back and forth between the past and present. Maybe because the characters are changing and there's something kind of magical about the town of Macondo that the book wouldn't be written in a linear way.

Also I notice that he uses color for imagery a lot. On the first page he describes the houses as "white an enormous, like prehistoric eggs" but later orders are given "for all the houses to be painted blue in celebration of the anniversary of national independence" (1,55). When the family first arrived in Macondo the houses are white, representing a type of purity, or sense of innocence because as the family lives there for long their lives become more complicated. Then when the houses are painted blue but another change is made when "The new house, white, like a dove" (59). Colors represent something to Marquez and his characters. White is the mark of something new? Or Pure? But after patriarch Jose Arcadio dies the family sees "a light rain of tiny yellow flowers falling" (140). The image of "yellow flowers" marks someones death which also means change for the Buendia family.