As Angela mentioned, this book is not for the faint of heart. I'm only half way through at this point - and it is a challenge. It feels like being in high school English where a new book is assigned, and you don't know what you're in for, except a new genre. The difference this time is resources on the internet (yay Wikipedia and Spark Notes) to supplement the reading. It's not cheating, in fact, it has helped me along greatly to consider the author's point of view and to keep track of the Jose's, Arcadio's and Aureliano's.
One of the most interesting environments to me is the laboratory. Throughout the first half of the book, various experiements take place in the lab with the men in the family and Melquiades. After recently reading a biography of the scientifically prolific Curie family, I saw similarities in the pure research taking place. In both cases, they were taking the raw materials and carrying out experiments where the results would be unknown. This is much different than what I see at work now where a result is usually in mind and nothing too unexpected occurs. Nowadays, we don't see much liquid mercury being used, especially with no ventilation. Egads, they needed an industrial hygienist.
Now its on to the second half of the book - let's see what the younger generations bring to the story.
What a neat observation about the laboratory! It always seemed peripheral to me as I read. Egads about needing an industrial hygenist indeed. I thought about you when I read about the mercury too.
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