Thursday, November 15, 2007

The 306 Greatest Books #65 - Love in the Time of Cholera

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This book can be found on the NorwegianBBC, and My Book Lists.



Contrary to the bizarre title this is a very good book. The title just signifies the time period that takes place and is not a the basis of the story. The book is a love story with a girl whose father tries to get her married above her station and two men who both fall for the girl. The one man is about the same level as the girl and he falls head over heals for her while the other man is a very prominent doctor who is the supreme bachelor in the community. The story starts off with the woman and the doctor as an old married couple then flashes back to the beginning of the story. It then slowly moves through the lives of these three people advancing a little on one character then falling back again with another character's story. Marquez does this phenomenally so that you do not even realize that the story changes from one character's narrative to another. The story is rather riveting and it kept me worried throughout the story about all the characters. There is no clear "good guy" or "bad guy" so I found myself cheering for both of them, worried that something major would go wrong. I would definitely recommend this for anyone in a romantic mood. 

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