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Jan 07, 2008

Liz rated it:

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21 comments like (57 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Samantha rated it:

I previously read "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and I liked it a lot, and I was intruiged by the title "Love in the Time of Cholera" so I thought I'd read it.

Within the first few pages I had the inkling I didn't like it, but sometimes it takes books a little while to get warmed up. Plus, I don't like starting a book and not finishing it, because I know I'll never go back to a book I stopped reading because I didn't like it, and if I stop reading it, I'll never k More...

20 comments like (55 people liked it)

May 09, 2009

April rated it:

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17 comments like (60 people liked it)

Dec 25, 2010

Syd rated it:

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2 comments like (17 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Samilja rated it:

I'm a GGM fan and as such, I am utterly incapable of approaching one of his books with objectivity. One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of my all time favorites and I did not expect to enjoy Love in the Time of Cholera as much as that book - probably because of all the hype it's received on it's 20th anniversary and as a result of Oprah lauding it. Well, color me stupefied, I loved it even more than 100 Years.

Yes, this is a love story of sorts - it spans more than 5 decades and the More...

3 comments like (37 people liked it)

Nov 05, 2011

Lou rated it:

Lush, sensual and poetic in its prose, Marquez spins a vivid tale about a man's love for a woman that waits fifty years to come to fruition. Beneath the imagery and romance, however, lies Marquez's sharp observations on the nature of relationships, marriage and old age all told with Marquez's brand of humor, wisdom and unflinching veracity.his book is not about the relationship of Fermina and Florentino. The book is about love in all of its forms, and the characters in the book exist as vehicle More...

12 comments like (17 people liked it)

Dec 06, 2007

Tippi rated it:

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1 comment like (13 people liked it)

May 14, 2008

Emily rated it:

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3 comments like (13 people liked it)

Feb 16, 2008

Becca rated it:

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4 comments like (14 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Siobhan rated it:

I learned that I will never be a great writer, because sometimes, there are people like Marquez, who manage to write such an amazing piece of art without making it ponderous, pretentious, or difficult.

It's not really about the plot, is it? A guy is in love with a girl, and waits for her for 50-odd years, while conducting his own affairs.

Here's the thing, though. The way the story is told is segue-free, almost conversational, but with such sumptuous detail and descri More...

1 comment like (24 people liked it)

Dec 22, 2007

Patrick rated it:

I'm not going to lie; I read this book (and, before it, 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being') because they were the books referenced in the movie version of 'High Fidelity' that Rob used to point out that he wasn't dumb, because he understood them (they're about girls, right?).

And now that I too can claim to be smart, because I've read these books, I can say that he's pretty much right. They are about girls, when you get right down to it. Yes, of course, there is an embarrassingly gre More...

6 comments like (15 people liked it)

Jul 06, 2011

umberto rated it:

I don't know Spanish, therefore, I need to be content with an English version translated by Edith Grossman. I think this novel is one of the best love stories I have read. At times we may find it a bit tedious in reading some parts due to the author's unique 'stream of consciousness' style of narration but we can't help admiring the hero's unending love since he can keep waiting till their time comes, no matter how long he has to wait or how aging they are. In other words, they love each other s More...

21 comments like (9 people liked it)

Oct 10, 2011

سارة rated it:

بالرغم من النحس المبالغ فيه المصاحب لمحاولاتي لإنهاء الرواية ، إلا إنها رااااااااااائعة ومذهلة ، عمري في حياتي ما اتسرقت في الحكاية قد ما اتسرقت في الرواية دي ، دخل بيا من حدوتة لحدوتة ، أحداث قديمة في أحداث جديدة ، رغم إن فيرمينا داثا هي في رأيي بطلة الرواية إلا إنه ما حكاش عنها قد ما حكى عن عشيقها المجنون فعلياً بيها ، حبيت أوي الدكتور أوربينو ، وعجبتني جداً فيرمينا ، ماحبيتش فليورينتو آريثا إلا لما فيرمينيا بدأت تتقبله في آخر الرواية
مشكلته مش انه حبها لدرجة الجنون ، مشكلته ان حياته كانت More...

11 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jul 01, 2008

Jennie rated it:

GGM is an amazing writer, his prose is fluid and draws you in. I wish my Spanish was still good enough to read this in the original, rather than the translation.

