Book Review: Love in the Time of Cholera

It must be satisfying to be Gabriel García Márquez. After all, he's written two of the greatest books of all time: One Hundred Years of Solitude (previously reviewed here) and Love in the Time Cholera. First published in Spanish in 1985 as El amor en los tiempos del cólera, this novel is certainly one of García Márquez's great literary masterpieces. He's yet to write another mammoth novel since, but it doesn't matter; Cholera is a passionate achievement of such gargantuan proportions that he's unlikely to equal it again. At its heart, Cholera tells the simple story of Florentino Ariza who lives into old age holding on to his unrequited love for the beautiful and enigmatic Fermina Daza. He lives his years yearning for her, sick with love, watching Daza's life with her husband, Doctor Juvenal Uribno de la Calle. How does Ariza spend the years? Simply put, pursuing every woman within sight while waiting for Urbino to die, which is where Cholera begins. Only then, with Daza in mourning, does Ariza reappear, ready to claim his love. The novel then backtracks, telling the tale of their early courtship and lives apart set on the coast of South America. This might be the most romantic novel ever written. Glorious, rich and satisfying, Love in the Time of Cholera is a triumph.

>>> READ THE OPENING PAGES OF LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA HERE.