I do not have much experience in reading dense, rich, and highly imaginative fiction, so my views on this classic book might lack proper comparisons to other such work. But I did enjoy this book more than I expected when I started reading it. It is fairly obvious that a lot of the cultural commentary the author probably tried to provide in this book is lost on me since I know very little about Latin American culture. Still, there are many universal themes in the book that even a novice like me can understand. I imagine this book would be much richer for someone who is more familiar with the culture and reads the book in Spanish. Yet, I marvel at the skill with which the author fills even the most mundane sentence with liveliness and imagination. It took me some time to get used to the style this book is written. But once I was engaged it was always interesting.