Is love worth waiting for?
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Do you ever really get over your first love? Are all other relationships a form of escape from the fiery passion of that first love - even if it is unrequited? It wouldn't be spoiling the plot to tell you that Marquez's answers are no and yes respectively to those questions - but it does take a lot of words and reading to time to get there.
I found the central couple Florentino and Fermina very hard to like, whereas the pompous yet generous doctor that Fermina marries after rejecting Florentino is much more sympathetic. I didn't find the jumps between present day and several times in the past particularly annoying, but did long for Fermina and Florentino to finally get it together much sooner than the time-shifts permitted. The language is florid, and detailed, but didn't give me as much sense of place as I had hoped for.
Slightly disappointing - but I will read more Marquez.
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chapter 2 and i dont knwo where i am
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Hi there,
after starting this book and reaching chapter two i still dont know what era we are in, what century and what country, nothing is explained and it is very slow.
Im hoping it gets better.
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Disappointing
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I think this book may have lost something in translation: it was undoubtedly very funny in parts and there are definitely interesting characters and plots. But I found Florentino Arizo extremely irritating - rather unfortunately, seeing as he's one of the main people in it - and was not at all bothered whether or not he got his true love at the end.
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The book is a bit repetitive in places but it is a delightful read
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It spans two entire lifetimes. It takes place between the end of the 19th Century and ends in the beginning of the 20th Century. Like all Marquez novels, this one is well written and a joy to read.
Marquez's use of fantasy realism is legendary and keeps the somewhat morose plot fun and moving. The main character stalks his lover in parks pretending to read on a bench as she passes by. His love becomes an obsession.
Marquez shows that love and the sadness it can bring is not for youth alone. It celebrates the powerful hold that true love can have on a man his entire life. This is a book that a man would enjoy as much as a woman. Also, if you missed reading Tino Georgiou's masterpiece--The Fates, go and read it. I'm loving this one.
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100 Years of Turpitude
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Casual misogyny, wooden characterisation, cliche - and that's the good bits. One for the charity bin.
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