thinking of marquez instead of finishing the book

i have almost finished reading "love in the time of cholera". i tore through "100 years of solitude" this summer, and upon finishing it, told jeremy, "that's the best book i am ever going to read. i should just stop now." i mention all this for a few reasons: i have been 30 pages from the end of "cholera" for a nearly a week, and yet i can't bring myself to finish it. there sort of spell marquez's work exists in--well, it is difficult to leave it! and also, the prevailing opinion (even among people i respect and adore) is that "cholera" is essentially worthless in comparison to "solitude".

i'll grant the books are substantially different--"cholera" is all about love, the thousands of types of love, the past, time, how we change and who we become (as though we are all always living with the ghosts of who we were or who someone else was...you have to read this book!). and "solitude" is more perfectly executed as a masterful plot. but i suspect that as people with two children say you don't love one more, you love them both differently, that should be the feeling with these two novels.

it's just that "solitude" is like the peyton manning, and "cholera" is the eli manning.

but guess what? peyton won his superbowl, and now eli is going too!