Unlike many of the people that disliked the book, I had no problems with Florentino sleeping around. His promiscuity was no issue for me, I mean, people do this all the time. I struck me as an honest dipction of how some people live. And I even get that he could never really kill his love for Fermina. My personal opinion is More...

5 comments like (14 people liked it)

Apr 30, 2008

Moody rated it:

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0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Oct 31, 2007

Ryan rated it:

i have to say something about this book: i tried reading this thing three times, and the farthest i got was about halfway through. why? it pissed me off beyond belief. this is romance at its most frustrating. why do all these epic, sweeping love stories involve loving someone from afar? haven't we moved beyond that petrarchan form of idealized love? hasn't beatrice left the building? why is waiting and self-sacrificing the ultimate testament to passion?

love is not a one-sided emotio More...

8 comments like (14 people liked it)

Aug 10, 2007

Alice rated it:

I had mixed feelings about this book. The theme of love manifesting itself in physical ways, like a disease akin to cholera, was interesting, and I liked the style with which the story was narrated. The unfolding of the plot was nicely done, engagingly written. And I really liked the sense of passage of time that the book imbued with ease. The themes of death, aging, etc. -- those were handled with great expertise by Marquez.

But the main characters, Dr. Urbino, Fermina Daza, and More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 23, 2008

Jamie rated it:

This is probably the first romantic novel I've read written by a male author. I'm used to romantic novels from the feminine perspective: about the females' inner struggles between two men, or her inner dichotomy between living up to her social obligations and liberating her inner soul. In this novel, however, the most developed characters are the males, and the two main male characters have struggles of how to stay honorable: 1. one is a distinguished doctor who lives his life outwardly with More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Mar 01, 2008

Rhona rated it:

I did not enjoy this at all. This is a book about a weak man excessively obsessed with a married woman for over 50 years. He pines his time away with 622 sexual encounters that he records and we have to read through. The book is SLOW! He is sickly obsessed. He's a pervert, possibly a pedophile. He finally is reunited with his true love when she is in her 80's and then he describes their bodies and love life. Don't recommend this to anyone! This is not what true love is...it is a book about obs More...

0 comments like (12 people liked it)

Oct 18, 2008

Logan rated it:

In short, I loved this book. While primarily about love and all of the near infinite permutations that can be called love, this book is also a love story to an era that has since disappeared. A nostalgic look at a Colombia of fairy tales that carries with it not a little bit of wistfulness. A friend of mine said that when she reads Garcia Marquez she "get(s) transported to the stories my grandfather used to tell me growing up, the same streets, the same adobe homes, the same richness, sa More...

5 comments like (7 people liked it)

Sep 04, 2008

Elizabeth rated it:

This book contains the most single lines in one work that I wish to lift from their pages and paste around my house so that I may bask in their glory on a daily basis.

Reading other reviews of this text always puzzles me. No, I don't need everyone to love what I love to the extent that I love it, but it just seems that those who detest it have really suffered a failure at literacy. With the risk of further offense, I will state that I believe the culprit is that cute little "Opra More...

2 comments like (12 people liked it)

Mar 15, 2008

Tempest rated it:

Love in the Time of Cholera is not a simple love story. To read it as such would be a disservice to the book's exploration of love as an infinitely complex emotion; as an emotion that can both contradict and embrace itself within the same heartbeat. Without favoring any expression, Gabriel García Márquez speaks of long marriages, happy in their stability and co-dependency. He speaks of promiscuity, and how "one can be in love with several people at the same time, feel the same sorrow with e More...

2 comments like (9 people liked it)

Mar 24, 2008

Rika rated it:

Buku ini nyeritain kisah cinta yang gak kesampaian antara Forentino Ariza dengan Fermina Daza -cinta yang tertunda selama 51 tahun, 9 bulan dan 4 hari- karena pada akhirnya Fermina Daza memutuskan untuk menikah dengan Dr. Juvenal Urbino. Satu bab pertama, emang touching apalagi pas Dr. Juvenal Urbino-nya jatoh dari pohon karena berusaha nangkap burung parrot-nya yang lepas dan akhirnya meninggal. "Only God knows how much I loved you". Hiks..

