Love in the Time of Cholera could have used more love

Love in the Time of Cholera was written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and was published in 1985. I thought I would like this movie considering the beautiful setting and the idea of tragic love. Honestly though despite the descriptive writing, the story itself failed to keep me interested.

Pros

The writing was descriptive and you had that feeling that you were in that Caribbean town in Columbia. The parrot in the beginning was funny. The beginning had an interesting beginning. The husband of Fermina whose a retired doctor, it tells the story of their old age him missing mass etc, after trying to grab the parrot off of the tree, he falls off of the ladder and dies. Then the funeral gets interesting when Florentino Ariza after 5 decades tells Fermina he still loves her.

Cons

While the writing was beautiful and descriptive, the story had a whole lot of nothing. Its also hard to root for Florentino. He supposedly has a broken heart after Fermina breaks things off with him (after pressure from her father) and yet here he is sleeping around with multiple women. One of the women he’s slept with is a 14 year old girl who he’s a guardian over. Yet despite all this he still loves Fermina? I’m not buying it. I’m also not buying that he Florentino has the same love for a woman he barely knew after 5 decades.

Overall

Maybe I was expecting more than what I got from the story.  I was expecting more excitement I think. I don’t know. I just know, I think this book is an acquired taste and certain people will understand this taste more than I do, and others will agree with me that it isn’t for them. The book and the setting in the story is a product of their times so I guess I will not judge it too harshly.