Love in the Time of Cholera (edit title)

• Rated 2 stars

“Story about a man who "carries a torch" for a woman for over 70 years. Very few chapters and I had difficulty keeping focused in the story (maybe it was because of the translation and lack of chapters). Will be interested in seeing the movie to understand it better. ”

• Rated 2 stars

“I didn't really read this book very thoroughly. My friend recommended it, but I found it to be a slow read.”

• Rated 5 stars

“My favorite book of all time. The story of unrequited love. ”

• Rated 0 stars

“I think I share a love/hate relationship with this one. The book starts off describing the daily routine of an elderly Dr. Urbino and Fermina on the day leading to his death. I can’t describe how slow this section of the book was. The first 80-100 pages rambled on endlessly until I was bored to tears.

Once Dr. Urbino passes away and the flashback starts, things get a bit more interesting. The teenage love story between Fermina and Florentino is insipid, but I loved the chronicle of their lives after they move on from the relationship.

Florentino is an eternal romantic in love with the ideal love (Fermina). In order to forget Fermina he has numerous affairs with women and seems to love all of them without committing himself solely to any one of them. He makes an unusual but rather endearing Casanova until I came to a rather unsavory love affair towards the end of the novel where he seduces a 13-year old girl who is his ward.

Consider the following description of the seduction:

"She was still a child…with braces on her teeth and the scrapes of elementary school on her knees…, and he cultivated her with a slow year of Saturdays at the circus, sundays in the park with ice cream, childish late afternoons, and he won her confidence, he won her affection, he led her by the hand, with the gentle astuteness of a grandfather, toward his secret slaughterhouse."

Stomach-churning? no? how about the fact that at this point in the story Florentino is about 60 odd years old!

Even more harsh is his abandonment of her, and her eventual suicide.

This section was really difficult and disturbing reading for me. I just could not get past the fact that no matter what the cultural background, romantic nature, the historical time period, fear of aging, etc., Florentino is a child molester. Even more disturbing was the fact that he pays absolutely no price for his heartless behavior.

Apart from this incident, I did not have any issues with the book. I think I did not have the best translation because I did not really see any signs of magical realism that Marquez is famous for. But, then this could have been lost in translation, I suppose? Some aspects of this book do not look like they lend well to translation.

However, I have to grant that Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a master writer. I mean anyone who is able to craft a story in which the protagonist beds 622 different women over the course of his life and make it seem like something so much more than simply sex really can write!”

• Rated 5 stars

“a love like no other...”

• Rated 1 stars

“I think I'm mostly disappointed because One Hundred Years of Solitude was so, so good, and this was lackluster. ”

• Rated 3 stars

“This book was a bit too sexy for me; nonetheless, I do like Marquez and am looking forward to reading 100 years of solitude.”

• Rated 0 stars

“Definitely a book worth reading. Some might say it's the greatest love story ever written. I'm not sure I agree with that. I guess I lost my patience at times for what these characters went through for love! But I do think it is beautifully written. Marquez has quite a way with language (and so does his translator). If you don't mind stream-of-conscious writing then you'll like this book.”

• Rated 0 stars

“A wonderful story of a young man who carries a candle for more than 50 years for the woman he loves. It has been made into a great movie, as well.”

• Rated 0 stars

“A story of love that is almost close to unbelievable. But characters are portrayed as humans who have both their strengths and weaknesses. ”