I did finish the book (I read slowly, but with much relish!) To me, the historical context was fairly irrelevant: I could tell, obviously, from context, that it was a loose historical allegory, and the course and basis of the civil war, and the (hideous!) invasion of the United Fruit Company and Banana Imperialism were also very clear.
But these never really meant anything to me: my gripe was the dissociation of the characters, the way they almost never interacted, but merely bumped into each other. There are almost no “meeting of minds” scenes. People talk past each other, and with a very flat affect.
(There was a 1966 “Alice in Wonderland” movie which suffered from flatness of affect. Heck, you can see it in the cover photo at IMDB! The actors didn’t act! Except for Leo McKern, who, I suspect, simply ignored the director and let himself go.)
The section on Symbolism and Metaphors was of more interest, but much too brief! I would have liked to have seen a deeper analysis of the “Magical Realism” ideas – the book is replete with “little miracles.” The “Ash Wednesday” ash-smears that don’t come out; the woman who ascended bodily to heaven; various others.
To me, these “miracles” only served to further distance the novel from the reader. The reader cannot trust his intuitions. Maybe events will unfold one way – or maybe a magical rift will open up, and “reality” falls by the wayside.
It’s as if the author had a mad (or child-like) co-author, who, every so often, piped up, “Hey! I got it! How about an incorruptible corpse!” or “Why not have so-and-so ascend bodily to heaven!” These effects detract from an engaging story about people in a frontier town in a land troubled by civil wars. They turn the “history” into a pantomime shadow-show.
No, ultimately, this just isn’t the kind of story that guys like me know how to enjoy!
(Does it help to note that I’ve enjoyed reading Aristophanes? Him, I comprehend!)
Not so much shoving them down my throat but basically telling me I am not well-read until I have read X.
