With Marquez I picked up One Hundred Years of Solitude years after I finished my undergraduate education. A quote on the back cover declared it to be second onl

With Marquez I picked up One Hundred Years of Solitude years after I finished my undergraduate education. A quote on the back cover declared it to be second only to Genesis in profundity and importance, and I was curious. Certainly I did not have any literature professors breathing over my neck, I feel I did have a chance to come to terms with it on my own terms. I don't recall sensing any elitist veneer. Rather, as I recall there were multiple male characters named Jose Arcadio Buendia and I could never keep them straight. Moreover, there seemed to be virtually no sense of cause and effect, it felt like a bunch of shit just happened to the characters and they never got to make decisions. Their personalities would change, seemingly at random, and I kept getting confused. I'm sure there is some significant literary reason for all of this, but I lost track of the characters and the plot, got frustrated, and gave up. My loss, presumably.