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Love in the Time of Cholera (Vintage International)
: Fledgling authors would do well to sit down with some Marquez...and this book would be a good start. The imagery put forth in this book brought sighs of amazement from my soul and tears to my eyes. "Love in the Time of Cholera" cements his reputation as a master of poetic fiction
In a coastal Colombian city, between the XIX and the XX century, in a time when the cholera and the internal wars were making Colombia bleed in a way not too different from today's drugs wars and guerrilla, the literature Nobel-prize winner Garcia Marquez sets up a brilliant story. The simplistic person would deem the novel simply as a love story, and it is so. But also it is much more. Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza live through over fifty years of separation, during which the core of the story takes place. All the time, Florentino (a dramatic man who writes poems and is permantently dressed up in funeral-looking dark clothes with disregard for the heat of the Caribbean sun) remains faithful to the juvenile love for Fermina he feels within, while he lives a life full of the craziest and funniest love and flirting anecdotes. Fermina... well, that's part of the story, and I won't spoil it, but I can tell you that she gives Florentino the hardest of times during those fifty years, testing him, sometimes knowingly, sometimes without even suspecting it. At all times, with the coming and going of what I'd like to call 'secondary' characters, such as Dr. Juvenal Urbino, Uncle Leon XII, or Leona Cassiani, there is a big character that is always present, which is the environment surrounding Florentino and Fermina. There are countless and very enjoyable moments throughout the book, when the environment follows the lead of Florentino's mood, raining, for example, if he feels blue. The subtlety with which Garcia Marquez achieves this is nothing short of an act of genius. The novel as a whole is an incredibly enjoyable piece of literature, one of those which I'm convinced will stand the test of the ages to come. Not in vain is it considered one of the greatest books of the 20th century. And believe me: if you don't laugh very much while reading this book, you will have a very hard time finding ANYTHING to make you laugh. One final comment: if you're able to read in Spanish, grab the copy of the book in Spanish. You will enjoy it far more. If not, don't worry: you'll just regret that you don't know the language of Cervantes, so you can laugh harder while reading Garcia Marquez. :)
The story of passionate love without limits of time, distance or age. Framed by the Magdalena River, it depicts the patient although not celibate wait, of Florentino Ariza, for his beloved woman, Fermina Daza had married another man, His wait as long and crooked as the river, prepares his reappearance in this old woman/young heart life. We do not care how long because the intensity and beauty of their love make minutes, or hours or days, or years, no matter which, sufficient. The translation is superb
 Well, when I began this book I was a highschool freshman, and I found it extremely difficult. It's not because I read "young adult" books, that's not the case. I've read "Gone with the Wind", "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", "Rebecca", "Great Expecations", and the list goes on. I just found it kind of tasteless, but then again, I might not have given it enough time. Try it if you're ready for a difficult read!
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera is an epic love story, notable as much for its romanticism as for its unflinching gaze towards the vagaries of love's many faces. For those who scoff at or discard the literary love story, paradoxically, this is the book for you. Set in the seductive Caribbean during the mid-nineteenth century, Marquez's novel explores love in all its manifestations, from the vertigo of idolatry to the dirty dishes of marriage, and his portraits resonate exquisitely for anyone who has nursed this human inkling. Marquez never cheapens love nor falsifies it; on the contrary, he sees love's glory, or lack thereof, with an unerring eye. His portrait of marriage between his two protagonists, Dr. Juvenal Urbino and Fermina Daza, includes such observations such as "The problem with marriage is that it ends every night after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast." Interestingly, Marquez reveals an astute viewpoint towards the female predicament in marriage: Fermina Daza realizes she is nothing more to her husband than "a deluxe servant;" she feels she is trapped in his "holy service." Nor is Marquez oblivious to the bland atrocities committed by a husband: Dr. Juvenal Urbino proclaims meals prepared "without love;" he never deigns to pick anything up, turn out a light, or close a door. Marquez is a man who observes without bias the diurnal stalemate of a marriage lived daily. He concludes that "nothing in this world was more difficult than love."
Marquez does not limit himself to the domestic pitfalls of marriage. Florentino Ariza, another man who figures prominently in this incognito Caribbean city, has loved Fermina Daza inexorably for fifty-three years, seven months, and eleven days. His love is fervent and never falters. Yet, before one chalks his devotion to an unlikely romanticism, the love Florentino Ariza fosters towards Fermina Daza is not idealized. Notwithstanding the hundreds of women he frenetically possesses during his admirable wait for Fermina Daza's widowhood, he is hardly a hero of unblemished character. At a very advanced age, he exploits his position as guardian of a 14-year old girl for physical love. Ultimately, when Florentino Ariza is granted the holy audience of Fermina Daza, he abandons the girl, who commits suicide. Towards the novel's conclusion, Florentino Ariza is very old, a victim of festering bed sores and unfettered constipation. Marquez's omniscient eye (or nose) describes the stench of the two elderly lovers as a "henhouse." Despite, or perhaps because of, these prosaic details, the reader does not doubt the authenticity of the feelings presented. Love, in Marquez's lush, grand novel, is made truer because of, not despite, its human frailties
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