Temporality and Space in Cien años de soledad

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The use of distinct time frames is often commented upon in the criticism of Garcia Marquez’s Cien anos de soledad. Progress and retrograde time exist at once in the text in the same manner as Alejo Carpentier’s Los pasos perdidos and Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo, both of which regress temporally into the American past. Critical difficulties in the reconciliation of the spatial with the temporal in Cien anos de soledad, including identification of the novel with Old World myths, may result from a tendency to ignore American aesthetics in the assessment of literary arts in the Americas. The pressure to view an Anglo-American imprint on Latin American literary culture, vague terms such as “The Boom” and “Magical Realism,” and Eurocentric poststructuralism may have diverted attention from authentic technical innovation and trends in Latin American literary arts. Cien anos de soledad, like other mid 20 Century Latin American novels, may only be understood within its cultural context. This necessitates critical reconciliation of locus with temporal structures, i.e., the recognition that retrograde time leads to pre-contact Americas rather than to Europe. [Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2011 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]