That’s remarkable….Peeper claims the last 50% of the book was condensed into the last 10% of the show. But the second half of the series hasn’t been shot yet, let alone released. Hahaha….how did you do it Peeper? How did you see the unfilmed last 50%?
In the meantime let’s get a more informed opinion on Season 1.
I’ve read “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” the Nobel Prize-winning novel by Gabriel García Márquez, six times: three in Spanish and three in English. It’s the book that made me want to be a writer. It will always connect me to the Latin American Caribbean and, as someone who identifies with a cultural legacy beyond the borders of the United States, made me feel seen.
'Cien Años de Soledad' is sacred, and I wasn’t sure Netflix would understand that.
So, when I heard about the “One Hundred Years of Solitude” seriespremiering on Netflix on Wednesday, Dec. 11, I was skeptical. "Cien Años de Soledad" is sacred. It’s sacred to so many people, and I wasn’t sure Netflix would understand that.
“I don’t want Netflix to tell me what Colonel Aureliano Buendía looks like. I’ve always imagined he looks like my grandfather. As every Colombian has,” literature professor Gustavo Arango told Vanity Fair.
The thought of attempting to adapt its brilliance to the screen immediately gave me pause. With good reason — this is one of the most significant literary works ever written. Its layers, themes and worlds are not easily translated into visual works. Even Gabo himself, as García Márquez was lovingly known, believed that no adaptation could truly capture the novel’s essence. It would take 100 hours to tell the story properly, he said
But the decision wasn’t his to make. After Gabo’s passing in 2014 and that of his wife, Mercedes Barcha, in 2020, the fate of an adaptation fell to their sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo. Ultimately, they gave their blessing.
Remarkably, the first eight episodes of the 16-episode series succeed. Netflix and production company Dynamo must have known that the stakes were high and that adapting this cherished novel into a series was a task they couldn’t afford to get wrong. Imagine the reaction if this adaptation hadn’t delivered. It would have been a disaster for Netflix, and for those of us who consider Gabo’s work sacred, it would have felt like a betrayal.
The adaptation isn’t a page-for-page interpretation of the novel, and it was never meant to be. While some will always bring up this critique as proof that the novel should have just been left alone, the Netflix series offers something else entirely: countless moments of brilliance that prove creating art from other works of art is still possible