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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
challenging
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I want to give this book both a higher and lower rating at the same time. On one hand I found the way in which the story was told masterful and I respect Marquez’s take on love as something both beautiful and ugly. That being said, I have some real difficulties with the blurred line between abuse and love and it is hard not to read several parts as a romanticization of abusive relationships. I don’t yet what part will stay with me more over time.
One of the most difficult books to finish that I've ever read
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Es genial la brutalidad con la que García Márquez narra ésta historia. Me gustaron los personajes, son muy orgánicos y el autor los lleva muy bien.
Breathtaking and perverse and delightful. I don’t know why exactly but I enjoyed this so much more than 100 Years of Solitude.
I have a certain anticipation when I know I'm beginning the work of a Nobel Prize winning author. I'm expecting to be challenged and expecting it to be a slog, but also for the hike to the summit to be a rewarding journey worthy of a healthy yarp from the mountaintop.
I'm having a hard time placing my feelings on Love in the Time of Cholera.
I appreciated much of what this novel has to offer, and I respect GGM for his craft and skill, but I did not enjoy this novel for the most part.
GGM writes beautifully. He writes about beautiful things beautifully, and he writes about ugly, cynical, grotesque, too-human things beautifully to the point I wanted to equate both dichotomies and rail on GGM for loving the ugly, 'immoral' parts of life. But he also writes soooo densely. I began to skim whole passages because they are so mired in details (and I don't think I missed out on much) but he would have passages of details with important plot points dotted within them. It was not something I enjoyed.
The immoral and the ugly, I certainly struggled with. But I have to think back to this excellent question about morality, "The universe is moral, but it shares YOUR view of morality?"
And with that in mind, I think I can digest Love in the Time of Cholera.
It's a love story but not of the romantic storybook kind. This is about love in all its guises and all its false and real forms.
I certainly felt for Florentino and even identified with him in the beginning while also understanding Fermina's capriciousness. But by the end of the novel I realized I did not like him or his obsessive love that I felt was not love but madness. (Love is madness, I believe is another quote well worn quote). Nor did I like Fermina or her husband or care for any of the characters in this novel until the very end. The last 20 pages or so are something else. It wraps up this novel with a neat, but ugly bow.
But I cannot overlook some of the 'guises' of love that GGM gives us. There are several instances of rape and death that are treated with an air of indifference and even celebration. That this is what love is. This is the ugly truth of love. It's a disease. These turned me off to GGM and finally when it came to Florentino's relationship with his ward....I could not overlook it.
It may not reflect GGM's personal views, and perhaps it is just realism, but that is not something I could forgive the novel for.
So I come to the end of this novel with not a yarp of triumph, but only with relief that it's over.
I'm having a hard time placing my feelings on Love in the Time of Cholera.
I appreciated much of what this novel has to offer, and I respect GGM for his craft and skill, but I did not enjoy this novel for the most part.
GGM writes beautifully. He writes about beautiful things beautifully, and he writes about ugly, cynical, grotesque, too-human things beautifully to the point I wanted to equate both dichotomies and rail on GGM for loving the ugly, 'immoral' parts of life. But he also writes soooo densely. I began to skim whole passages because they are so mired in details (and I don't think I missed out on much) but he would have passages of details with important plot points dotted within them. It was not something I enjoyed.
The immoral and the ugly, I certainly struggled with. But I have to think back to this excellent question about morality, "The universe is moral, but it shares YOUR view of morality?"
And with that in mind, I think I can digest Love in the Time of Cholera.
It's a love story but not of the romantic storybook kind. This is about love in all its guises and all its false and real forms.
I certainly felt for Florentino and even identified with him in the beginning while also understanding Fermina's capriciousness. But by the end of the novel I realized I did not like him or his obsessive love that I felt was not love but madness. (Love is madness, I believe is another quote well worn quote). Nor did I like Fermina or her husband or care for any of the characters in this novel until the very end. The last 20 pages or so are something else. It wraps up this novel with a neat, but ugly bow.
But I cannot overlook some of the 'guises' of love that GGM gives us. There are several instances of rape and death that are treated with an air of indifference and even celebration. That this is what love is. This is the ugly truth of love. It's a disease. These turned me off to GGM and finally when it came to Florentino's relationship with his ward....I could not overlook it.
It may not reflect GGM's personal views, and perhaps it is just realism, but that is not something I could forgive the novel for.
So I come to the end of this novel with not a yarp of triumph, but only with relief that it's over.
Beautifully written, pretty interesting story; but treats some instances of rape in the narrative with shocking casualness.
Sad I didn’t like this book more because I liked Marquez’s other book. It’s just a guy who has a lot of sex with a lot of women. It’s not really a love story.