Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel García Márquez is a classic book, as classy as a book about 622 affairs can be. The book centers around three characters and a love triangle among them. The character that is in the middle of it all is Fermina Daza, a picky and proud woman who hates eggplants. All her life she has only had two boyfriends,  Dr. Juvenal Urbino del Calle (whom she is married to for over fifty years up until his death) and Florentino Ariza.

The book starts with a day of Dr. Juvenal, a praised doctor in their town. Once he arrives home he tries to grab his dear pet parrot who has escaped. On a ladder and reaching for the bird, he falls to his death. In the house the chaos is continuing, Fermina is now trying to understand her new life without her husband. In trying to figure it out, Florentino Ariza comes and confesses his love for her, again. Angry, she shoos him out and goes to sleep, dreaming more of Florentino then of her husband.

The next following chapters how Florentino and Fermina met and the story of their love life. But because of her father not approving of him, she dumps him and marries someone who her father would approve of, Dr. Juvenal Urbino del Calle. The rest of the story is Florentino trying to hold on to his love for Fermina, watching her from a distance and trying to distract himself with other women, about six hundred and twenty-two other women, to be exact.

Married women, widowed women, crazy women and virgins. At one point even his own family!  Although it has love in the title, don’t let it fool you; it has many other elements that are not associate with love.

The only bad thing about this story was the ending. It had the most cliche ending possible. For your own opinion I won’t spoil it, but I wasn’t happy with it.

The writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes a book about love, with a very gloomy tone. He shows political themes through the elements of magic realism. His comparison of love with cholera is brilliant. He uses the symptoms of the disease to someone who is just lovesick.

Marquez was able to write an amazing piece of work that makes the reader stop and think about what is being described. The story flows flawlessly from present to past; far in the future; to return back to the past. With the vivid details used by Marquez, he uses some humor throughout as well. Although some scenes do describe his “activities”with some of his affairs, they are not explicit but when explaining them, they seem realist and not with any of “movie magic.”

I recommend this book for avid readers.