  Charming and absorbing... , 2008-07-16
I found this book lovely, most of all because it engages you so deeply with the characters, especially Florentino. Yes - it does make you wonder how you can feel sympathy for him, since he sleeps with over 500 women (!) while waiting for the love of his life, but I think it's his humanity and romanticism which make you want him to win over Fermina from the start to the end, despite his imperfections. The sweetness of his other habits, such as writing love poems for young sweethearts, and his gentle honesty, made me adore him.
The book will absorb you and give you the feeling you are living under the hot Columbian sun, smelling the smells of the town and walking in the market under the blazing heat, to the extent I almost had culture shock from my bedroom! I read it whilst ill during 1 1/2 days and it was gorgeous. I didn't want it to end, and yet I did, since I had been waiting all that time with Florentino, and found myself holding my breath as his life-changing moment approached.
The language is rich and funny, the story is sometimes surprising (for me, especially when Fermina suddenly decides their youthful madness was all an illusion, and also the very end, which was a bit too perfect, maybe? maybe not.. - don't get me wrong, I was desperate for a happy ending!!) but the book was for me a great read which I couldn't put down, or stop thinking about in between.
If you have a heart, then I defy you not to be moved by this book, especially if you can accept the imperfections of the characters and take the book as a story about love, not the people, but the love between them, which another reviewer described so well. I want to read 100 Years of Solitude now and hope I will enjoy it as much. I'm very happy to have discovered this great author!
For people who love the beauty of words., 2008-12-23
I've just finished reading this book, my favourite, for the third time and found it as beautiful and as compelling as on the first occasion that I read it, which must have been nearly 20 years ago. Having decided to share some thoughts on it with you on Amazon, I was surprised to see that the book did not have a 5-star rating on here. I was then surprised at how many 1-star ratings it had received from people who clearly enjoy reading. Why such polarisation of views? And will you like it?
Well, I guess Marquez isn't for everyone. I have read a few others of his books and have enjoyed some, but none as much as this. I think that the thing with Marquez is that it isn't the story that is necessarily the most important thing but the actual writing itself, the words. Sometimes they resonate with your emotions, other times not.
What makes this book all the more remarkable for me then, is that this is a translation and perhaps more than in normal cases the translator deserves huge credit for producing such a literary English read.
The story itself is a fairly simple turn-of-the-19th-century love story. Boy (Florentino) and girl (Fermina) court and fall in love, father finds out and sends girl away, girl comes back and rejects the boy, marrying an eminent doctor. The "boy" spends his life "waiting" for the girl, making many conquests in his time but never giving his heart away, then finally wins her heart after she is widowed in her seventies.
The use of language in the development of the characters; in the wry observations on love and married life; in the scene setting in the squalid Caribbean city; in the description of Florentino's many affairs: that's what makes this book the brilliant read that it is, not the plot. The plot becomes secondary in the face of language that is able to bring these characters and their situations so vividly to life. After my first reading of the book, I would often pick it up during odd moments and just read passages at random from it, for the sheer pleasure of feeling the tremor of the words in my mind. The book is written like if it was poetry, but in prose: I know that doesn't make much sense but I think what I am trying to say is that Marquez shows the sensitivity and care of a great poet in the way that he chooses his words, chooses his structure.
It is extraordinarily well written. For me, the words and the book's structure just seem to be perfect, there's nothing that you could change that would improve it. The first "chapter" in particular is dazzling and is matched only by the power of the book's last thirty pages or so, once Fermina has begun to open her heart to Florentino and they begin to woo each other.
If you're undecided about trying it then I suggest you pick it up in a book shop and read the first four pages or so, slowly, carefully - and you may want to re-read sections. If it does nothing for you, if the use of language doesn't make you smile then leave it well alone. However, I do hope that it can make you feel as good as it has made me over these last twenty years - good luck!
Absolutely no connection at all..., 2008-06-25
Almost as mystifying as this book itself, is the love many people express for it. Marquez has a glittering reputation and a Nobel Prize on his mantelpiece but, on the basis of this, it is hard to see why. As ever with Marquez, there is a slow pace, characters with similar names, unmentioned time slips, a dash of misogyny, and unrequited lust. Quite why this somehow translates into a masterpiece is beyond me.
The story itself, far from being a tribute to passion, is nonsensical. A young man espies an attractive girl, and becomes besotted with her in a childish, immature way. After initially encouraging him, she spurns him. Contrary to my expectations of the book, it is not a story of unrequited but still-burning passion. He goes around screwing every woman in town (including a 14-year-old), periodically expressing crocodile tears of self-pity. She marries for money and prestige, but doesn't really regret it. Eventually...well, I won't spoil it, but things change at the end of their lives.
Both characters are miserable, self-indulgent, selfish, dull and unable to generate sympathy or empathy from the reader. They have no passion except to fulfil childish whims, conceits and tantrums. This is not love, unrequited or otherwise. This is self-obsessed angst.
The only area where the book succeeds is its' descriptions of the minutiae of a long-lasting marriage - the little accommodations, adjustments and unspoken admirations that keep a relationship on an even keel.
There are characters introduced as if they are important, and never mentioned again. There are whole periods where nothing of consequence happens; these are not compensated by descriptive passages of insight, beauty or exposition - they are just meandering prose. Perhaps it is all lost in translation from the Spanish. Or perhaps it was poor to begin with.
Above all, I resent the implication by many reviewers, that anyone who doesn't like this book is some kind of Dan Brown/John Grisham-loving moron, who is incapable of reading a book where something doesn't blow up every five minutes. For people who love this book, congratulations - but don't belittle those who don't with some kind of pathetic intellectual snobbery. Great writing is writing that connects. This doesn't connect with a vast number of readers, and appears to be written as if the author didn't even try.
Pfffffff!, 2008-11-20
I'm staggered at the affection for this book, it bored me to tears. If it was written by a Scotsman and not a Colombian, it would be dismissed for the florid drivel that it is.
Like wading through treacle.
A JOYOUS & MOVING MEDITATION ON LOVE, PASSION AND, ABOVE ALL, LIFE, 2008-07-07
For some, this is a story in which nothing happens. For me, this is a story in which the only thing that happens is the only thing that happens to us all - life! We are the form and function of our dreams and passions. We live for them, and they for us.
The narrative flows like the river of life mentioned within - the Great Magdalena River as Florentino remembered it - illuminating these passions and dreams, these loves and beliefs, and does so in a non-discriminatory way that humanises all the characters we meet along our way even if their morals are not our own.
We are all human beings who have our own dreams and desires. This book in celebrating the passions that drive the characters we meet within is also a celebration of our own capacity to dream to live and live our dreams, and if that isn't worth recommending it for, then I guess it's time open a can of Carling and stick a Steven Segal movie in the DVD.
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