Love in the Time of Cholera

By: Gabriel García Márquez / Narrated By: Armando Durán

Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins

A time long past with lush prose that skirts on flowery, but dude! was our hero a creep, or what?!

As with A Walk in the Woods, I very much enjoyed Love in the Time of Cholera untiiiiil I thought about it for a bit.

Now, one canNOT say that it isn’t well-written; it’s GORgeously written. Atmospheric, stirs the imagination to where one feels each of the senses engaged (Seriously, I could smell the flowers in this!), characters fleshed-out to within an inch of their lives, every moment from adolescences right on through the geriatric phase. Beautiful, beautiful, beyond lovely.

But then, whilst I was listening to it in the living room (As opposed to holed up by myself in the bedroom), my husband walked in and said: Jeez, are you still listening to the one that made your toes curl (Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife)? Cuz see, there’s a LOT of sex in this story. And he happened to walk in on one of the MANY times a sexual escapade is described in SUCH great and luscious detail.

No my toes weren’t curling as I listened to this, probably cuz No Really, the writing is glorious, and it felt like I was witnessing something kinda sorta, if not sacred, then highly enjoyed at the moment, awake to all the senses and sensations rather than everything below the waist.

I did, however, pause and mull it over. I dismissed it at the time and went on to continue, but NOW I was a trifle wary, and boy did I start noticing just how many women our “hero” Florentino Ariza bedded.

Ostensibly a love story, this begins with the predictable and comfortable marriage of Juvenal Urbino and his wife Fermina Daza until Urbino meets an unfortunate end, falling from a mango tree as he tries to snag a perverse pet parrot who’s flown the coop. After the funeral, the aged Florentino visits Fermina and declares that his love for her has never diminished and that whenever she should call, he shall be there, arms open. Fermina howls at him, disgusted.

Then we go back many years to the beginning of a courtship between Florentino and Fermina, and we see that after the passage of time, Fermina starts to see her boundless love for the guy as no more than a child’s infatuation. She goes on to marry the staid and stately Urbino, and tho’ there’s no grand passion, the two do indeed grow into a sort of love. This all goes on through many many hours, and through it all, Florentino is quite the lovesick puppy-eyed wretch.

Uhm, a wretch who’ll bed ANYthing. Described as rather homely, ‘twould appear that he’s appealing enough for a vaaaaast amount of women to warm his bed, or to do it wherever else he pleases.

Hours.

HOURS.

Okay, so as it’s gloriously written, I didn’t retch, but my husband’s observation had me tense. And then when I got to the final hours, oh good gosh: What should happen BUT—

The dude becomes guardian to a 14-year old girl he falls in love with. Bad. Then he grooms her for a bit to be ready for him. Bad! Then he has an affair with her. BAD. And all the while he speaks to her as tho’ she’s some itty bitty girl, dresses her, helps her put her panties on, ties her shoelaces.

BAD BAD BAD

TOTALLY uncomfortable with that, no matter how gorgeously written. He grooms the young girl, and then ditches her with nary a word at the moment Fermina becomes available, when both he and Fermina are in their dotage. What was a man in his dotage doing with a 14-year old girl? Appalling! And then the poor girl is confused and despairing, enough to where she meets an unfortunate end, and he could give less of a crap as his obsession is now available.

I was worried about all narrations this week, even this one. I saw John Lee as narrator to One Hundred Years of Solitude, and I kinda sorta felt that Lee’s sweeping oratorical tones would be more in keeping with such epic writing. I was wrong. Armando Durán was magnificent. Nope, it wasn’t epic narration, sorely lacking in sweeping qualities, but it brought the prose down to earth, conveyed the day-to-day magic of each life as it was lived, cradle to neeeeear grave. Durán captured the beauty of the writing of Gabriel García Márquez, made the longing palpable -and- made sex with a young girl absoLUTEly disgusting. So a definite Huzzah, plus a Booo for child rape.

Okay okay okay. I’ll drop the perceived rape, and I’ll say this is elegantly written, with notes of whimsy and irony. A definite pleasure to read until the sexual escapades veered off into territory where my gorge rose. Make of it what you will.

15 hours, 41 minutes, most of it was stellar and enjoyable, and I truly enjoyed how it all came together in the end.

It’s just those ice-pick-to-the-brain images… OUCH…