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A review by danielkallin04
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
4.0
The first fifty pages of this book are perfect. The rest of the novel is brilliant too but Marquez does not ever recreate the brilliant experience of reading the last day of Juvenal Urbino's life, smelling the bitter almonds, reading his novels, feeling his old age pains. He is only a transitory character, if the protagonist of the novel is really a fifty-three-year unrequited love. It's a book about destructive urges - of boats which consume the forests they run through until there is no more forest - of new loves which can only stem the invasive thoughts about old loves for just a moment.
Unlike 100 Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera focuses on only a few people, and it feels more homely and intimate in its storytelling. Even if much of the novel is just Florentino Ariza's numerous sexual exploits, the writing is so beautiful as to render the content of the sentences to be only half as important as the splendor of the words themselves.
Cholera and love may be much the same disease, but Marquez's writing makes the pain of the latter seem just about bearable for the brief moments of pleasure and solace it can eventually bring.
Unlike 100 Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera focuses on only a few people, and it feels more homely and intimate in its storytelling. Even if much of the novel is just Florentino Ariza's numerous sexual exploits, the writing is so beautiful as to render the content of the sentences to be only half as important as the splendor of the words themselves.
Cholera and love may be much the same disease, but Marquez's writing makes the pain of the latter seem just about bearable for the brief moments of pleasure and solace it can eventually bring.