Love in the Time of Cholera
Book Review

Love in the Time of Cholera BOOK SYNOPSIS

The unrequited love of Florentino Ariza, a sensitive man, living in the backwater of coastal Colombia a century ago who falls in love at first sight with the beautiful and haughty Fermina Daza.

His long suffering love and illusion of their being together never fades. He is a man searching for and living for love. An illegitimate son and a poet, his heart is broken when Fermina Daza's youthful obsession and fantasy of being adored ends. The poor Florentino is left devastated. He lives his crazy life with her always in his thoughts and behind his every action. When Fermina's husband dies, Florentino begins his quest to get her back into his life and his bed.

QUEENIE B SAYS

I wanted to know what the big deal was about Love in the Time of Cholera after I started reading it.

Powerful love story, perhaps. I was propelled to keep reading which says something for the author Gabriel Garcia Marquez being able to keep his audience intrigued. Halfway through I started to really like it, then I didn't again. I'm very ambiguous about this read. I guess if you take into consideration the era of the 1800-1900's, then one might find it believable that a man could keep the flame of love burning as strong as Florentino did for 50 years.

Poet or not, he was kind of a sick-o lusting after the child of whom he was named guardian. I know he was always searching for love with all his widow concubines, but I found him so forlorn. Am I being too hard on poor Florentino? He had some redeeming qualities like the love-letters he wrote for other lovers, but overall I think he lived a shallow and tragic life. And tell me, what does cholera have to do with any of this?

Without knowing anything about the book, I was thinking that somehow I would learn something about the dreaded plague, but no. It used cholera as a background for the love story. I'll give the author credit for characterization. They do jump off the pages at you. When all is said and read, the ending does give great satisfaction to the reader and it's a good book club read, lots of room for discussion.

Interesting side note - the book was written 10 years ago and now appears on the best seller lists for the past six months. Did Oprah have something to do with that? You tell me.

Love in the Time of Cholera DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What would Florentino and Fermina's life been like had they married when they were young?
2. Were Florentino's sexual habits perverted?
3. Fermina found nothing more difficult in life than love. She said she was not sure she needed love most to live. "It's as if he were not a person, but only a shadow." What happened to her thinking once she was an old woman and widowed?