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Love in The Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
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Love in The Time of Cholera

by Gabriel García Márquez

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11,57413680 (4.05)237
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English (121)  Spanish (7)  Dutch (5)  French (1)  Italian (1)  Danish (1)  All languages (136)
Showing 1-5 of 121 (next | show all)
lo real maravilloso :-)): In vielen seiner Romane trifft man auf ähnliche Grundstrukturen.Präzise, vorurteilslos und dabei mitfühlend beobachtet und beschreibt García Márquez das Geschehen. Kettenglied für Kettenglied: Wer will was? Wer tut was? Wie wirkt das, was er tut, auf die anderen Beteiligten? Und das Ganze, als Muster, worauf zielt es? In Alltäglichkeiten, die Menschen zumeist geringschätzen, entdeckt er die Hinweise, die - zusammengefügt - das Rätsel lösen. Wie ein Detektiv.Die Menschen kämpfen um ihr Leben.
Doch sie glauben an den Tod.
Ihr Scheitern scheint unwahrscheinlich.
Genauer betrachtet: folgerichtig.Widersprüche also zwischen Absicht und Tun werden aufgedeckt. Aber das ist nur ein Element, mit dem García Márquez seine Leser fasziniert. Es gibt noch mehr.1. Mitleid.
Erspart er sich und dem Leser.
Die Stimmung in seinen Romanen hatte mich zunächst verwundert, dann zunehmend fasziniert. Anders als der tragische Ablauf des Geschehens in den meisten seiner Bücher es vermuten lassen könnte, kommt nirgendwo eine tragische oder depressive Stimmung auf. Im Gegenteil. Es entsteht eine Atmosphäre von Lebenskraft, Mitgefühl und Freude beim Entdecken scheinbar unerklärbarer Geheimnisse.2. Komplexität.
Scheint ihm Freude zu machen.
"Gute" oder "Böse" gibt es in seinen Romanen nicht. Beobachtet werden die widerstreitenden Intentionen und Kräfte bei allen seinen Figuren. Komplex wird die Angelegenheit, wenn er die Interdependenz der einzelnen Handlungen vorführt. Die Intentionen und Kräfte der Einzelnen wirken nicht für sich allein, unabhängig von allen anderen. Sie ergeben ein Muster. García Marquez untersucht es genau. Ist es ein Muster, das zum Irrgarten wird? Ein Irrgarten, in dem die Beteiligten ihre Lebensenergie aufreiben? Dann ist das Muster tödlich. Oder wirkt das Muster so, daß der Wille zu leben die tödlichen Kräfte überwindet?3. Lebens-Vision.
Bewirkt das Unwahrscheinliche.
In zwei Romanen haben seine Helden Erfolg. Nicht zufällig oder dank höherer Hilfsmächte. In einem Roman ist es ein Liebender, im anderen ein Künstler. Beide verfolgen ein Ziel, das sie fordert, weit über ihre normalen Möglichkeiten hinaus. Anstrengung reicht nicht und guter Wille schon gar nicht. Umsichtig und präzise planend, ausdauernd arbeiten sie an ihrem Ziel. Und doch hätte ihnen das nichts genutzt, wenn sie nicht auch das Risiko gewagt hätten: Das Risiko, Anderen wider aller Bedenken zu vertrauen.
  r1hard | Nov 22, 2009 |
A mediocre book I tried to love. It was hard for me to get into and I found the plot to plod along. However, I did enjoy the characters and the idea of love outlasting many hurdles, I just had a hard time getting through it. ( )
  wflooter480 | Nov 18, 2009 |
It took a little time to get into this book. In fact, I found it a little boring to start, but as it gained momentum, it was an enjoyable ride. Strangely, the most accurate way I can explain it is that the beginning was too long and the ending was too short.

This was only my second book by Marquez - I'll probably pick another one up sometime in the future, but I don't believe he's the type of writer that I would enjoy reading works from back-to-back. ( )
  Sean191 | Nov 13, 2009 |
This is one of my alltime favorite books. To be slowly read and savored. Pure joy.
  jello | Sep 29, 2009 |
Florentino Ariza loves Fermina Daza passionately, and even when she forgoes their youthful romance for a fortuitous marriage, he carries his love for her inside him. Over the next decades of his life he engages in over 600 affairs but he waits for the day when he can declare his love to Fermina once again.

My thoughts are in a jumble about this book, so forgive me if this review is rambling and inconclusive. On the one hand, the story must have appealed to me on some level as I found myself reading it for hours at a time. On the other hand, it took me longer to read this book than most I pick up because I had no problem leaving it on the table for days at a time.

There is almost no dialogue, very few chapters, and not much action. Yet even as I say that I know that everything and nothing happened in the book. Varied themes, age, love, wealth, family, war, and so on are covered almost carelessly and yet still resonate with a certain power. Characters flit in and out of the story with little depth and yet they reveal so much about the two characters the book is about: Florentino and Fermina. The settings are both constant and varied, providing not their own story but pure backdrop for a tale of love. Marquez has created a world and information is passed in an almost confused fashion, some barely related to the main plotline, and yet each intricacy and tidbit adds a depth that keeps the reader interested.

I was particularly fascinated by the duality of love, the carnality and the comfort. Fermina begins her lovelife in a passion, almost like a love affair with a stranger, a forbidden secret love that is never consummated. She marries and slides into a comfortable love while Florentino loses himself in carnal pursuits that are still thought of, described, and experienced as a form of love. Both sides of love appear to be lauded in this novel. While the reader on some level is rooting for Florentino, Juvenal - Fermina's husband - is not villainized, and actually there is a sort of beauty in the love they have for each other. Compassion and passion perhaps are both needed, and until those involved understand this, there is no hope for a true love to exist.

The novel is a slow seduction, not a rollercoaster of overwhelming emotions, and while I, at times, could not truly express why I kept reading, I am very glad I did. ( )
  EclecticEccentric | Sep 18, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 121 (next | show all)
Suppose, then, it were possible, not only to swear love ''forever,'' but actually to follow through on it - to live a long, full and authentic life based on such a vow, to put one's alloted stake of precious time where one's heart is? This is the extraordinary premise of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's new novel ''Love in the Time of Cholera,'' one on which he delivers, and triumphantly.
 
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Epigraph
The words I am about to express:
They now have their own crowned goddess.
Leandro Diaz
In dieser Gegend geht’s voran:

die bekränzte Göttin zeigt es an.

Leandro Díaz
Dedication
For Mercedes, of course
Natürlich für Mercedes
First words
It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.
Quotations
They were together in silence like an old married couple wary of life, beyond the pitfalls of passion, beyond the brutal mockery of hope and the phantoms of disillusion: beyond love. For they had lived together long enough to know that love was always love, anytime and anyplace, but it was more solid the closer it came to death.
Last words
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Love in the Time of Cholera

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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0307389731, Paperback)

In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs--yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:52 -0400)

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