Anyone who has read Gabrial Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude is no stranger to the intriguing opening lines of his magnum opus: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

When you read this, you know the story will not be linear. You’re thrust into a world where memory and destiny intertwine, and yet, amidst the gravity of a firing squad, your mind is caught on the absurd and oddly tender question: why would someone set out on a mission to discover ice? The line crackles with mystery, inviting you to surrender to the surreal, fully embracing that linearity and logic are not the rules here.

But to see Colonel Aureliano Buendia on screen, as a tangible person, facing the firing squad, is completely different. This image has been imprinted on the minds of millions of readers around the world for decades, and Netflix producers set themselves quite a lofty mission with the production of this masterpiece.

The story is set in a fictional, enchanting and strange town called Macondo founded by Jose Aracadio Buendia, the patriarch of the Buendia family. The story unfolds and unravels through generations of the Buendia family, with the civil war in Colombia serving as the pivotal historical background to the story.

Marquez, with his masterful storytelling, has created a world that is both mythical and real. The plot and characters are woven seamlessly through magical threads in the story: a child has prophetic visions, priests levitate, ghosts visit the living and alchemic experiments yield magical results.

It has been widely reported that during his lifetime, Marquez did not want a television/film adaptation of his literary magnum opus. Screen adaptations of books often struggle under the limitations and conventions of television. Time and again, works brimming with boundless creativity and profound imagination have been distilled into little more than a spectacle of camera angles and sound effects, their essence sacrificed at the altar of visual bombast. Harry Potter is one sad example.

Netflix has applied a clever and thoughtful approach to this adaptation. Instead of one long film, the adaptation is a series, the first part of which has been recently released in an 8 episodes long season. Watching the series will take you almost the same amount of time as reading the book. The second part is yet to be released. The fact that Garcia Marquez’s sons Rodrigo Garcia and Gonzalo Garcia Barcha are the executive producers of the show lends a measure of credibility to the adaptation.

Some of the best visuals, undoubtedly, are steeped in magical realism. The blood trickling down to Ursula when one of her sons dies, or the downpour of yellow flowers is an absolute surreal treat to witness. However, in adapting a literary masterpiece that is so deeply imaginative, it is inevitable to find some details missing.

In the book, the insomnia plague afflicting Macondo's villagers leads them to see each other's dreams. This is a vivid manifestation of the novel's magical realism. However, Netflix's adaptation omits this fundamental detail, highlighting the challenges of translating such nuanced elements to the screen.

Likewise, the moment Jose Arcadio returns home and recounts his worldly escapades over dinner, while Ursula weeps as though reading the letters she never received, loses its poignancy on screen.

In the novel, her tears carry the weight of a mother’s longing and love, amplified by years of silence. On the screen, however, this deeply emotional reunion is flattened into a rather perfunctory exchange, stripped of the sentimental depth that made it resonate on the page.

Marquez’s books are widely popular in Pakistan; he has been read and revered by generations. What makes this Colombian literary giant so popular in Pakistan? Colombia and Pakistan share a colonial past, with Spain and Great Britain respectively. The prolonged colonial domination has profoundly shaped our socio-political landscapes and cultural identities.

What makes García Márquez’s stories resonate so deeply with the Pakistani audience may be his masterful use of magical realism. Alex García López, one of the directors of the first season, describes this element as “the culture of the Caribbean, where Catholic mysticism mingles with Indigenous and Afro-Caribbean beliefs about life and death, the body and the soul.” Laura Mora, another director, elaborates on how García Márquez drew from his roots, explaining that scenes like the levitating priest aren’t merely imaginative flourishes but reflections of the world he grew up in. “You realize,” she said, “what he’s doing here is narrating the stories of the world he was born into.”

In many ways, these tales of the extraordinary feel familiar in our part of the world, where Sufi and mythical stories have been passed down with a persistent faith in the miraculous for centuries. Take Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, the 13th-century Sufi saint revered for his miracles. One of his famous legends tells us how the Indus River was once threatened to flood Sehwan. The saint, unfazed, threw his kashkol into the river, calming its raging waters.

Then there’s the ever lasting weight and presence of the Sufi Saint Abdullah Shah Ghazi in Karachi. Stories recount how, during his time, storms and floods ravaged the region. Abduallah Shah Ghazi prayed, and miraculously, the weather settled. To this day, many believe his spiritual presence shields Karachi from natural disasters, particularly cyclones and tsunamis from the Arabian Sea.

This deep-rooted reverence for mysticism, this acceptance of the impossible becoming possible through a miracle as part of the everyday, explains why Garcia Marquez’s magical realism feels so natural to us. It’s not a leap of imagination—it’s like a mirror of our own cultural storytelling.

But here’s the pressing question: did the Netflix adaptation do justice to the book? You’ll have to watch it to decide, but I’ll say this much—it comes close.

As a self-confessed book purist, though, my advice is clear: read the book first. Dinner before dessert, always.