Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
I had a hard time reviewing this book, mostly due to the uncomfortable last section. What was previously a precious love story, humorous at times and wonderfully evocative of a different world, becomes a little, well, problematic. There's Leona Cassiani, who - despite being the impetus for our main character realizing that men can be friends with women without romantic or sexual desires playing a roll - believes the only man she will ever love is the faceless brute who rapes her by the docks. Then there's our 70-year-old protagonist's ward, a fourteen-year-old girl who is placed in his care and whom he immediately seduces and debauches, and who later kills herself after being repudiated and learning he doesn't love her as she does him. These characters rather ruin the sweet, romantic, endless love story I had been reading up to that point.
Which isn't to say that I think Florentino Ariza's unceasing love for a woman who quite succinctly told him she wants nothing to do with him is totally romantic, either. It's obsessive, really, and prevents him from ever finding happiness. Florentino Ariza is that "nice guy" who pretends to be your friend until he suddenly lunges at your face and then blows up at you when you refuse the unwanted sexual attention. Granted, this is all through the lens of our own time, with all these men being accused and finally held accountable for their despicable actions towards women. This book was published in 1985, and set at the turn of the previous century, so I suppose I can't hold it to the standard of today. But it does tend to dampen the effect of what was otherwise intended to be a tale of ultimate romance.
Enough of content, what about the writing? I'll freely admit it's masterful. Marquez is a deliberate, yet florid writer, whose evocative descriptions pick you up wherever you might be reading and plop you down in the Caribbean. His characters are complex and immediate, his social commentary lucid and satirical without being overbearing. It's a beautiful book, I just wish it wasn't so, well, rape-y.
Which isn't to say that I think Florentino Ariza's unceasing love for a woman who quite succinctly told him she wants nothing to do with him is totally romantic, either. It's obsessive, really, and prevents him from ever finding happiness. Florentino Ariza is that "nice guy" who pretends to be your friend until he suddenly lunges at your face and then blows up at you when you refuse the unwanted sexual attention. Granted, this is all through the lens of our own time, with all these men being accused and finally held accountable for their despicable actions towards women. This book was published in 1985, and set at the turn of the previous century, so I suppose I can't hold it to the standard of today. But it does tend to dampen the effect of what was otherwise intended to be a tale of ultimate romance.
Enough of content, what about the writing? I'll freely admit it's masterful. Marquez is a deliberate, yet florid writer, whose evocative descriptions pick you up wherever you might be reading and plop you down in the Caribbean. His characters are complex and immediate, his social commentary lucid and satirical without being overbearing. It's a beautiful book, I just wish it wasn't so, well, rape-y.
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