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Listening to: Juicebox - The Strokes

Mood: Arrrr
Listening to: Venetian Blinds - Future Kings of Spain
Quote of the Moment: "Arrr..."

One Hundred Years of Solitude follows the lives of the Buendía family line. The patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the village of Macondo where much of the story takes place. After fifty pages, it is easy to believe that anything might happen in Macondo: a plague of insomnia, an inexplicable ascendance to heaven or a rainstorm lasting four years, eleven months and two days.

Located near the front of the book is a diagram of the Buendía family tree. Refer to it early and often. José Arcadio Buendía and his wife, Úrsula, have three children: Aureliano, José Arcadio and Amaranta. And so on, and so on, as succeeding generations assume the same names. There are so many combinations of Aureliano and José Arcadio that it's hard to keep everyone straight in your head, especially when they all have similar personalities.

The Aurelianos are quiet and prefer their own company, while the José Arcadios are all brash men, eager for the novelty of meeting new people. The boys also inherit indelible memories from their namesakes. So, while events and circumstances of their lives change, it seems the same two people are born again and again.

"The history of the family was a machine with unavoidable repetitions, a turning wheel that would have gone on spilling into eternity were it not for the progressive and irremediable wearing of the axle."

The consanguinity of the Buendía family probably contributes to the grinding axle. The original José Arcadio and Úrsula were cousins, products of centuries of intermarriage. Their families opposed the wedding, fearing the couple's children would be born with tails, but the cousins marry anyway. Two of their sons have children by the same woman. An aunt sleeps with her nephew. As the family bloodline disintegrates, so does Macondo. Near the end, the village is empty. The dry wind sweeps both into memory.

It follows the fortunes of the Buendia family, founding residents of the South American jungle community of Macondo. During the century of the title they endure a breathtaking array of misfortune and misadventure, taking in war, revolution, inbreeding, alchemy, and... well, the list goes on and on, and this was one of the first strengths of the book to be discussed. The richness of incident and imagery and the skilful blending of the real and the surreal made for an extremely vivid and engaging read. Several group members likened the experience of talking about the book to waking from a dream and trying to recall the details – the sleeping sickness that gripped the village; Melquiades, the mysterious gypsy who holds the secrets to Macondo’s fate; a stranded Spanish galleon in the middle of the jungle; a baby being devoured by ants.

All of the characters were in someway flawed, and if not wholly likeable, each of them evoked our empathy in different ways. The multi-faceted Colonel Aureliano Buendia and his many spectacular survivals, the resourceful and resilient mother Ursula and her doomed husband Jose Arcadio, and the mysterious, troubled, earth-eating Rebeca remained with us long after the final page.

Mineko Iwasaki first explains that geisha means artist. She considered herself a geiko (female artist) and also a maiko (a woman of dance). She was also an atori, the head of household and business for other geikos who worked in the Iwasaki lodging house and the support staff.

She does acknowledge that some women do work as prostitutes, but geikos are artists. But, love can happen when men and women come together.

Iwaski was one of 11 children. Some older siblings became geikos, but she was chosen by the Iwasaka atori to be the next atori. She lived in the Gion section of Kyoto.

She started her training at age five but she was not adopted by the Iwasaki family until she was about 10. Until this point, she occasionally visited her parents. After the adoption, she did not.
Iwasaki was amazed that she even became a geiko, much less an atori.
“A first-class geiko is constantly in the glare of spotlights while I spent much of my childhood hiding in a darkened closet. A first-class geiko uses all the skills at her command to please her audience.. while I prefer solitary pursuits A first-class geiko is an exquisite willow tree who bends to the service of others while I have always been stubborn and contrary by nature, and very, very proud.”
Iwasaki was happy at home, but fate had another path planned for her. She started dance lessons at age 6, attending school, and did some minor household tasks. At age 15, she stopped attending regular school, went to dance school in the mornings, paid respectful visits to others in the geiko community, rehearsed for dance performances, studied national and international events, and biographies of clients and patrons, and performed the geiko duties in the evenings. Iwasaka worked almost non-stop, seven days a week, for several years. She did have to stop once when her kidneys failed; she usually slept about 4 or 5 hours a night. She did have servants, so she didn’t have to do household tasks or run errands, like other young women in Japan.
Iwasaki chafed under the restrictions. Although the system allowed her to earn a great deal of money, she could not dance what she felt like; she had to follow the rules of the dance mistress. She wanted to continue her formal education, but that was frowned upon.
She has no idea how to handle money, or how much things costs. She falls in love with a married man, who promises to leave his wife. She has to ask the permission from a go-between to make arrangements.
Despite the restrictions, Iwasaka was determined to continue expanding her mind. She tried learning new ideas from talking to clients. She kept petitioning the governing board of the geikos for modernizations, despite their refusal. She lived in her own apartment for a bit and learned how to cook and clean and deal with her budget. She took better care of herself and went on vacations.
I learned many things about the geikos: how much a kimino costs and why it is so precious, how envious other women can be (I worked in mostly male offices, so this was eye opening for me), how difficult is it to dress and get ready for an evening of work, how strict the dancing was. Also, entire families get to know their favorite geiko and even invite her to visit them in their vacation home.
Iwasaki decides to retire at a rather young age and marry an artist. She learns another career. She still goes to Gion to see the geikos.
I enjoyed reading this autobiography and recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about this world.

P.S.

NOT RECOMMENDED: eating while watching Kung Fu Hustle. My pancit canton almost shot out of my nose.

Labels: Book Review