“The flow of time itself is convoluted…”

100 Years of Solitude’s fascination with time begins on the first page. From its outset the novel dispenses with any notion of linear time. The first sentence alone incorporates three distinct time periods and collapses them into one, reading “Many years later, as he faced the firing sqyad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” This disregard with linearity would remain a fixture of the novel, with long digressions into the future or the past, sometimes maintaining perspective and other times switching to that of a different character. Regardless of the vantage point the effect is the same, demonstrating a fluidity to time that runs counter to our intuition of it is a linear phenomenon, flowing in only one direction and perhaps more importantly, only being intelligible when things flow in that direction. Our intuitions run counter to the laws of physics, which can function both forwards and backwards in time. There is no one direction to time and our sense that there is is only an illusion. One logical conclusion spawning from this nonlinear view of time is eternalism, which posits that the past, present and future all exist simultaneously. One common representation of this is the universe as a block, with each slice of the block representing one unit of time and each dimension of space. No differentiation is given between past, present and future. The block universe as it is known is compared to a reel of film, where all of time exists at once but can only be experienced by us in a particular order. The novel itself can be considered analogous to that reel of film, except it leans even further into that notion of time existing all at once by offering a narrative that constantly takes the past, present and future and offers it to the reader as existing at once.

There is a view of the block universe, the growing block, which allows for a true ‘present’; each infinitesimal slice of the block universe that gets added to the block represents the present, allowing for temporal linearity to exist. However, such a view of time is at odds with what is espoused in the novel. Instead, tthe view of time presented dispenses with the causality needed to create the sense of free will, action leading to consequence leading to further action and so forth. The simultaneity of all temporal states, finding a physical representation in the novel itself, is married to a determinism seen in the echoing of time itself. In 100 Years of Solitude, one is not a master of their own fate; one is hardly a master of their own traits it seems. The names of the characters repeat themselves and with those names come shared traits that often doom characters to the same fates as their forebears of shared appellation. Ursula takes note of this, the novel stating “Looking at the sketch that Aureliano Triste drew on the table that was a direct descendant of the plans with which Jose Arcadio Buendia had illustrated his project for solar warfare, Ursula confirmed her impression that time was going in a circle.” The world the characters of 100 Years of Solitude inhabit is at once eternalist, prone to echoing and constantly folds in on itself. It is a world where agency becomes difficult to come by. How can one have agency where the future is already determined? When they are doomed to repeat the past? When cause and effect are obfuscated because time flows in many directions rather than one?

100 Years of Solitude ultimately depicts humanity as being at the mercy of time, not only for the aforementioned lack of agency, but also in the way we both owe every experience we have to it and are ultimately destroyed by it. Past, present and future may collapse into one, but even in such a world change remains the only constant. No two regions of the block universe are the same, and while our sense of linear time may be illusory, the disparity between different moments in time that give rise to this perceived experience is still very real. Returning to the idea of the growing block universe, should one isolate any of those slices of the present and treat it as the entirety, then we would be left in a world that is devoid of any meaningful experience. If one’s field of vision is entirely one color, and that one color is the only thing they have ever seen it is hard to say they can actually see. With time comes difference and with difference comes experience, but the nature of time is such that it inevitably leads to death and destruction. This is seen in the novel in the way all the Buendias seem to only grow worse off with time. Jose Arcadio Buendia eventually loses his mind. Colonel Aureliano Buendia becomes reduced to a state where all he does is make little gold fishes, before melting them and using the molten gold to make new fishes, with no other real purpose for living other than this repetitive cycle. Rebecca ultimately becomes isolated from her community, never stepping out of her house as she slowly molders both physically and mentally. There are far more examples throughout the novel as most of the Buendias succumb to a less than ideal fate. Maconda itself falls victim to the decay inevitable with time. Time is unkind to us and our creations. It is at once the source of all suffering but also allows for happiness. The contrast between our suffering and moments of joy make the latter far more meaningful. If one were to freeze themselves in the happiest moment of their life then they would experience no happiness at all. There is no contrast, and it would be as if the emotional field of vision would be all one color. The inevitability of each of our defeats to time is what gives meaning to our current experiences. This defeat is the only assurance we have in life, and in most cases it comes before death even befalls us. The impetus to cherish the moments we do have is far greater as a result.