Fermina Daza and Dr. Juvenal Urbino have been married for half a century when Urbino dies suddenly in a domestic incident involving a parrot and a misstep. Fermina finds her life drastically changed, less by being a widow, but by the sudden reappearance of her first love, Florentino Ariza, who turns up on her doorstep - and in her life - the same day they put her husband in the ground.
So, look. I have such mixed feelings on this novel. Marquez is a brilliant writer, that much is pretty darn hard to deny. His ability to capture a moment, an atmosphere, a feeling is virtually unparalleled and leaves you both emotionally and physically affected by his writing - a pretty awesome feat in itself. I liked Fermina and, well, kind of liked Urbino and Ariza too, who orbited Fermina like moons throughout all of their lives.
That said, I feel like there's this whole generation of literature that's been wrongly interpreted as romantic. Lolita is probably the most obvious / worst example of this, but I can't help but feel the same way about Love in the Time of Cholera. The romance of it has a much more thorough basis in obsession than in love, and Florentino's degree of infatuation is really stalkerish throughout the story, particularly when he starts to project Fermina onto other relationships.
I don't know, between this and Miranda July's collection, I'm feeling like such a Debbie-downer! It's a good novel though, and one definitely worth the read, just not my favourite classic.
3.5 out of 5 chatty parrots.
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