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He conceived of it as a spinning dictionary that a person placed on the axis could operate by means of a lever, so that in very few hours there would pass before his eyes the notions most necessary for life.
This quotation comes from Chapter 3, as José Arcadio Buendía envisions a memory machine that will combat the amnesic effects of the insomnia plague. Notably, José Arcadio Buendía imagines reading as the source of all knowledge, and therefore if a book could simply be written containing one’s past, a person would have the power to retain their memories. Writing and reading lie at the core of how José Arcadio Buendía imagines progress and knowledge. This image also prefigures Aureliano (II)’s reading of Melquíades’s manuscript at the end of the novel, bringing about the end of the Buendías and Macondo.
In the heat of the party he exhibited his unusual masculinity on the bar, completely covered with tattoos of words in several languages intertwined in blue and red.
In this humorous moment in Chapter 5, José Arcadio returns home after many years, transformed into an extremely large and powerful man. He is defined from this point on by his machismo and masculinity, symbolized by his genitals. He has tattooed this center of his masculine power with multilingual writing. These multiple languages signify that he has traveled, met people, and implicitly slept with them, and in turn, they have added to his masculinity. In this sense, language is inherently bound up with knowledge, experience, and power in the novel, even for José Arcadio, who is not reflective or intellectual.
For many hours, balancing on the edge of the surprises of a war with no future, in rhymed verse he resolved his experience on the shores of death. Then his thoughts became so clear that he was able to examine them forward and backward.
This quotation comes from Chapter 7, after the first end of the war, as Colonel Aureliano Buendía attempts to readjust to civilian life. Writing poetry helps Aureliano distill his thoughts, giving him clarity and self-knowledge. After he begins writing, Aureliano gains insight into what has driven him to the point of surrender. He overcomes some of his stubborn pride and leaves to meet other rebel groups and return to the fray. Not only is reading a source of knowledge, but the very act of writing can be a powerful tool of understanding.
He did not believe the version of the massacre or the nightmare trip of the train loaded with corpses traveling toward the sea either. The night before he had read an extraordinary proclamation to the nation which said that the workers had left the station and had returned home in peaceful groups.
In Chapter 15, Aureliano Segundo doubts José Arcadio Segundo’s version of the banana massacre simply because of the proclamation he heard. Although throughout most of the novel, language offers insight and truth, it can also reshape reality. Because the government can issue authoritative written proclamations, control the newspapers, and, later, commission the history books, the truth of the massacre in the square is rewritten. Because it’s in writing, people believe the account over the memory of a survivor.
It was the history of the family, written by Melquíades, down to the most trivial details, one hundred years ahead of time.
In Chapter 20, Aureliano (II) finally returns to the work of translating Melquíades’s manuscript, bringing his life, the life of Macondo, and the novel to an end. The act of reading here takes on a powerful dimension, telling the story of the Buendías, but then extinguishing it. We can read this moment as a comment on the act of reading, how by reading we bring characters to life only for them to fade and crumble as a story comes to a close.
