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muffin350 's review for:
Love in the Time of Cholera
by Gabriel García Márquez
What really sticks with me about this novel, besides the density of Marquez' style (he reminds me of the way Kobo Abe writes about sand in Woman in the Dunes... extremely physical) is the development of the characters. The story follows two lovers through their entire lives, and tracks the changes in their personalities and the realities of their lives extremely convincingly.
Marquez writes individual characters as if they truly are individuals - sometimes I caught myself wondering "how can all of these people exist simultaneously in his mind?" I've never read anything like it on that count. Marquez seems to disappear as the narrator behind the force of his protagonists' depth. These characters grow deeper, grow older, their motivations change - and he is able (especially at the end of the novel when Fermina and Florentino are getting back together) to actually demonstrate the tension between two people who are informed by completely different motivations and histories.
A lot of people criticize this book based on how (un)sympathetic they are to the characters, but I would say that reading it that way is completely missing out on the genius of the work. Lame, practical, promiscuous, compromising, weak - whatever his characters are, they are probably the most realistic people I've ever read in fiction.
Marquez writes individual characters as if they truly are individuals - sometimes I caught myself wondering "how can all of these people exist simultaneously in his mind?" I've never read anything like it on that count. Marquez seems to disappear as the narrator behind the force of his protagonists' depth. These characters grow deeper, grow older, their motivations change - and he is able (especially at the end of the novel when Fermina and Florentino are getting back together) to actually demonstrate the tension between two people who are informed by completely different motivations and histories.
A lot of people criticize this book based on how (un)sympathetic they are to the characters, but I would say that reading it that way is completely missing out on the genius of the work. Lame, practical, promiscuous, compromising, weak - whatever his characters are, they are probably the most realistic people I've ever read in fiction.