still thinking on it

I realize that marquez is not the man we think to go to for the verisimilitude (though I imagine he'd protest, "why not!?!"), and the argument could be made that if there is an element of magical realism to this book it would be in the countless manifestations of love -- violent love, filial love, dull love, young love, old love, surprise love, tired love etc., love actually being the thing most magical and real, and that the book is concerned with giving life to these manifestations... I understand this... and I'm not beyond reading the rape scene as metaphorical or even imaginable if unlikely... none of this actually settles me, but I want to be fair and acknowledge it.