Love in the Time of Cholera

Rating:
Summary: Blanket of Beauty
Review: I have read three books in my life which I acknowledge as life-altering. The first was Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, which told me I wasn't an idiot for seeing some pretty stunning irony in government and the images my schooling had taught me to respect in America. I was never the same.

Number two was Rescuing the Bible from the Fundamentalists. If you've ever been deeply troubled by the religious tradition handed down to you, yet unable to escape a spiritual dimension to your life, this is a book to read. I did, and never been the same.

Last is Love in the Time of Cholera. I actually tried to start it three times, and couldn't get going. I didn't particularly like One Hundred Years of Solitude, and my hopes were waning. But, I gave it another go, and by the time I finished reading, I felt so utterly consumed by its beauty, that I couldn't sleep, my mind still abuzz.

What captured me was the language and the images, and the feeling in my heart, which started small and grew steadily with each passing page to an all encompassing glow, of overwhelming wonderfulness. (I apologize for messy little phrase, but words fail) The last word of the book, when you read it, will set you free to fly. The beauty will wrap you up like a blanket amidst a cold, clever, too smart for its own good literary world. You will breath in it's lush jungle of humanity, and never quite leave it.

This is a great book. Read it.

Rating:
Summary: A love story that works in the 21st century.....
Review: This is great book and really deserves the tag of "classic" that is associated with it. Marquez creates memorable characters that are demand emotion from the readers as thier life unfolds. Florentino is the unliked the who at first emits nievity turned into annoyance turned into pathos and completed with acceptance. Flamina is portrayed in a delicate manner as loving woman and we come to like her even though she rejects the protagonist. Marquez jumps around these characters lives flawlessly and the book spans their whole life but does not overstay its welcome.

Marquez' imagery goes well with eternal love theme and the reader will finish this book feeling complete and content. For anyone who has viewed a loved one from the outside this book offers eventual hope although some might determine it depressing. Is it better to have loved and lost or to never have loved at all?

Bottom Line: success in a time of cholera!

Rating:
Summary: Best novel ever written.
Review: I sincerely believe this to be the best novel ever written. It's that good.

Rating:
Summary: Could not finish this book
Review: This book came highly recommended to me by two friends, whose opinions I respect. I just couldn't get into it. And I tried. I kept hoping it would get better and I would actually CARE what happened to the characters. I found Florentino Ariza to be irritating and whiny. I quit reading a little more than halfway through the book. I just couldn't finish it.

Rating:
Summary: draws you in instantly
Review: I got this book on a whim and I was quite pleasantly surprised by the power of Mr Marquez's writing. I never read any of his work before and was not sure of what to expect. I was drawn into the story immediately, from the very first paragraph. It is a very powerful, moving book that has much to offer the eager reader.

I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: he carves the walls of the heart
Review: I admire GGM's patience for love both in love in the time of cholera and hundred years of solitude. he is alive when he talks of the waiting years. he thrives in the longing, he carves and carves the walls of a waiting heart and nourishes the memories. that's what makes it breathtaking. the suspense is carefully and patiently savored, its juice came ever so sweetly.

excellent,too are his brilliant thoughts on ordinary ircumstances. there were things one would not thnk of verbalizing but there they were blinding you with the simple fear or discomfort of truth.

there is however a part that left me rather lost, maybe out of misinterpretation. there is a portion in the book i found unresolved. I believe, in a book, all holes must be covered.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful reading experience
Review: There are many layers to this book: the poignant story of love both gained and lost, the wonderfully foreign setting that is sometimes exotic and sometimes bleak, the rich and textured characterizations of all the novel's players both major and minor. But above all, it is Marquez's prose that wins the day (at least for me). To write with such wit and charm, with such grace and style... Wow! I found myself rereading sentences just for the pure pleasure of their construction. While this is not, as some have said, a "page turner", that is its strength. This is a novel to be savored, to be devoured by sipping not gulping. A wonderful and beautiful reading experience.

Rating:
Summary: Captivating and Extraoridinary.....
Review: Theres very little I could add about the experience of reading this book that the other reviewers haven't already noted...obviously, it has impressed many readers, and rightfully so. Marquez paints a vivid landscape of a time, place, and culture, both it's deprivation and it's beauty, while illustrating how the advances in technolgy of the early twentieth century slowly seep in as the story plays out its fifty-year plus time span. The setting he creates is so vibrantly alive that you are instantly transported to his locale, experiencing all the changes side by side with the characters. An ode to love in all its many forms and shapes, "Cholera" is an elegently crafted fable brimming with the all the hope and foibles of the human landscape. It's most exceptional quality is its ending, its one of those rare books where the reader does not feel cheated by the last page, and feels that the journey they have invested in has been worthwhile and complete. Marquez offers a solid closure to his tale that is optomistic without appearing trite, happy without the sacchrine acidity of sentimentality.

Rating:
Summary: Spellbinding
Review: I read this book in a total span of two days last summer. It's everything you'd expect from a book about a man who waits for a woman his entire life. It's difficult for a writer to successfully live up to that kind of enticing premise, but Marquez does so with a flair like no other. Even Marquez's digressions in his story are mesmerizing to read, and even discussions about Fermina Daza's hatred for a certain vegetable (squash, I think it was) are fascinating because Marquez uses seemingly meaningless situations to describe the essence, the intrigue, the beauty and the strangeness of human beings. Very much recommended.

Rating:
Summary: 3 1/2 stars - Beautiful beyond words, but not a page turner
Review: Reading this book reminds me (believe it or not) of listening to lounge jazz. I absolutely admire Marquez - the way he brings to life emotions and memories with such natural ease that on more than a few occasions, I had to shake my head in pure disbelief. How does Marquez write the way he writes? I ask myself, just as I also ask, How does a jazz piainist play the way he plays?

Unfortunately, like lounge jazz too, the hypnotic prose and the subdued pace of this book had a somewhat "lulling" effect on me. Truth be told, I dozed off almost after every 30 pages - not something I'm awfully proud of, but there you go.

I suppose this could be attributed to a number of factors: One, that the story was told in hind-sight (therefore, you jolly well knew how the story goes from the start); Two, that basically it's a story of unrequited love of one man, Florentina Ariza, who obviously had a very bad case of love "cholera" for a lady (which to me, was rather frustrating because for every step forward he took, he seemed to take two backwards); and Three, the use of long descriptive sentences and a noticeable lack of dialogue in Marquez's style (which I guess, is his distinguishing signature to begin with).

Overall, "Love in a time of Cholera" is a book I truly admire for its lyrical narration, but alas, the pace was a bit too slow for me to truly appreciate. I came out of it rather relieved that I managed to turn to the very last page.