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Inventions inspire both alarm and wonder trips to the cinema baffle the residents of Macondo when actors who have died in one film “reappear alive” in another, and they are outraged to learn that the projector is “a machine of illusions”. Maths and physics are often presented as stranger than the novel’s supernatural events. A good portion of the first chapter comprises descriptions of the workings of astrolabes and telescopes on a world that “is round, like an orange”. If I wanted to go further down this line, I would have to define what is real and what is magical – and frankly I wouldn’t fancy my chances, especially since this novel so cleverly blurs the boundaries between those concepts.įrom the start of One Hundred Years of Solitude, there are several reminders of the tangible material world. The bonds between a mother and her child are about as real as anything can be, aren’t they?īut I’m entering slippery territory. The famous account of the trickle of José Arcadios’ blood seeking out his mother resonates because it’s embedded in such recognisable emotions. He’s right to point out that even the most overtly magical passages in the book contain plenty that might also be termed real.
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