From the bookshelf of Latin American Literature and Magical Realism…

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez, Edith Grossman (Translator)

Finish date: August 12, 2009

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Apr 28, 2008

Chrissie rated it:

(review of isbn 014103372X)

bookshelves: caribbean, fiction

Read in April, 2008

Everyone here at GoodReads enjoys reading, but we all like different things. I can only speak for myself. I had read One Hundred Years of Solitude more than 10 years ago and I did not like it. The language, the words chosen were a stumbling block for me. I was intrigued when I read the beginning of Love in the Time of Cholera. I was drawn to give this author another try. I am very, very glad I did. With this book too literary style. The exact same thing bothered me. Sometimes it was too wordy, t...more Everyone here at GoodReads enjoys reading, but we all like different things. I can only speak for myself. I had read One Hundred Years of Solitude more than 10 years ago and I did not like it. The language, the words chosen were a stumbling block for me. I was intrigued when I read the beginning of Love in the Time of Cholera. I was drawn to give this author another try. I am very, very glad I did. With this book too literary style. The exact same thing bothered me. Sometimes it was too wordy, too messy. I would ask myself, what is the author saying, why is he throwing all this at me, what is his point. Sometimes, definitely not always, it feel like the message gets drowned in the words or the convoluted plot.

I don't like "funny" books, but I demand that a book makes me chuckle, brings a smile to my lips. There is humor in everything, even the blackest of subjects. An entire book with no humor is just too horrible to get through and in fact unreal b/c life is funny if you just open your eyes to it. If you don't laugh you cry! This book does make you smile at life's incongruities. OMG that parrot and Femina's battle victory for pets that got the parrot into the house in the first place. And the "soap-argument". All married couples must "feel right at home". There is a lot to laugh about. Characters who do not drink coffee, but who are drinking today. Doctor's that never prescribe palliative medicines, but take them themselves. People that do not smoke, except behind locked doors. And the importance of smells, smells that we all recognize and that play such a central role in our lives, but which we are so often unaware of.

Yes, the book is about love but it is also about people and their foibles. For me the books offers numerous themes, the most important being ageing and death, and thus also what we want to get out of life! How the author depicts ageing is just perfect. He draws it with humor, with sadness with irony and with understanding.

Maybe I like the book so much because I agree with its message. Don't waste life. Don't live in the past.Don't disregard the past but learn from it so you can do better with the future. I really did like the book.(less)

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