Living to over 145 years, flying carpets, a year of continuous rain followed by 10 years of drought. These preposterous things occur in One hundred years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I'm literal minded, and so I also found difficult all the premonitions and apparitions and such.

Generation after generation is dysfunctional. The characters are weird and unhappy. It left me feeling hopeless. Readers have described the book's atmosphere as dreamlike. To me it was nightmarish.

Perhaps this book presents a mature view of the world that I'm just not ready for. Maybe the devices that I find anoying are in fact clever ways of conveying life's truths.

As an aside, when Ursula was confined to her room in her later years, she could tell what was going on in the house from the various sounds. In fact this gave her a unique insight into the other occupants. My housemate is like that. From her room she knows everthing that's going on.

The ending was brilliant. A knockout blow delivered to free will!