In the following excerpt, Stevens and Vela discuss how Marquez deals with the problem of "distinguishing between illusion and reality" by fusing the two instead of treating them as separate entities.

The technical difficulty of distinguishing between illusion and reality is one of the oldest and most important problems faced by the novelist in particular and by mankind in general. In art, philosophy, or politics, western man has traditionally made great conscious efforts to keep illusion separated from fact while admiring and longing (at least superficially) for a transcendental way of life. The irony of this longing resides in the fact that western man's scientific and technological achievements are in great part due to his ability to separate fact from fiction, myth from science, and illusion from reality It is a paradox of western culture that it draws its psychological strength from a spiritual-mythical well while its...