LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA
By Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Knopf, 1988
Category: Adult Fiction
I read this over the Christmas holidays. I didn’t want to, really, but my friend Dawn has this Book Discussion Group and I like to hang out with the cool women who are in it. And since they won’t let me in unless I read the book, I put aside my piles of middle grade and young adult novels and my piles of research tomes and, for the first time in a long time, read an honest-to-goodness adult novel.
I read LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA fifteen years ago too, back when I had no husband and no children. It was astounding how differently I responded to the book this time around. The touching love story I remember was nowhere to be found; in its place I found a pitiful delusion. (I am referring to Florentino Ariza’s half-century of pining for Fermina Diaz here. And yes, I know that the delusion sort of-kind of worked out in the end. But still.) These reactions gave me a lot to think about: what I think about love and relationships … both now and when I was twenty-three.
Another reason I enjoy Dawn’s book group, by the way, is that they always pick books that have been made into movies. Once the book has been discussed, a field trip to the local theatre is planned. Someday soon, when we can find LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA at a second-run theatre, or can rent it, we will get together to watch the screen adaptation. I told you these women were cool!