Chapters 1-3 in One Hundred Years of Solitudes reminded me of several stories we have read throughout the year. It shared common themes and elements with The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa and “The Great Awake” by Julia Armfield.
I’m reminded of these two stories because of the plague that is brought to the town: Insomnia. In this story insomnia is seen as an epidemic that forced a whole town to disperse in search of trying to get some sleep. But when Rebecca is brought to the town and cured of her disorder of trying to eat the wall and dirt she starts to not sleep. Vistación then tells the family that when Insomnia effects one person it will then spread throughout the family and then the town. At first the town was happy to not have to sleep because they were able to get so much work done. But eventually the insomnia turned into amnesia. Like in The Memory Police the people of the town started to forget things and but this actually concerned them. Unlike in The Memory Police the people tried to fight their memory loss. They started to mark object with reminders of what they were like a cow, they wrote they the needed to milk cows and what they are used for.
So far this book has been very interesting to read, especially with the type of fantastic events that happen, such as babies being born with animal features due to incest.There are a lot of characters to have to keep up with, though.