Love in the Time of Cholera (Oprah's Book Club)
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • "A love story of astonishing power" (Newsweek), the acclaimed modern literary classic by the beloved Nobel Prize-winning author.
In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs--yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.
In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs--yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.
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Community Reviews
I loved it, but will warn potential readers that this is NOT very similar to 100 years of solitude. Gabo’s style and use of magic to reveal emotional reality (rather than material reality) persists between books, but Love in the Time of Cholera centers on, I’d say, a very dark comedy that centers on the dangers of love. In particular, as the title alludes to, how love manifests as a disease.
I will bite: many characters, particularly the protagonist, display moral decay in a very disturbing manner, but I do not hold this against the book.
Tell him yes. Even if you are dying of fear, even if you are sorry later, because whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life if you say no.
As young people, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall deeply for each other. However, when Fermina Daza chooses another man to become her husband, Florentino Ariza is relegated to the role of gilted lover. They live their lives seperately, married to other people, but still pining for one another. Fifty years later, after the death of Fermina Daza's husband, and numerous somewhat unsatisfying acts of infidelity on Florentino Ariza's part, the two are once again brought together.
The book is quite prose-focused, beautifully written and lyrical. The characters are richly developed with quirks, flaws and strengths, and the world they move in is well developed and described. The plot does tend to play second fiddle a bit. Nonetheless, it's hard not to wish for a love as deep, abiding, and timeless as Florentino Ariza's is for Fermina Daza. His gestures are so romantic and sweeping, even after they have both past their prime.
Very swoon-worthy, indeed
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