One Hundred Years of Solitude is Ulysses, except instead of following one peep while he rehashes a Greek epic in the span of a day, all while experiencing the whole of the Irish culture and the beauty of Dublin, we are following a whole family, generations, of odd peeps rehashing a very dramatized version of Colombian history and culture. Hope, imperialism, war, love, death, sex, the beginning, and the end. It is all in there and it all flows surprisingly well. I even dare say that what Márquez did here takes far more skill than what Joyce did in Ulysses. I admire it, especially for the anti-utopianism, I do, I just cannot love it. I suppose I did find Márquez's writing style a bit tedious. And although this admittedly is simply a preference, it did prevent me from truly immersing myself into the work. I must confess, at times I did wish that this book was written by some lunatic like William S. Burroughs on one of his drug-fueled benders, for at least then I could really feel like I was on some all-encompassing trip. Yeah, sue me, but this work could have, indeed, should have been more asinine. But then again, not every book is written for me. And from what I've heard, the people it was written for, they loved it. So there's that.