if you could meld the randomness of vonnegut into the descriptiveness of faulkner, you'd have a sense for the style gabrial garcia marquez works in. his manner is both heavy and constant. allowing your mind to wander for even a sentence is asking for narrative discord, in that such a lapse can leave you sitting in the wrong decade or continent, because it is in single disconnected sentences that main characters die, wars begin and incestuous relationships produce offspring. and given the randomness of the presentation it's not like you can anticipate such events because one sprawling paragraph can jump you forward twenty years and then back seven as if all storytellers treat time in this way. and if the erratic timeline doesn't unseat your footing, the exotic naming of characters (Jose Arcadio Buendia, Colonel Aureliano Beundia, Mauricio Babilonia, Santa Sofia de la Piedad) should keep the gears in your mind warm and spinning.

obviously, this is not an easy or leisurely read. you're going to work to experience what is to be had. at least the morsel inside contains a mysterious and whimsical world rife with the unexpected and sometimes unimaginable. should you elect to wiggle this loose from your bookshelf, i suggest getting a few good nights of sleep under your belt as to not be left in the wake marquez's century long adventure creates.