|
A genius at the top of his game. Reminds me of a Bach variation where you are just dazzled by the beauty of it, but you also know that there is a structure underneath that will reveal itself in an amazing way as the piece closes.
After all, it's magic that counts in a novel like this. 622/53= 12 (about) girls a year for long term liaisons as claimed by Ariza.
Love is the hinge on which a vast human theater is holding on--passion, poverty, war, disease, small town politics, bad breath, body odor, reality of old age, human complexes that make us human etc.This is a novel without an end, and without a demarcation line, and I guess that's make it more enjoyable.However, I often found the book too long-winding. Certain detail was little too slow coming and reaching to a point.
Just finished reading it.Enjoyable, poetic, and fine taste of magic realism.At first, I set out to read a love story--instead, bit by bit, it became a meditation, a dream, and a painting.Nobody will ever know what exactly went through author's mind, and any decent art-work is subject to audience's interpretation.But one thing I am sure, it's not about love per se. However mathematically/biologically speaking the number seems kind of odd.
Yet, I must give credit to Mr Garcia for excellent style of prose--I call it delicious-word-cooking.A new writer could learn a lot about story-telling from this book though.I have yet to read his most widely known "One Hundred Years Of Solitude."One reviewer commented on lacking the theme LOVE in the book.Without going into too in depth about "symbolism" and similar literary bs, I express humble opinion that in this book, love is an excuse to explore many colors of human canvas, pure and simple.The words of Garcia are beautifully arranged--and the way he uses dry humor is also enjoyable--very similar to tragic comedy. What is nice that the encounters he attributes to Mr Ariza do not seem impossible.
Can you have long term liaisons with 12 girls in one year, and break up and have 12 more LONG TERM liaison next year for 53 years.You do the math.For an artist like Mr Garcia, this small mathematical reality may be irrelevant. And Garcia is a good magician of words--or should I say Merlin of words.
This book took me months to read; there is so much of the story on each page that you can only take in a bit at a time. To be honest, some of the sexual descriptions were fairly twisted, but that is all part of the crazy and enchanting world that he has created. I won't ever read it again, but I'm glad I read it once.
Book arrived quickly and was in very good shape. Just in time for my book club. Thank you
There was no love in this book whatsoever. Like many readers, I persevered through the book thinking that there must be a reason for so much critical acclaim and the honor of being on Oprah's Book Club. Her rejection of Florentino Ariza was something that was simply explained as "not love" and her views about him was that he was nothing more than a shadow that one does not remember. Each progressive chapter made my skin crawl and made my blood boil.
I don't know. This book was not about love, but the illusion of love. It was a book about lust, rape, unrequited "love", seduction, molestation, depression, delusion, etc. This book was awful. So he became an adulterer and child molester and found sex as his redemption or therapy to sooth his broken heart. Urbino was one out of stability (in her husband's own word), not happiness.
Yet in the end, without rhyme or reason, they end up together. Was she mourning.
This book was not about love, but a story about the mind and life of a determined stalker. It was a difficult read to say the least.
This book seemed like it was written by a man who once had an unrequited love, and he thought this was a worthy tribute to what he imagined would have happened. It seemed like everyone was so self obsessed with their own feelings and desires that they forgot to even love or care about each other.
The marriage between Fermina Daza and Dr. It was nothing more than a novel about a man with an unrequited love that "made him" into a passionless man with only a naive expectation that the love of his life would realize it one day and return to him.
I was so excited to finally read this book, but when I finished, I felt so let down.
|
