George
deserves kudos on several fronts. First,
when his proposed titles were challenged, he promptly offered us an alternative
that met with our approval. Second, the title he proffered had so much personal
meaning that he had us close to tears when he recounted why. Finally, his eggplant parmesan would have
joined Fermina Daza and her mother-in-law in gustatory harmony, and his chess pie
might well have convinced Dr. Juvenal Urbino that dessert is better than the
game itself.
The Book
If One Hundred Years of Solitude put Gabriel
Garcia Marquez on the map, Love in the
Time of Cholera cemented his stature as one of the greatest novelists of
the 20th century. Our 7.9
rating confirms how easily we were persuaded by the exquisite storytelling that
is the hallmark of Garcia Marquez’ writing.
Set in a fictional city on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, Love in the Time of Cholera tells the
compelling if convoluted story of unrequited love, with Fermina Daza at the
middle of the triangle formed by her husband, Dr. Juvenal Urbino, and her first
love, Florentino Ariza.
Despite our
collective thumbs up, our individual reactions were anything but uniform. Indeed, many were quite cryptic—according to
my paltry notes. Here are some examples:
the book “wrote itself” according to Larry, who nevertheless labored to finish
it; the female protagonist wasn’t sufficiently endearing and neither were the
long paragraphs (Jack); the plot benefited from “parallel male characters” (Doug,
to whom I do no justice with this paraphrasing); the book “mesmerized” Roy
until he reached the halfway point (or was it the halfway point of his family
vacation in Southeast Asia?); the
repeated use of symbols fascinated Stan, who still puzzled over the significance
of the birds and refused all of our explanations; and, finally, the book
seduced Glenn from the very first paragraph, even though he’d read it before.
As for me, yes, I spiked the ratings with a 10, but I had to. The characters are unforgettable, but it was
the extraordinary dialogue—with all of its insight into human relationships—that had
me from the beginning.
Next Up
Jack gave us the chance to step further back in time and read one of the few American novelists who compares closely (and favorably) to F. Scott Fitzgerald. We'll see in July if John O'Hara deserved the accolades he received upon the publication of his first and arguably best novel, Appointment in Samarra.
