Magical realism, a terrifyingly accurate dissection of the loyalty the monomaniacal dictator inspires, a similar scalpel-sharp probing of love. I have read this book maybe ten times and I always cry at the desperately sad conclusion.
The accuracy of that conclusion- that messy lives and messy emotions continue to be messy and despairing without satisfying denouements- is perhaps the saddest thing about it.
I find the lyrical prose both beautiful and poignant, the repeated phrases and cadences reminiscent of a preacher's repertoire. This, for example, is a key passage and will stand for the rest:
"[Love] means I review my future and my past in the light of this feeling. It is as though I wrote in a foreign language that I am suddenly able to read..."