One Hundred Years of Solitude- finished

I have been talking about this book for at least 4 blog posts, so of course I have to post when finished. This book was originally published in 1967 in Argentina. The book I am reading appears to be published in 2006. I say appears because that is the date that I see, so it has to be at least 2006. In the back of the book we have the Gabriel Garcia Marguez inspiration for the book. This inspiration is the visits to his grandmother's house when he was a boy. The stories that she used to tell and her face as she told them. His quote "In previous attempts to write, I tried to tell the story without believing in it. I discovered that what I had to do was believe myself and write them with the same expression with which my grandmother told them: with a brick face."(page 9: About the book section, HARPERPERENNIAL MODERNCLASSICS) The woman in this story seem to have lived a long time, for example we have Ursula living to be over 140 years old. She is not the only one, and they all seem to be the ones that keep things moving forward. It is only after all these strong woman die that you have the ending of the Buendio family. There is a family tree at the beginning of the book, which is helpful and you can see that the names: Aureliano, Jose, and Arcadio are very popular. You will note that there is a notation for 17 Aurelianos but no mother names. These Aurelianos were born to Colonial Aureliano during his war campaign by different women. Each Aureliano used his mother's last name and each had a tragic outcome. So read this book it is full of male bravado, female strength, ghosts, miracles and just an interesting tale.