Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel from 1989 is more about Love than it is about a plague. Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall in love early in they lives, but Fermina decides to marry a wealthy doctor. Florentino never gets over the loss of his True Love and waits patiently for Fermina. Meanwhile, he has 622 love affairs.
Marquez has to fill in the fifty-one years, nine months, and four days until Florentino can profess his love to Fermina again. The story swings from Florentino and his many women to Fermina and her husband.
I’m a big fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude with its magical realism. I confess I was underwhelmed by Love in the Time of Cholera. Do you read many books in translation? GRADE: C+
NO!
Bob, no cholera…or no Gabriel Garcia Marquez?
No cholera! I don’t know enough about Marquez to make a judgment!
Wait, this was about translations! Not big on them but there are some I’ve liked!
I read a lot of Scandinavian crime writers. I’m also a big fan of Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Since I majored in Literature in college I read a lot of classic European writers. Have also gone through most of Stendahl, Camus, Gunther Grass (Tin Drum being a favorite). I’ve always had a rough time with South American writers for some reason. Could never get through One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Steve, I read THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO series. And, of course, many Maigrets (with many more to go!).
No, and shame on me. This is certainly the biggest hole in my reading. What little translated work I’ve read was in college. You’d think that someone as addicted to crime novels as I am would have at least read a few of the Scandinavians, but I’ve only read one–a first novel from last year called “The Chestnut Man” that attracted quite a bit of attention. I keep telling myself I’ll do better, but you know how that goes.
Michael, so many books…so little Time!
Like Steve, I read Scandinavian crime writers. Also Simenon, of course, and other European crime writers. I don’t read South American “magical realism” as a rule, but I have read Borges. Your review does not make me want to read this,
Jeff, I’ve read Borges, too. Now, there are “new” translations of Borges (inferior to the original translations) which allow the publisher to make a lot more money.
For some reason, I’ve never been a fan of translations. I did enjoy the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo , but I listened to it on audio. Have the 2nd one someplace
Maggie, I’m a big fan of THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE. I think the second book in the series is the best!
One more I’d recommend I learned about from Lee Child, of all people, talking about him at a Bouchercon some years ago. (I keep thinking it was a panel that Patti was the moderator, but it is possible I am mixing up things.) Anyway, Child used the word “existential” probably 6 or 8 times in his recommendation of Jean-Patrick Manchette, a French crime writer in the ’70s and ’80s. Five of his eleven novels have been translated, with evocative titles like THE PRONE GUNMAN and FATALE and 3 TO KILL. Definitely one to check out.
Jeff, I’ll have to check out Jean-Patrick Marchette.
I got more out of this than ONE HUNDRED YEARS actually. My book group read ONE HUNDRED YEARS and only one of them enjoyed it. Magical realism seems to elude me. Realism is my bag. I read a fair number of books in translation, but not as much as I should.
Patti, I read ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE in the late 1960s. I read it again in the early 1980s. Loved it both times! I’d like to read it again, but there are too many books clamoring for my attention.
What Bob said.
Rick, you do know that Gabriel Garcia Marquez won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Doesn’t mean I want to read him. That’s not always a recommendation to me.
Rick, I know what you mean. Of the last five Nobel Prize Winners for Literature, I’ve only read three: Dylan Ishiguro, and Handke.
2014 Patrick Modiano France
2015 Swetlana Alexijewitsch (aka, Svetlana Alexievich) Belarus
2016 Bob Dylan United States
2017 Kazuo Ishiguro United Kingdom (born in Japan)
2018 (awarded 2019) Olga Tokarczuk Poland Polish
2019 Peter Handke Austria
Simenon, of course, and a few Scandinavian and Italian mysteries here and there. My dream is to find a complete set of Balzac in a good translation and read them all. I finally gave up thinking I would ever read all of REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, regardless of translator. Absolute hate magical realism—it does nothing for me.
Deb, I’ve tried reading REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST three times. I’ll probably give it one more try, but not now. I’m into “comfort” reading now. Easy, breezy books that have humor or action or both are my favorite reading right now.
Right, of course I should have mentioned Andrea Camilleri’s Sicilian series about Insp. Salvo Montalbano, all of which are translated brilliantly by Stephen Sartarelli.
I did read a number of Balzacs books in the ’70s. Also some Colette and Camus and even Sartre. Of course, Beckett wrote in French, didn’t he?
I’m with Steve – 100 Years of Solitude stopped me cold.
Life is short. There are other books.
I was with LOVE all the way til the ending, where GGM seemed to change the subject. 100 YEARS is a great novel in the Pynchon tradition. But my favorite Latin American author is Paco Ignacio Taibo III.
Oooh, a favorite here, too.
Dan, you’re right about GGM changing the subject at the end of LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA. My head is still spinning!