Love in the Time of Cholera
Ratings311
Average rating3.8
¿Y hasta cuándo cree usted que podemos seguir en este ir y venir del carajo?
Giving this one a VERY generous rating of two stars.
There were parts of this book that I genuinely liked: the idea of love conquering all, staying in love your whole life, and looking at life and marriage in an — overall — realistic way. I liked the characters of Fermina Daza and Dr. Juvenal Urbino, for the most part.
However, I'm fairly convinced that the author just needed an outlet for his disturbing sexual fantasies. And thus, the parade of Florentino's conquests, in so much detail that I wanted to throw down the book and yell WE GET IT ALREADY, HE LIKED WOMEN AND DIDN'T MIND USING AND ABUSING THEM. Marquez played WAY too fast and loose with the words “love,” “making love,” etc. He never admits that there are several instances of flat-out rape in this book; he ties it all up into a pretty little package of women forever looking for the men who raped them because they were so in love with their attackers.
Bullshit. This book was so full of bullshit.
But I'm the sucker that kept reading, waiting for the ultimate conclusion that we're concerned with from page 1: does Florentino finally get to be with the “one that got away”? (Hint: I stopped caring after he tells the OUTRAGEOUS lie that he's still a virgin at age 76, after the back of the book says that he partook in SIX HUNDRED TWENTY TWO AFFAIRS.)
But the real reason this book doesn't deserve any of the stars that I've given it is because, almost 300 pages in, when you're already invested enough to just want to finish the damn thing, this was when Marquez wrote that Florentino was regularly seducing a thirteen-year-old, a girl whom he, BY THE WAY, had been entrusted to be her legal guardian.
By the end I was convinced that it wasn't so much a good love story as a creepy story of a stalker who just COULDN'T. LET. GO.
There was just so much wrong with this book that even the parts I liked couldn't make up for it.
I found no love in this book, save maybe at the very end. None of the characters, though well developed, are likable! I do not recommend this one.
I tried reading this book several years ago, but didn't get very far at all. The book seems to plod along about as slowly as the years go by in the story.
A man wastes his life, killing time by sleeping with any woman he can get his hands on, while waiting for the husband of the woman he's infatuated with to die. It sounds rather bleak but that's truly what the book is about. What he feels for her is more infatuation than anything else: let alone love. He tells her he's remained a virgin for her, but that couldn't be further from the truth, and she knows it. Maybe it's the characters, specifically Florentino, that I dislike, more than the book. I can't imagine someone wasting 53 years, 7 months, and 11 days obsessed with someone who was able to move on years before.
The other thing that made this book difficult to read was the style of writing. I know it's an old classic, and most old classics tend to be written that way, but it didn't help this book's case any, in my opinion. Someone said you either love this book or you hate it. I'm glad I got through it this time reading it. I did get more out of it this time than my last attempt, but I think I could've lived a happy enough life without it. Maybe I'm missing something?
I was very disappointed with this book. I absolutely loved “100 Years of Solitude” and so maybe expected a little too much from it. I didn't feel a connection to any of the characters. Perhaps it requires a second reading in a year or two.
So I feel like I'm committing literary sacrilege, but the stars say it all...liked it, didn't love it, and feel like I was supposed to. At times, Marquez did totally blow me away. But other times, I felt this sneaking suspicion that something had been lost in translation. Definitely glad I read it, though, and feel like I should give it a re-read at some point to reevaluate.
Well... He could have easily cut 1/3 of the book... I read the last parts with “Why doesn't this ever end...” in my head. But I loved the ending :-D Unexpected, lovely, made me happy :-)
I suppose they'll do the trip a couple of times and then come home, marry and live happily ever after. Or don't marry.
As I was making my way through this book, I decided to remove all of this author's books from my “To Be Read” shelf. I had a really difficult time reading this book. Perhaps I'm just dim-witted enough to not want to work that hard at getting through a book. Hasta Luego.
Una stupenda storia d'amore, assolutamente non scontata e sicuramente senza tempo raccontata da uno dei miei scrittori preferiti, cosa chiedere di più?