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Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is
a story of the powers love has in life. The book has no plot besides the
intertwining lives of two people: the beautiful Fermina Daza, and Florentino
Ariza, whose love for her lasts undying and unrequited for over fifty years.
Set in a city on the Caribbean coast of Columbia, Florentino
Ariza's love starts in his adolescence with a correspondence of letters, but is
rejected and Fermina Daza marries instead the rich and charming Dr. Juvenal
Urbino. Florentino Ariza, a poor poet, swears to wait his life for the day that
she will love him back. Their lives are separated, but for Florentino Ariza,
despite his many lovers, his life is lived for her, and he climbs in status in a
riverboat company to rise to her level.
I loved the book from the start. Marquez's writing is poetry and
the descriptions that make the entire story enhance smells, views and emotions,
and the story glows with a natural magical realism. The characters are all
larger than life but realistic in their human imperfections. The book never
drags, and to read it is to feed off its beauty.
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