Active Reading for Chapters 12-13

The magical realism in these chapters begins with how the Turkish people changed the pattern of the rains, accelerated the cycles of harvests and moved the river from where it had always been and put it with its white stones and icy currents on the other side of the town, behind the cemetery. This is magical realism because, even though these occurred for farming or because of farming, the Turkish people couldn't have moved the river so far away. I think it is magical realism because it is an everyday thing that is overly exaggerated. Another occurrence of magical realism is when Remedios the Beauty kills four men just by being around them. Her scent is very attractive to men. So much so that a stranger asked her to marry him. When she levitates with sheets and dissapears forever, that is also magical realism. When Ursula speaks to JAB, from his grave, this is an apostrophe and also magical realism. He says that CAB is going to die soon. This is foreshadowing. It was also magical realism occurs when Ursula can sense where and when people have been and about their characters when she is blind. When CAB was crying in Ursula's womb, that is magical realism. Aureliano Segunda almost dies from a very long eating contest with "The Elephant", who is a woman. Also, there are voices coming from the garden.
After the Muslims come and the war is lost (to the Conservatives), the government is overcontrolling and militaristic. (This is like the Taliban in Afghanistan.) For example, Colonel Magnifico Visbal's son is slaughtered after he accidentally spills a drink on a soldier. The Colonel's head is also chopped off. This is a hyperbole of the military control after a war or revolution in a country.
16 of CAB's sons are hunted down and one is never seen again.
When Ursula becomes blind, she teaches herself to become more observant and relient on her other senses. She is very persistent and diligent. It is very characteristic of everyone not to find out that she is blind. I wonder if they ever find out that she's blind. This is another example of solitude because she is separated from everyone by her lack of vision. She finds out that CAB is uncapable of loving. Amaranta is not really bitter, but actually tender. She just has an internal conflict between loving and being scared of being broken-hearted. It is very ironic how Rebeca (with unknown parents) is the only one with courage, which is the only thing that Ursula wanted in her children.
"idiots of the family live so long (235)".This is actually not true. Even though the Arcadios are logical, they are idiots and so are the others, except for Pilar Ternera and Ursula, who are actually wise.
"That's all we need...a Pope!" Even though this is a sarcastic statement, I wonder what the people of Macondo would do with an organized government. Would they be more challenging of authority or be submissive to authority as they are to the progress of life? Except for Ursula, they are not existentialist.