The unique and demanding narrative style of Pedro Paramo

Juan Rulfo's novel Pedro Paramo (1955) is considered one of the great modern (i.e., post-1900) works from Mexico, ranked alongside the works of Carlos Fuentes. Time hasn't exactly been kind for Pedro Paramo, however, as reading it now (for the first time) it seems almost quaint in its eagerness to defy narrative convention. This short novel - about 125 pp. - consists of many brief sections and a constantly changing point of view: sometimes first persona narration from the protagonist, sometimes 3rd person concerning various scenes over the past two generations in the small Mexican town of Colma (fictional?). In addition, some of the scenes seem to be "live," some are visions or dreams; some of the characters are "live," others are ghosts and revenants. To say this places a heavy demand on the reader is to put it mildly; the jacket blurb calls it a work of "surrealism," but I think that simplifies the case. As with its near contemporary The Master and Marguerita (USSR), this novel mixes visionary writing and imagery w/ realism - delving into the complex history of the town, blood rivalries, killings. It predates the Magic Realism that dominated Latin American literature from the 60s onward, but there is a little foreshadowing of this genre as well, with the tales of the Paramo family gobbling up land and then crashing into ruin and oblivion hinting at the tales of the Buendia family still to come (Garcia Marquez). Very roughly, the story line involves a man urged by his mother on her deathbed to visit her home town for the first time to meet the eponymous Paramo, who she tells him is his father. The man arrives at the town only to learn that PP has died some years back; the town is almost deserted, but he finds a woman - who turns out to be his aunt - willing to give him housing for the night. The woman - and just about everyone else he meets - turns out to be a ghost. In some strange manner the people (ghosts) in teh village were aware that this young man was coming to pay a visit. In a series of dream-visions he learns of various events in the history of the Paramo family, some involving his alleged father, Pedro, others involving Miguel, whom I think is his grandfather? Not sure. He also learns more about his mother and her difficult marriage to PP. This novel demands at least one re-reading if one is to fully comprehend the narrative - and that's probably OK for such a short novel. In a way, it reads more like a prose poem that traditional narrative fiction, so perhaps it's best to approach it as such: a collage of images, moods, and viewpoints.