I just started reading "100 Years Of Solitude" (just started, first time, no spoilers!). On the 8th page is a bit of dialogue in which a speaker speaks these two phrases:
"Incredible things are happening in the world"
and
"Right across the river there are all kinds of magical instruments while we keep on living like donkeys."
As soon as I read them, bells went off in my head. Those are lyrics! Who...? Stereolab! Yay! One on my favorite Stereolab songs!
"Peng! 33"
Curiosity was far greater than our fear
It felt so simple and so prodigious at the same timeIncredible things are happening in the world
Magical things are happening in this worldAcross the river there are all kinds of magical instruments
While really we keep on living like monkeysIncredible things are happening in the world
Magical things are happening in this world
I'll go ahead and assume the first two lines are quotes from something, too - though maybe not from the same book ? The song title, the album title ("Peng!") and the cover are from an unrelated comic strip.
In this song, it sounds like they've swapped "monkeys" for "donkeys", but that's OK. Intrigued, I did a tiny bit of Googling to see if they were just fans of this one book, or if it's just quoting, or if there's a some deeper link between the two, etc., and I found this a blog thread where people listed all the literary and artistic references in Stereolab's work: List The Direct References of Stereolab. There are tons. Wow.
My kind of geeks!
Hooray! It is such a great book. Enjoy. “Curiosity was far greater than our fear” is (or could be) a reference to a couple of pages later on when the Gypsies return to Macondo.