[Review] Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I'd been meaning to read this book for some time. It's by an author I already like (having read 100 Years of Solitude) and it refers to an epidemic in the title. What more could a literature and public health junkie want?

This book was all I could have hoped for. Garcia Marquez has a way of writing that is exquisite. The form of his sentences is lyrical while the content is utterly familiar. I don't know quite how to describe it. He has a way of talking about anything, eating, loving, losing one's hair, that does not shy away from the absurdity of the human condition but also does not denigrate it. He writes like an old man, one who is incredibly wise and knows all the hidden reasons why people do what they do. And the structure of his novels plays with time. Stories are revealed in an order which best describes the character rather than in any particularly chronological order and yet it is never so jumbled as to impede the reader.

The story follows the lives of Fermina Daza and the two men who love her, Florentino Ariza and Juvenal Urbino. That sounds like a romance, doesn't it? And yet it is simply a story of the human condition. The thrill of adolescent love burns out quickly, and Fermina turns to a more earthly romance, loving and hating her husband for all the things that make him who he is. Marquez opens up these people until you know them better than yourself. He shows you not just what they are thinking about at the moment, but both the recent and long past experiences which shaped their personality. Each character grows and changes as the city grows and changes, but each remains distinct in their own personality. I don't know of anyone else who can capture such a sweeping time period (60 or so years) with such insight into the human virtues and foibles of his characters. All I can say will not be enough to describe the virtues of this writer.

I enjoyed this book for all of its warmth and depth, but even so I feel I can recommend 100 Years of Solitude more. This may only be because I read that book first and thus Marquez' gifts were more novel to me. But 100 Years does include more magical realism, moments that lie on the cusp between reality and dream. Love in the Time of Cholera is a fine fine book, but also a little more down to earth.

Clearly this man has a gift. I should learn Spanish just so I can read him in the original language!