In the dream he remembered that he had dreamed the same thing the night before and on many nights over the past years and he knew that the image would be erased from his memory when he awakened because that recurrent dream had the quality of not being remembered except within the dream itself.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

This is only one of the passages that makes this novel so great, and there's nothing so great as a great novel that everyone tells you is great and when you finally get around to it on a long list of great un-read novels and its greatness is apparent immediately there's simply no greater feeling than that.

I always have this experience--dreaming something and then realizing I've been dreaming in that setting or in that narrative for years but only occasionally do I remember the dreams until I happen to wake up during one, and then for some reason I can remember them all, and even what was going on in my life at the age I was when I had other occurences of the dream. Recently I had a dream that I had killed a man and hidden it years ago and I awoke suddenly in the midst of the dream and remembered I'd been dreaming this alternate murderous self for years, and then I thought "wow, do I really have it in me to be a killer and hide it?" and the answer was not comforting, because obviously I must. But literally I could remember more than a dozen dreams in this universe where I had killed someone and where the me in those dreams was still me but always feeling guilty and trying to hide what I'd done but at the same time justifying my behavior to myself and thinking about trying to get away with it again, and remembering those dreams was very unpleasant.

I'd read some Garcia Marquez short fictions, but never one of his novels, and I really am liking this one though it's also kind of driving me nuts at the same time because it's loose and slippery in its whorls and vortexes [whereas Joyce is tight and controlled in his]; I can't read great huge chunks of this because I get all hyperactive and agitated and I have to think more than I like--that's why I rarely read Borges or Fuentes or Calvino or Pessoa despite the fact I adore them--they drive me nearly mad with pleasure and the top of my head swirls off and I'm like what's-her-name fucked by Zeus who demands to see his true nature and is obliterated by his glory.

At any rate I'm reading it slowly and in small doses and I'm balancing it out with Gibbon and Niall Ferguson; their stately, bedrock prose is an apt palliative to

An expert insomniac, having been one of the first, he had learned the art of silverwork to perfection.

or

Although his voice was also broken by uncertainty and his hands seemed to doubt the existence of things, it was evident that he came from the world where men could still sleep and remember.

and

Remedios would appear transfigured: Remedios in the sopoforic air of two in the afternoon, Remedios in the soft breath of the roses, Remedios in the water-clock secrets of the moths, Remedios in the steaming morning bread...

The only reason I still exist after reading such mastery is because I'm reading it in translation. Were I to expose myself to the original Spanish and understand it, I'd simply evanesce.