Love in the Time of Cholera (Oprah's Book Club) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Love in the Time of Cholera (Oprah's Book Club)
Book Review: Exquisite
Summary: 5 Stars
Surely one of the most beautiful love stories ever written. The quality of the writing in this book makes you want to learn Spanish to read the original and find out if it was even better. Stupendous.Book Review: beautiful
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a beautifully written tale of love and longing, of destiny and enduring hope. The novel takes the reader on an epic journey, following the destinies of the 2 main protagonists, that diverge and then converge as the story unfolds. This novel has been written with such warmth and humour that the hopes and fears of the characters become your own. The true worth of this book lies in the passion with which it was obviously written and the sheer beauty of its prose. Book Review: A beautiful tribute to life, love and old age. Or is it?
Summary: 5 Stars
In this beautiful love story about two people over seventy Marquez explores a kind of love that may seem indecent in the eyes of some, but is in fact portrayed as the most beautiful and pure kind, "when they can expect nothing more from life". This book does not described a clich? about two young people falling in love and marrying despite the opposition of some antagonist or other, but is in fact a story after the story. The most important thing is not the winning of the maiden's heart but what happens after the maiden's heart has been won.
The author shows love as has rarely been portrayed in books before: the inevitable flaws in a marriage, the lurking infidelity, the squabbles over futilities, the pain of rejection and unrequited love, the perseverance of the heart. No perfection here, but human love with all its flaws, fears and misgivings.
Described in such detail as to bring characters to life, with passages that are hilarious as well as heartbreaking, this book is such a compelling read that you hardly notice the scarceness of dialogue and chapters. Marquez's style is very readable and comprehensive, full of rich descriptions through which you can not only see and hear what is happening in the story, but also feel, smell and taste it.
After you finish reading you may feel as if the heartwarming ending is nothing but the beginning, filling you with hope and wisdom, and may even look at love through different eyes.
However romantic this may seem, there is one catch that adds further depth to Marquez's work: the protagonist, the lovesick Florentino Ariza for whom the author creates a role of love victim, may be just the opposite. His duplicitous character is a source of constant discomfort to the reader. On of one hand we may appraise him for his perseverance and pity him for his need to be loved, on the other you are confronted with his perverse behavior: taking on an incredible amount of lovers whom he often lies to, including his 60 year younger relative placed under his guardianship by her family. Is he to be pitied, is he to sympathized with or is he to be loathed?
A note on Everyman's Classic edition: This edition contains an enthusiastic introduction by Nicholas Shakespeare, and although it's interesting to read, I recommend that you read this after you have finished the novel. The introduction gives away a large part of the story, and some of his comments are better understood once you have read the book.
Book Review: A Master storyteller at the height of his power
Summary: 3 Stars
"It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love."
So begins one of the greatest stories of love ever told. `Love in the Time of Cholera' is a wonderfully frail portrayal of love in all its forms. It is a story that proves that love can be nurtured and blossom, even in the barren lands of old age.
Frequently to be found gracing lists of the best books of the last fifty years `Love in the Time of Cholera' is one of the most renowned works by South America's pre-eminent author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It is a book with which many people fall in love. It tells the intertwined stories of half a century of unrequited love, set against the backdrop of a country on the verge of modernity.
When octogenarian Dr. Juvenal Urbino falls from a ladder while trying to rescue his pet parrot from a tree there is one man in the town who does not mourn his passing. His name is Florentino Ariz and for more than fifty years he has dedicated his life to waiting for this day to come. This day when he can once again profess his love for Fermina Daza, the woman who spurned him in the hazy days of their youth.
`Love in the Time of Cholera' chronicles all the different forms that love can take, from unrequited youthful obsession through soul-enhancing physical lust and platonic love to the undying flame of timeless love. But this is a love story with a difference, the subjects of the love are in the sunset of their lives, they are worn down, out of the habit of giving into such forgotten emotions. But while the last plague of Cholera sweeps the country side the aging couple sail up and down a river, together, at last, forever.
It is clear from page one that you are being serenaded by a writer at the very height of his story telling capabilities. The way in which he holds the characters so effortlessly in the air, dipping into their lives to extract an event or moment as if without a worry in the world. The structure is so natural, the shifts in point of view occur invisibly, as though you are not switching at all, for each characters story is about the same, almost personified, love.
Although beautifully and dextrously written you can see why some people don't like this. The prose is slow and can become bogged down in what seem like irrelevances. If you want a light, easy read then this is probably not the book for you. But if you want to read a book by an absolutely exceptional storyteller who knows his characters as though they were his oldest friends, then you are going to love this.
Book Review: 100 Years of Turpitude
Summary: 1 Stars
Casual misogyny, wooden characterisation, cliche - and that's the good bits. One for the charity bin.