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.
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Readers say *Love in the Time of Cholera* is beautifully written with lyrical prose and richly flawed characters, exploring themes of love's endurance...
This was a real let down after Hundred Years and Chronicle. It is above all a very uneven novel. Marquez's sentences have a similar long and flowing structure, bursting with creative detail. However, in this novel they felt like they were more distracting than in the other books I'd read.
It felt like he was adding detail to add detail, as though that necessarily made a more interesting story. Did we really need a full backstory for each of like 8 different mistresses? For the entire history of a river company? A lot of these digressions felt repetitive - proving similar points about every permutation of every type of love you could imagine. In chapters 4 and 5 I ended up even skimming and almost skipping a few pages because it was just so obvious that the paragraphs there weren't doing anything to develop the main characters, main story, or the themes.
Also, there were at least two instances of assault having to do with the main character and another one or two on minor characters that felt really antiquated in their attitude and discussion, as though it was just another form of love, or someone really needed it but didn't realize, etc. Luckily they were pretty brief, but then one of the main characters gets into an affair with a schoolgirl that he is supposed to be the guardian for. And I suppose we are supposed to derive some metaphorical meaning about his illness of love from that? This was written in 1988! I realize he was an old man from a different culture, etc etc, but it's really hard to treat these events in the story the way the narrator/author wants to. You can totally write about these subject matters, but you have to take them seriously and treat with responsible care, and Marquez just really did not do that here in my opinion.
And these issues to me arose because the fundamental theme of the book, which I take to be that love is like a sickness or plague or infection, really didn't get all that well developed. It shows up from time to time, but because of all the distracting and ultimately unnecessary details it got really diluted. I don't think you need to have the narrator lecture the reader about his symbolism, but you can't just mention cholera every 40 pages and think that you're doing enough to draw the comparison.
However, when the story kept its focus on the 3 main characters, it was very good. I just don't think this anywhere near on a par with 100 years and I don't fully understand why it has the reputation that it does
It felt like he was adding detail to add detail, as though that necessarily made a more interesting story. Did we really need a full backstory for each of like 8 different mistresses? For the entire history of a river company? A lot of these digressions felt repetitive - proving similar points about every permutation of every type of love you could imagine. In chapters 4 and 5 I ended up even skimming and almost skipping a few pages because it was just so obvious that the paragraphs there weren't doing anything to develop the main characters, main story, or the themes.
Also, there were at least two instances of assault having to do with the main character and another one or two on minor characters that felt really antiquated in their attitude and discussion, as though it was just another form of love, or someone really needed it but didn't realize, etc. Luckily they were pretty brief, but then one of the main characters gets into an affair with a schoolgirl that he is supposed to be the guardian for. And I suppose we are supposed to derive some metaphorical meaning about his illness of love from that? This was written in 1988! I realize he was an old man from a different culture, etc etc, but it's really hard to treat these events in the story the way the narrator/author wants to. You can totally write about these subject matters, but you have to take them seriously and treat with responsible care, and Marquez just really did not do that here in my opinion.
And these issues to me arose because the fundamental theme of the book, which I take to be that love is like a sickness or plague or infection, really didn't get all that well developed. It shows up from time to time, but because of all the distracting and ultimately unnecessary details it got really diluted. I don't think you need to have the narrator lecture the reader about his symbolism, but you can't just mention cholera every 40 pages and think that you're doing enough to draw the comparison.
However, when the story kept its focus on the 3 main characters, it was very good. I just don't think this anywhere near on a par with 100 years and I don't fully understand why it has the reputation that it does
I was disappointed by this book that I know so many others have loved. I liked the first part of the book when Florentino woos Fermina. I was aghast at her sudden rejection of him. The entire middle section of the book was a snore fest. It details all the romantic liaisons of Florentino. The best part was the end when the couple finally get to know one another and truly fall in love. If you’ve ever had a lost love that you mourn for, this book will appeal to you.
Márquez’s world swept me away. His characters—Florentino, Fermina, and Juvenal—I fell in love with them. They’re flawed, yearning, stubbornly human. I saw in them the same contradictions I wrestle with: the tension between discipline and desire, the ache of waiting, the courage to love imperfectly. The story broke my heart and rebuilt it with tenderness.
What struck me most was Márquez’s scope—not just in time, but in emotional truth. He doesn’t rush love. He lets it ferment, falter, and evolve. That patience, that devotion to the long arc of becoming, mirrors my own journey. I’m building a life rooted in resilience and service, and this book reminded me that transformation often begins with longing. I was transported.
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