The 8 biggest changes that the first season of Netflix's One Hundred Years of Solitude brings to the book

Gabriel García Márquez's prolific novel, One Hundred Years of Solitudewas brought to life by Netflix, and the adaptation takes several significant creative liberties in portraying its story. The adaptation of classic literature always follows a complicated line, and Márquez's family epic, spanning a century, was deemed impossible to portray on screen.. The book keeps its dialogue to a minimum, and the constant passage of time makes it challenging to keep the cast looking cohesive. With that said, One Hundred Years of Solitude reviews praised it as a magnificent work of art that pays homage to the original.

That said, even the best book adaptations have their creative liberties and adjustments made to translate ideas properly. THE The Netflix series uses voice-over narration to provide direct quotes and explanations of the textbut no matter what happens, it is impossible to be entirely the same. One Hundred Years of Solitude the cast does a phenomenal job portraying the Buendía family in its first three generations, and they are as accurate to their characters as any adaptation can offer.

8

One hundred years of loneliness begins with the end of the book

The opening scene of the program is the end of the book

“Many years later, before the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía would remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover the ice.” For those who know One Hundred Years of Solitudethose words probably lingered in the mind long after Márquez's work was finished. It's one of the most fascinating opening lines ever written, and the TV series notably uses it as the first line of narration. However, it is not the first image shown.

Netflix adaptation begins with the end of the book, showing the final scene of the novel. In this scene, Aureliano, a sixth-generation member of the Buendía family, visits his family's ruined house, where he discovers a manuscript written by Melquíades that prophetically predicted the family's most significant events in the last century. The book features a drawing of a snake eating itself to demonstrate the cyclical nature of the show's events. Choosing to start with this sequence is interesting, especially because One Hundred Years of Solitude The Season 1 finale only reaches halfway through the book.

7

The plague of insomnia allowed the Buendías to see each other's dreams in the book

A fascinating moment in the book is left out of the plague of insomnia

The plague of insomnia hits the city of Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitudedevastating the Buendías and the rest of the population for a time. For the most part, the events of the Insomnia Plague come straight from the book, although there are some things omitted from the novel and a few brief moments added into the series. In the TV show, José Arcadio Buendía dreams of Prudencio Aguilar, the man he killed in episode 1. This scene does not exist in the book.

In Márquez's novel, the plague of insomnia not only does it make the Buendías have vivid and lucid dreams, but it also allows them to see each other's dreams. This is an important moment, as it allows Úrsula to confirm who the parents of the newly arrived Rebeca are and she realizes that they are strangers to her. Before this was a mystery, as Rebeca's parents were dead and all that remained were their skeletons, which Rebeca kept in a bag.

6

José Arcadio's corpse smells like gunpowder in the book

The smell of gunpowder adds to the mystery of José Arcadio's death

José Arcadio, son of José Arcadio Buendía and Úrsula, is one of the main deaths of season 1, right after saving Colonel Aureliano Buendía from the firing squad. His death is one of the most mysterious aspects of the story, as there are different theories about what exactly happened to him, as his corpse was found uninjured. A crucial detail, however, is that it smells like gunpowder and, despite Úrsula's efforts, it cannot be washed.

Of course, television doesn't have the level of immersion to be able to integrate something for the audience to smell, but the characters could still have noticed this strangeness. Even after he is buried, José Arcadio's tomb continues to smell like this until later in the novel, when the banana company covers it with concrete. The smell of gunpowder offers important symbolic material about the mysterious death of José Arcadio, and it is a detail that was surprisingly left out of the show.

5

The TV series ignores Aureliano's attempt to marry the girl from Catarino's store

Aureliano only gives her money in the TV adaptation

One Hundred Years of Solitude episode 4 features a sequence where Aureliano meets some friends at Catarino's store. There, he is taken to a room with a young prostitute. First, the book explains that Aureliano is nervous in this scene because he doesn't compare to how well endowed his brother José Arcadio is. The story she tells Aureliano about owing her grandmother is essentially the same, but in the TV show we see Aureliano give her a big tip without having sex with her.

