Love in Time of Cholera

I recently read several love story novel, two of which are Love in Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Ayat-Ayat Cinta by Habiburrahman El-Shirazy.

I was prompted to read Love In Time of Cholera by my colleague in office, who adores this novel and in fact almost anything written by the same author who was a Noble Prize winner for his other novel: One hundred Years of Solitude. Moreover, I remember that this novel was 'the thing' that reunite the couples in the movie "Serendipity", so it must be a good novel.

It is a love story with setting around 19th century, so it was time for poetry and rhyme and long love letters. A bit boring - sometimes, as it elaborates certain things that proved not be essentials to the whole story e.g only serves as background. It was about a guy - Florentino Azaria - who keep his devotion towards his first love for more than 50 years ! The girls he's fallen in love to - Fermina Daza - has broke her promise to marry him and marry someone else instead. If you only read the excerpts that you will instantly take side with Azaria, the poor man. But when I read the book, the melancholy Azaria does not attract me at all rather than feeling pity and sorry for him. And the fact that he 'take revenge' by sleeping with more than 500 women in his waiting period of 50 years for Fermina Daza to be come widow give him even lower score.

In the other hand, I think Fermina Daza does not love anybody other than herself. She does not love her husband, not Azaria whom she feel sorry for, she only gives a damns about herself. I am instantly in love with Dr.Urbino - Fermina's husband - who has all the good traits a man should have. Frankly speaking, I do not know why Fermina is not happy with him who posed not only as husband, but also as protector and a friend - all at the same time.

That gets me introspecting that we all quite often take everything for granted. We have a loyal husband, a good father for the kids, and yet we still feel sorry to ourselves if our husband is not romantic like what we read in the novel. We always compare what we have with what we don't have and instead of feeling accomplished more often we feel behind.

Overall, I would recommend you to read the book if you're a romance freak. For me, it turns me off seeing a man cry so often as depicted in the book and the movie. However you can still enjoy the movie - especially Dr.Urbino who is played by the charismatic Benjamin Bratt.

I'll post my thoughts on Ayat-Ayat Cinta later on.