Tapi begitu flashback ke masa mud More...

78 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 17, 2008

Rodrigo rated it:

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0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 18, 2010

Mohamed rated it:

بدايةً ؛ الرواية عظيمة ، شخصياً أعتقد ذلك
و لكن ، قد أسمح لنفسى بخط بعض الملاحظات و التى قد لا تتعلق بالرواية
فى حد ذاتها - بشكلٍ موضوعى - بقدر ما تتعلق باستقبالى الشخصى - بشكل ذاتى - و حالتى النفسية أثناء قراءة الرواية ، و أنا أظن أننى أفعل ذلك بشكلٍ واعٍ
أولاً / الرواية قائمة على ثلاث شخصيات أساسية هم على حسب أهميتهم و حجمهم فى الرواية يمكن ترتيبهم كالآتى : 1- فيرمينا داثا ، 2- فلورنتينو إريثا ، 3- الدكتور خوفينال أوربينو
لذا فالرواية من ذلك النوع المتمركز حول أبطال واضحين More...

9 comments like (8 people liked it)

Aug 07, 2011

Aliaa rated it:

رواية من اروع ما قرأت حتى الآن
اسلوب ماركيز رائع فى السرد والحبكة الدرامية
استطاع ماركيز ان يشدنى من اول وهلة واتشوق لمعرفة النهاية
رسم ماركيز الشخصيات بأسلوب بليغ دون اى يجعل القارئ يشعر بالملل من كثرة عدد الشخصيات الواردة .
من اكثر العبارات التى اعجبتنى ف الرواية :

المرء يتعلم اللغات حين يريد ان يبيع اما عندما يريد الشراء فالجميع يفهمونه كيفما كان -
"-البشر لا يولدون دوماً يوم تلدهم أمهاتهم ,وانما تجبرهم الحياة على ولادة انفسهم بأنفسهم ثانية ولمرات عديدة" More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 11, 2010

Tasneem rated it:

من أعظم ما قرأت على الإطلاق..

أول ما قرأت للعظيميـن "ماركيز/علماني" و قدا أبهرتني اللغة و الوصف و السرد و حبك التفاصيل, و أتذكر أني شهقت انتشاءً و توقفت عن القراءة لثلاث مرات في الرواية, الأولى حين قال خوفينال أوربينو قوله الشهير : دعيني أنام هنـا, نعم كان هناك صابون.

و لن أذكر الثانية و لا الثالثة رفقا بمن لم يقرأ الرواية.

فقط.. لزم التنويه أني ربما كنتُ الوحيدة التي ارتأت في فيرمينا داثا قوة و حسم و نُبل.. لأنها حين اكتشفت أن فلورنيتو أريثا هو ليس More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Sep 21, 2009

Meghan rated it:

Reading this book is like taking a riverboat cruise down the Magdalena River; it is slow, often plodding, sometimes sluggish, but always was my breath taken by the beauty of this world. In this splendid novel is not the epic romance one normally runs across in an age where love is a dime a dozen, but rather, you are swept up in an ageless love story that spans a lifetime--something that is solid and real, ugly yet true.

Reading the dust jacket, I was led to believe this was a story ab More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

May 18, 2010

Evan rated it:

So is it a spoiler to reveal something that happens around about page 50, since the short description on the back basically reveals it? By now most everyone knows this book is about a long-festering love, and I've reached the point in the book where that old lover has reemerged from the shadows of time and memory and space. This revelation hardly seems original for literature or for film. In film, Marquez is a bit of a movie nut, he established a film society and was a movie critic. The notion o More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 28, 2008

Lavinia rated it:

A book that is not easy to talk about, being one of the best ever written, i.m.h.o.

***
cum sa vorbesti despre o carte buna fara a cadea in patetic si fara sa repeti tot ce au spus altii inaintea ta, iluzionindu-te ca poate ai sa gasesti totusi un mic amanunt care a scapat celorlalti? dincolo de banalitatea temei, eternul triunghi conjugal [florentino ariza-fermina daza-juvenal urbino], dincolo de cei 50 de ani de asteptare, de intimplari ciudate, ba de la periferia orasului, ba More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)