In the book, Aureliano leaves without giving him the extra money and then feels a deep sense of guilt when thinking about his story. Then, “he made the calm decision to marry her to free her from her grandmother's despotism and enjoy every night of satisfaction she would give to the seventy men.” When he goes to propose marriage, however, he discovers that she has already left town. The TV show probably left this out to make Aureliano seem more noble and have less of a case of attraction between an adult and a minor.

4

Francisco, the man, is left out of the TV series

A folklore legend is left out of the adaptation

Francisco the Man (or Francisco el Hombre) can only be a secondary character in the One Hundred Years of Solitudebut he is a legendary character in Colombian folklore. Given that romance is deeply rooted in Colombian culture, it makes sense that this figure would appear in Macondo. He appears in Catarino's store and is described as one “ancient tramp who was almost two hundred years old and who frequently passed through Macondo distributing songs of his own.”

The scene to make him appear would have been in Catarino's store before Aureliano entered the room with the young woman. Francisco has less than a dozen mentions in One Hundred Years of Solitudebut it is important to Márquez's text that it exists, as Aureliano II begins playing his music later in the story. Úrsula also learns from him about her mother's death, who brings news from other cities to Macondo on her travels.

3

Rebeca eventually buries her parents' bones in the book

Parents' bones are placed in the walls of the Buendía house

Rebeca arrives in Macondo in episode 3 carrying her parents' bones in a bag. Eventually, Úrsula decides to expand the Buendía house, and the bones are left in the middle of a room while the men are building. In the series, one of the construction workers is irritated by the bones and buries them inside one of the walls of the building. In Márquez's book, this later becomes a problem for Rebeca, who Pilar Ternera said will not be happy until her parents' bones are buried.

This leads her and José Arcadio Buendía to search for the bones, with her wanting to finally bury her parents. José Arcadio Buendía tracks down one of the construction workers, who reveals their location. They recover the bones and bury them next to Melquíades. It is an important moment of resolution for Rebeca and makes Pilar Ternera welcome back to the house due to her friendship with Rebeca.

2

Arcadio and the doctor work together on the TV show

The Netflix adaptation introduces a new dynamic

Arcadio is the son of José Arcadio and Pilar Ternera given to Úrsula to raise at the end of episode 2. Throughout One Hundred Years of SolitudeArcadio never finds out who his real parents are and becomes something of a black sheep in the family. In both the TV series and the novel, Arcadio becomes involved with the liberal group that takes root in Macondo, even using his students as part of his army when taking on the role of dictator in the city. The TV adaptation demonstrates his involvement more deliberately than the book.

The show features Arcadio and Dr. Alirio Noguera, a character who is not actually a doctor but in fact a “a terrorist who with his ankle boots covered the scars that five years in prison left on his legs.” Notably, The doctor's influence is important in the book, although it does not go into detail about the relationship between these two characters.. It's an interesting dynamic in the Netflix series, expanding on this situation and arguably placing more impact on the doctor's eventual death.

1

Drawing of the Melquíades Snake

The snake symbolism is original to the series

One Hundred Years of Solitude the opening scene, as mentioned, shows Aureliano leafing through Melquíades' manuscript, and the first image is a vivid illustration of a snake biting its own tail. Later in the show, after Melquíades returns from the dead, he can be seen in the Buendía house drawing this. The illustration is not mentioned in the book, but it is deeply rooted in the symbolism of Márquez's novel and the cyclical nature of the Buendía family.

Every member of the family is doomed to repeat the same mistakes throughout the six generations explored in the books. From José Arcadio Buendía to Aureliano, the Buendías submit to isolation and self-destructive behaviors. The snake perfectly represents the cyclical pattern these characters go through and is a fascinating addition to Netflix. One Hundred Years of Solitude.