Jose Arcadio Buendia is a man of vision, a man of hope, and a man of science. He has the inquisitive mind that will ask the questions and look for answers. What man would look at the invention of the camera and daguerrotype, and use it to challenge his religious beliefs?
"In the meantime, Melquiades had printed on his plates everything that was printable in Macondo, and he left the daguerrotype laboratory to the fantasies of Jose Arcadio Buendia, who had resolved to use it to obtain scientific proof of the existence of God. Through a complicated process of superimposed exposures taken in different parts of the house, he was sure that sooner or later he would get a daguerrotype of God, if He existed, or put an end once and for all to the supposition of His existence."
Who pays for a pianola which is especially delivered along with a man who takes a few weeks to assemble it carefully together, then:
"Jose Arcadio Buendia stopped his pursuit of the image of God, convinced of His nonexistence, and he took the pianola apart in order to decipher its magical secret."
There is a surrealism about this life, a fairy tale quality, and yet like fables, we know there is so much more to it. Jose Arcadio looks to prove, looks to improve, many of the simple things around him by looking into their complexities. He is always looking beneath the surface, beyond the obvious to explore and to, it seems, understand his world by putting it to the tests of scientific theory as if this physical proof will lay his doubts to rest, will validate his beliefs.
Don’t we all?
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology