Love in the Time of Cholera in Never too Late to Read Classics

Apr 28, 2008 Chrissie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: caribbean, magic, fiction, classics

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; it was the exact same thing bothered me: the literary style. Sometimes it was 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; it was the exact same thing bothered me: the literary style. 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. ...more

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Mar 03, 2008 Laura rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, nobel-prize, latin-american-literature, historical-fiction, hf-latinamerica

Es un compendio acerca del amor y sus múltiples variantes, un estudio sobre el paso del tiempo que destruye y reconstruye almas y ciudades, sobre la memoria y sus infinitos laberintos. La trama se desarrolla en Centroamérica a principios de siglo, época en la cual, según el narrador, los signos del enamoramiento podían ser confundidos con los síntomas del cólera. Al igual que el caudaloso Magdalena, a cuyas orillas se desarrolla, la historia serpentea y fluye, rítmica y pausada, y prosa abajo va ...more

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Mar 20, 2016 Karen added it

Shelves: travel-the-world

To be honest, I don't know if I liked this book. I enjoyed the beginning very much, thinking that I would enjoy this book so much more than One Hundred Years of Solitude (which I have tried reading several times, but not getting further than 120 pages), but I quickly became bored. ...more

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Feb 25, 2012 Debbie Hughes rated it did not like it

I tried...I honestly tried...
But nooo..not for me...
Our book group read it and I really really really really tried...but then there comes a time you have to say..life is short....and..
well if you really hate a book....even half way thru....and well
time to move on.
So many great books so little time!

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Aug 10, 2020 Douglas Beagley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I don't want to review this book. Five stars. An astonishing piece of work. Can't recommend it to anyone in particular. I don't much want to talk about it.

I do want to remember it, though: there's no hero's journey in a book like this, and what happens may or may not matter. The presentation of what the narrative eye sees and appreciates is the art itself.

As a warning, there's abuse, of various kinds--not what the book is about, but there they are--and since it isn't clear how much the author ...more

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