The General in His Labyrinth was relatively poorly received by the general public in the United States , despite the praise of critics . Critic Ilan Stavans , who himself praised the book as " one of the writer 's most sophisticated and accomplished " , attribute this to the novel 's time period and to its profusion of historical information , neither of which proved attractive to English @-@ speaking readers . Isabel Alvarez Borland note that , like Stavans , " critics in the United States have largely celebrated García Márquez 's portrait of this national hero and considered it a tour de force " ; but she also observe that in Latin America the book received more mixed reviews , ranging from " outrage to unqualified praise " .