One Hundred Years of Solitude Tough-o-Meter

(6) Tree Line

This isn't such a tough read, truth be told. The language and setting are modern, so you don't have to shift your perspective to get into a historical mindset. The main difficulty is the fact that so many of the characters have the same names. There's a very good reason for this: George Santayana said that people who forget history are doomed to repeat it. But when you've got three Aureliano's running around, things can get confusing. By and large, though, García Márquez is very clear about who is who, and most characters get nicknames that stick with them throughout the novel. You also get a handy family tree to refer back to when the going gets tough.