Love in the time of Cholera

     Author                         Gabriel Garcia Marquez

     Country                       Colombia

     Genre                          Fiction

     Publication Date        1985

     Pages                           422






This book by the noble prize winning author has always received raving reviews. Gabriel is someone who is highly respected in the literary society. As an obvious consequence of this, 'Love in the time of cholera' came into my life with an immense history and sky rocketing expectations. I totally appreciate that that is an unfair starting point for anything but, unfortunately, life is full of choices and expectations and any form of art has to rage an unavoidable battle against these.

This is the story of Florentino Ariza, an ordinary looking young man who falls in love with the elegant and beautiful Fermina Daza and establishes a successful relationship of exchanging passionate love letters with her. This innocent relationship comes to an abrupt end when Fermina in the flash of a moment refuses his proposal of marriage and goes on to marry another more respectable individual. Thus rejected but not disheartened, Florentino spends his entire life waiting for a reunion with his love. He works hard and has innumerable sexual relations with different women but none can match up to the love he is waiting for. 

While the book aspires to emotionally move it's readers with love, passion and desperation, to me the book is nothing more than a 'let down'. While the writing is different and in some ways endearing, the story line is not very different from a Bollywood love flick. Florentino's character annoys me to no end. The fact that he passes his entire life hoping and waiting for a reunion with Fermina reeks of passivity and waste of a life in my opinion. Maybe I am too unromantic for this but the fact is that I would rather have had him move on with his life than indulge in mindless sexual encounters to fill the gap left by someone he hardly knew. 

I know that this may be too harsh a judgement on someone's character but that's the idea of a review, isn't it? I didn't enjoy the book at all and wouldn't recommend it to others. If there are others out there who don't share my views, I would love to hear from you!

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