mexicali blues

I've been reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, and its quickly becoming one of my favorite books. Its funny though, i've talked to a few people who have read it and they said things like "yeah it was a good book, but i just couldn't get into the whole magical side of it, to was too weird"-something unintelligent like that. But while i've been reading it, the magic or "magical realism" has been the most beautiful and meaning full passages from the story. There was one passage i read a while ago before going to bed, that i just had to stop reading all together after that, i had planned on killing a few more chapters but after reading this passage, (yet another touchstone) i just had to sit and think about its imagery, though i wanted to keep reading, i felt almost paralyzed, i felt like i had to slow down and just enjoy the work and not spoil it with my curiosity.
The passage comes when our first character Jose Arcadio Buendia passes away:
"Then they went into Jose Arcadio Buendia's room,
Shook hiim as hard as they could, shouted in his ear, put
a mirror n front of his nostrils, but they could not
awaken him. A short time later, when the carpenter was
taking measurements for the coffin, through the window
they saw a light rain of tiny yellow flowers falling. They
fell on the town all through the night in a silent storym,
and they covered the roofs and blocked the doors and
smothered the animals who slept outdoors. So many
flowers fell from the sky that in the morning the streets
were carpeted with a compact cushion and they had to
clear them away with shovels and rakes so that the
funeral procession could pass by."

It was just a such a powerful point in the story i couldn't really let it get away from me. I've been told, and I've seen that this magical realism is prominent in lots of Spanish Works. I don't know if it can be really classified but i sometimes view Don Quixote in the same manner, while the towns people don't see any of it, or think it real, the magical qua lites of Don Quixote's and Sancho's adventures are just as alive there as in One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Interestingly enough, Don Quixote and One Hundred Years of Solitude, respectively hold the #1 and #2 spots of top selling Spanish Novels of all time.