Unknown Melancholies

Two days ago I started reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude. Right off the bat I knew this was going to be a unique book. A quick flip through the introduction revealed a family tree containing 2 Amarantas, 2 Ursulas, 3 Remedios', 4 Arcadios, and 22 (yes, 22) Aurelianos Add on to that a revolving door of seemingly-infinite characters and you've got quite the daunting book. While I have had a fair amount of confusion regarding who's who, the family tree has been a big help (though it's more bare-bones than the one I've included below).

Of course, the characters aren't the only thing giving me trouble. Going into this, I wasn't expecting the novel to be a quick read. Most of the reviews I read said it was a slow, difficult read but ultimately worth it. However, as I started to become more enraptured with the story, I began to skim, and soon I was having to reread paragraphs or even pages. I'd suddenly find myself reading about Rebeca's relapse into eating dirt (yes, you read that right) without having any recollection of how or when Rebeca even showed up. (Likely contributing to my confusion regarding the multitude of characters.) Because I don't have to take constant notes on this book, it's easy for me to get caught up in the story, to get so enraptured that my only thought was "I have to figure out what's going to happen next as soon as possible!" I was cheating myself of the full reading experience.

So my new goal? Actually read.

While I don't want to have to start analyzing every sentence in this book, I think I will start keeping a running "side commentary" of sorts--paragraphs/quotes I like, interesting character developments, predictions/ possible foreshadowing, vocabulary, etc.. Hopefully this'll better my reading experience (and my memory) since I'll be forced to slow down and to give myself little breaks to process everything I've just read.

Overall I was really delighted to find this book surpassing my initial expectations, and I'm really excited to keep reading.