ONLINE SEMINAR
November 4 | One Hundred Years of Solitude and the Psychedelic Family
“That's what they're all like,” she said without surprise, “crazy from birth.” These words come from Ursula, the matriarch of the Buendia family and a central character of Gabriel García Márquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude. Ursula is an expert on crazy, both as an observer and practitioner. Her great-grandchildren—whom she is talking about here—have not escaped lunacy any more than any other Buendia. For Márquez, there is a very fine line between the mental instability and the magical interventions that visit the mythical town of Macondo. They seem to originate from the same place. In fact, the family antics make the fantastical seem tame by comparison. Why not believe in the supernatural when you have generations of sons and daughters who conduct themselves in a far more bizarre manner than any sorcerer or traveling gypsy ever could?
Madness and the magical create mystery, beauty and torture for the souls of this family. One of the most ambitious novels of the Modern age, One Hundred Years of Solitude presents a twisted genealogical psychodrama that grows within a darkly enchanted universe. There is no work of literature in greater need of a group exploration of its meaning than this one. There is a lot of crazy to sort out here, and many profound lessons to be learned from the Buendias. It is a hard road but very much worth the trip!
This seminar will be read-as-we-go, covering roughly one quarter of the novel each week.
When: Four weekly sessions on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. Eastern, starting November 4, 2020
Duration: 2 hours per session
Cost: C$275 plus 13% HST (approx. US$195 plus 13% HST)
Group Size: 12-participant limit
How: We will be using Zoom online meeting software; you will receive instructions on how to download Zoom free after registration. For your privacy, all our Zoom seminars are password-protected and are never recorded.
All online seminar payments are nonrefundable. Select your registration below; please use the Toronto Pursuits credit option only if you are a registered participant of Toronto Pursuits 2020 who wants to put your deposit or previous payment toward an online seminar.
Description
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LEADER
John Riley has led Great Books discussions at all educational levels for 35 years. While teaching Humanities classes at Morton College, John developed seminar units on “I despise loving you” and “Death, dreams and the space between” using Márquez’s and Isabel Allende’s short stories. John currently serves on the board of Chicago Youth Programs and is a tutor for Chicago CRED.
BOOK
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez, translated by Gregory Rabassa
(Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006)
ISBN-13: 978-0060883287
Please be sure to obtain this translation; having the same translation makes the experience better for everyone.
We encourage you to support local bookstores or other independent sellers. In the US, try Bookshop.org. In Canada, try McNally Robinson or Indigo.
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“That’s what they’re all like,” she said without surprise, “crazy from birth.” These words come from Ursula, the matriarch of the Buendia family and a central character of Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Ursula is an expert on crazy, both as an observer and practitioner. Her great-grandchildren—whom she is talking about here—have not escaped lunacy any more than any other Buendia. For Márquez, there is a very fine line between the mental instability and the magical interventions that visit the mythical town of Macondo. They seem to originate from the same place. As a matter of fact, the family antics make the fantastical seem tame by comparison. Why not believe in the supernatural when you have generations of sons and daughters who conduct themselves in a more bizarre manner than any sorcerer or traveling gypsy ever could?
Madness and the magical create mystery, beauty and torture for the souls of this family. One of the most ambitious novels of the Modern age, One Hundred Years of Solitude presents a twisted genealogical psychodrama that grows within a darkly enchanted universe. In John’s view, there is no work of literature in greater need of a group exploration of its meaning than this one. One Hundred Years requires group discussion, lest the reader gets as trapped in Márquez’s world as the characters do. There is a lot of crazy to sort out here, along with profound lessons about our humanity to be learned from the Buendias. It is a hard road, but very much worth the trip!
All online seminar payments are nonrefundable.
“[One Hundred Years of Solitude is] required reading for the entire human race.”
—William Kennedy, New York Times Book Review
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Additional information
| Choose registration type | Standard registration, Toronto Pursuits 2020 credit |
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