One Hundred Years of Solitude

A fiction is supposed to be fictious. A non-fiction is supposed to be facts.

A non-fiction is supposed to be facts. If you present facts about your friends indiscriminately, your friends will turn into foes. If you present facts about your foes indiscriminately, your friends will turn into foes. If you try to make a living writing non-fictions, they have to be fictious, at least on important issues.

A fiction is supposed to be fictious. It is easier to smuggle facts into your stories without offending people, at least not as much. After all, fictions are not real. They are fictious. A fairy tale, a science fiction, or magic realism, is even more fictious. It is even easier to smuggle facts into your stories. One Hundred Years of Solitude is magic realism. Under the cover of supernatural, a lot of facts, facts about basic and base human nature, are presented. That is why the book is so attractive.

News are supposed to be facts. In news programs, if you present facts indiscriminately, insensitively, you will lose your jobs. Comedies are supposed to be jokes. In comedy programs, if you present facts indiscriminately, insensitively, well, they are just jokes. In comedy programs, you get to present facts, at least more than in news programs.

Schools are supposed to teach facts. Churches are supposed to teach faith. When facts are presented in schools, they will generate a great amount of anger. After all, truth is ugly. When facts are presented in churches, they are not necessarily facts, they are merely stories of faith. In the end, we learn more truth from churches than in schools.