Love in the Time of Cholera (Oprah's Book Club)

One of my favorite books, it is funny without being comic, romantic without being saccharine, exotic but distinctly relatable and often satisfying even in its sadness.

It's a deeper read and it's extremely emotional. It's one of those books that you finish reading and have to sit in awe for a while when you're done.

En una ciudad costera colombiana, entre los siglos XIX y XX, en une epoca en que el colera y las guerras civiles iban desangrando a Colombia de forma no muy diferente de como hoy en dia lo hacen las guerras de las drogas y la guerrilla, tiene lugar esta brillante pieza de literatura, obra del ganador del premio Nobel, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. La persona simplista se atreveria a juzgar la novela apenas como una historia de amor, y ciertamente lo es. Pero tambien es mucho mas. Florentino Ariza y Fermina Daza viven separados durante cincuenta annos, a lo largo de los cuales transcurre la historia. Todo el tiempo, Florentino (un hombre extremadamente dramatico que ama la poesia y esta permanentemente vestido con atuendos casi funerarios sin prestar mayor atencion al calor del sol caribenno) se mantiene fiel al amor juvenil por Fermina que siente por dentro, a un mismo tiempo que vive una vida repleta de las mas descabelladas y comicas anecdotas de flirteo y pseudo-amor. Fermina... bueno, eso es parte de la historia, y no lo voy a echar a perder, pero les puedo decir que le da mucho trabajo al pobre Florentino a lo largo de esos cincuenta annos, en unas ocasiones a sabiendas, en otras sin siquiera sospecharlo. En todo momento, con el ir y venir de los personajes que me atrevo a llamar 'secundarios', tales como el doctor Juvenal Urbino, el tio Leon XII o Leona Cassiani, hay un personaje omnipresente, como lo es el medio ambiente que rodea a Florentino o Fermina. Hay incontables y exquisitos momentos a lo largo de la novela en que se solidariza con el estado de animo de Florentino, empezando a llover, por ejemplo, si el se siente triste. La sutileza con la cual Garcia Marquez logra esto es definitivamente un acto de genialidad literaria. La novela resulta una obra que todo lector esta destinado a disfrutar plenamente: una de esas obras que sin duda alguna aguantaran el pasar del tiempo. No en vano es considerado uno de los mejores libros del siglo XX. Y pueden creerme: si no se rien a carcajadas al menos una docena de veces en el transcurso del libro, les va a costar trabajo conseguir ALGO en la vida que los haga reir. Con los ojos cerrados: comprenlo, y disfrutenlo.

Love in the Time of Cholera takes place circa 1880-1930 in an unnamed Caribbean seaport city. The three main characters form a triangle of love, with the hypotneuse being the quintessential romantic, Florentino Ariza, a man whose life is dedicated to love in all its aspects.As a young apprentice telegrapher, Florentino Ariza falls hopelessly in love with the haughty teenager, Fermina Daza. Although the two barely meet, they manage to carry on a passionate affair via letters and telegrams, until one day, Fermina Daza, realizing that Florentino Ariza is more "shadow than substance," rejects him and marries the wealthy dandy, Dr. Juvenal Urbino instead.Florentino Ariza, who has sworn to love Fermina Daza forever, is, of course, stricken to the core, but Fermina's marriage is nothing he can't handle. As one century closes and another begins, Florentino Ariza rises through the ranks of the River Company of the Caribbean and sets off on a series of 622 erotic adventures, both "long term liaisons and countless fleeting adventures," all of which he chronicled and all the while nurturing a fervent belief that his ultimate destiny was with Fermina Daza.Fifty-one years, nine months and four days after Fermina's wedding, on Pentecost Sunday, fate intervenes and Fermina becomes a free woman once again when Dr. Juvenal Urbino dies attempting to retrieve his wayward parrot from a mango tree. Seeing his chance at last, Florentino Ariza visits Fermina Daza after the funeral and declares, "I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love." Fermina's reaction is not quite what Florentino was hoping for. She orders him out of the house with the words, "And don't show your face again for the years of life that are left to you...I hope there are very few of them."Fermina Daza, however, hasn't quite gotten Florentino Ariza out of her system and the story ends, symbolically, with a river journey into eternity.It's hard to believe that Gabriel Garcia Marquez has written a book that is better than One Hundred Years of Solitude, but with Love in the Time of Cholera, he has done just that. Not quite magical realism, it is still magic of the highest order and it is pure Garcia Marquez. An exquisite writer, Garcia Marquez tells his tales with passion, control and unblinking humor with just the right amount of the fabulous woven in.Unlike some of his slightly claustrophobic works, this novel has an almost epic quality and Garcia Marquez handles the shifts in time and character perfectly; from the opening lines you know you're in the hands of a master. The book is flawless: Not one word is out of place, not one sentence is awkward. Lesser authors might slip into the maudlin when writing an entire book on the many aspects of love, but Garcia Marquez never gives us less than crystalline insight into what it really means to live, to love and

I loved this book because I have lived the same experience, yes one can wait all a lifetime to join up with the beloved and I am still waiting and I love him like the first day, it's an incredible book that describes what many of us live but don't have the courage to admit