I crossed over from part 1 to part 2 of Galore with a premonition not unlike I’ve felt in crossing hazardous seas at night. There is always a danger of diminishment in a saga in the transition from the original generation of characters to successive generations. Moreover, there was something about the explosive fecundity of the first half of Galore that made me wonder whether too many Genie’s had been let out of the bottle and how could Crummey possibly finish the tale. Unfortunately, in my view, this premonition turned out to be accurate. While many of the characters in the second half of the book are interesting, they lack the mythic dynamism and fierce originality of the characters in part 1. Moreover, the ending, which follows Abel, one of the least interesting characters in the novel, back into the mouth of the whale, was a disappointment. It was pat and mechanical.

To write a novel like Galore, so clearly in the tradition of Marquez, begs a comparison to the original. Stimulated by this review, and another one that took issue with it, I reread One Hundred Years of Solitude immediately after Galore to answer the question for myself. This was my third or fourth reading of Solitude, which climbed in the process to number two in my list of all-time favorites, just behind Moby Dick, and bumping ahead of The Brothers Karamazov.

While none of Marquez’s characters in the succeeding generations can quite match the power and originality of Ursula, Jose Arcadio Buendias and Colonel Aureliano Buendias, the intensity of character in succeeding generations is much more consistent than it is in Galore, as is the level of literary execution. The last Aureliano is one of the most intense in the long line and, through him, the saga comes a conclusion that feels inevitable, vs. predictable. The fates had finally spoken.

In summary, Galore was one of the more enjoyable novels I have read in a long time. The first half of the novel was masterful and authentic, and gave me the hope that I was reading a new masterpiece which could stand alongside One Hundred Years of Solitude as a unique Northern embodiment of magical realism. The second half of the novel was less authentic than the first half and nowhere near as well executed. The magical realism felt more like a technique than an evocation of reality. I think the book is well worth reading… just don’t get your hopes up too high.