Sunday, November 7, 2010

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Book Review

Love in the Time of CholeraLove in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Florentino Ariza fell in love with Fermina Daza as  a young boy. When she marries another man, he dedicates his life to one day winning her back. Fifty years later, the opportunity arises, and Florentino will profess his love for her again.

I really thought I would like this book. I held out hope up until the end that I would find some redeeming quality about it. It's a "modern classic", and was picked for Oprah's book club - it HAD to be good, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong. This may actually qualify as the worst book I've ever read. Perhaps that is a harsh statement, but I can usually find SOMETHING in every book that I enjoy, even if its not my favorite.

The writing style is too verbose and makes for a difficult read. Despite that, I felt that important information, such as a well-defined setting, was lacking. It took me a while to figure out the time-period and location of the story. (Turn of the century, Carribbean.)

The main characters in the story were not at all likable. Fermina is cold and distant, and not worthy of the love that Florentino holds for her. She is a bitter woman who seemingly treated her husband with hostility rather than love. Florentino is worse. Though the author wants you to see him as a romantic and a poet, he comes across as a desperate man with no morals - his way of proving his ever-lasting love for this woman is to spend half a century sleeping around with other women, one of whom was a 14 year old girl. He's nothing short of a pedophile. The only thing I enjoyed about this book was finally finishing it.





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1 comment:

  1. I had read better books than this one , it is mostly hype which makes this book popular. Its same old story of poor guy , rich gal just like old Hindi movies, Nothing significant will happen throughout book that you can not predict earlier. As for book quality, it is good enough to read, you wont need dictionary by your side to read this translation.

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