Search - Love in the Time of Cholera

This is not a page turner but rather a work of art that must be analyzed and dissected slowly in order to benefit fully from its contents. Marquez must be read on several different levels in order to fully appreciate what it is that he is trying to say. The whole work is an allegory of love in all of its various forms and fashions. Marquez decides to build the various forms and shapes of love around Florentino Ariza and his "crowned goddess" Fermina Daza during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Not only does Marquez weave the two lives of these characters marvelously throughout the book's 50 or so year time frame in order to critically analyze love or the appearance thereof, but he takes us back to a time and place where social norms prohibited various expressions of the types of love that he explores. The story is not just about love, but life in general and the inevitable aging process that all must go through, and about believing in something so strongly that you will spend your whole life attempting to attain it no matter the cost.

Tough book to read and I wasn't entirely happy with the ending. But, I have to admit it was a very interesting and different type of book.

This novel, again set in an unnamed country (somewhat esoteric until mention of the liberator: Simon Bolivar), it tells of the love between Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza. It begins as youthful passion cut short when Fermina opts out to marry a rich, elite doctor. None the less, Florentino retains his love through an astounding 51 years 9 months and 4 days. (The author has a penchant for intricate time periods.) He is a paradox, however, as during this time he engages in 662 illicit affairs; but who’s counting. At the death of the doctor—the result of a ridiculous accident—he declares his love again only to be again rebuffed. Flashback to the intricate details of the doctor’s courtship and early married life mingled with Florentino’s rise to fortune and his profligate life. As in “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” the author, through the medium of the doctor, wells on disease caused by superstition and the local lack of sanitation. Also, he impresses the reader with knowledge of literature, opera, music, et al. He uses some interesting simile and metaphor. More then once our cast drink “coffee as thick as crude oil.” (Starbuck’s? Or maybe Seattle Best?) His narrative ranges from eloquent to unnecessarily crude recounting how Fermina uses her sense of smell to locate her missing child, or Florentino’s gas attack during his latter courtship of Fermina. Fermina, when after her husband’s death, is disposing of household goods she muses “Someone should invent something to do with thing that you cannot use anymore but that you still cannot throw out.” How about a “garage sale?” This worked so well for Irma Bombeck that she went out and purchased more goods just to keep the sale going. (“The Grass Is Always Greener Under the Septic Tank”) Some absurdities aside, this book is a well-written and interesting portrayal of life across social boundaries.

I usually really like this author and was excited to read it but this story really dragged too much for my liking.

Beautiful, beautiful, and yet again beautiful! This story had me entranced!

Moved a little slow, but a great story and great characters.