I am happy to say that I think I have incorporated a couple more layers of understanding into my reading. I can follow story, relate to it from some form of experience, find philosophical meaning, dig deeper into metaphor, still use my editing abilities to find typos, and still take delight in the techniques used by writers such as imagery, narrative structure, background, etc.
One of the things that Marquez as a skilled writer was most likely aware of as he wrote was the reader’s possible resistance to the repetition of names and words. In coming almost close to a "tell" situation, he avoids it by allowing his characters to explain the importance of his choices. i.e., Ursula’s worry of the long line of Jose Arcadios and Aurelianos.
But Marquez, I think, has an ulterior motive to his selection that Ursula has only touched upon. The novel is obviously a recounting of a period of time in the lives of the Buendia family. It also is a viewpoint of a historical era of the country. The longer I live the more I feel that history indeed repeats itself, only the characters change. But what if we have a personality that endures, in this case, the two types of Jose and Aureliano? What if we place the same person in to deal with the same situation in a different time in space? Is it a series of second chances? Is it a form of reincarnate living through again to learn from mistakes?
The dream of endless rooms takes on more meaning now.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology