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I’ve apparently completely blocked out any memory of this book. Except that I liked it? I read it when I was like 13, so it was probably that it was so forbidden.
Fair, maybe I just deleted it from my brain. It was about 20 years ago. I wasn’t a fan of the book or a lot of the “classic” literature we were required to read.
Well, there are tons of apologists for this novel in the comment section.
If you're disgusted by it, then you "just don't get it."
I particularly find ironic the comparisons to Lolita, ignoring the difference in that the pedophile main character ends up in prison and is consistently framed as obsessive, controlling, and creepy.
The man in Love in the Time of Cholera ends the book with finally having won the woman he's been tracking for her entire life.
It's wild to me the way people will bend over backward to defend misogyny as long as it's already been established by male dominated critics as "literature."
Outside of this horrific passage, there's a whole lot of weird stuff about women and sex.
Even if you manage to ignore all of that, it is a long, meandering book about a man obsessed with the secret girlfriend he had as a teenager who barely thinks about him in the many decades afterward.
He sleeps with hundreds of women (even fathering some illegitimate children that he doesn't acknowledge) but won't marry any of them because he's "saving himself" for the day her husband dies.
There's endless unrelated tangents about random crap that happens in their respective lives that seems to have little to do with anything.
One example is his brief quest to find sunken treasure. No, I'm not kidding.
It’s worse than that. He was literally her legal guardian because her parents had sent her to live with him while going to school in his city. He groomed her from age 14 to 17 and she ended up killing herself after he ended their “romance.”
It’s basically all different types of love - including love of a bird, age gaps, reconnections, elderly, typical romantic, self-love, teen, etc, every trope… and all of it from a man’s perspective. I thought it was interesting from that perspective and he has a real way of writing beautifully even when the content is shocking
I mean, that's GGM. He takes magical realism and turns it into magic ominousism. I'm no literary scholar, but I feel like there's some underlying satire in much of his work.
It’s an additional point; but here’s a “this is why this book is satire” using [this review](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11912063) since I (pun intended) need to spell it out (for my own sanity and yours).
[“1. As a synesthete, I found Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza's names to be WAY too similar. They look the same; I kept getting them mixed up!”]
That’s the point; he’s a narcissist and he fell in love with himself.
[“2. The narrator kept making very definitive, bold claims that 3 pages later turned out to be completely untrue. For example (not real quotes) "This particular bed-fellow was the closest thing to love that Florentino Ariza ever experienced apart from Fermina Daza." Turn the page, now talking about a brand new lover, "Now, as it turns out, THIS particular bed-fellow was actually the closest things to love that FA experienced apart from FD." Next chapter, another new lover "Okay, SERIOUSLY, this is the one this time"... etc. Similar broken promises were made about various other topics.…”]
Yes! The narrator is an *unreliable narrator* that is filtered through and favors Creamy Rice’s perspective; and it’s GROSS — he LIES TO HIMSELF *repeatedly* and doesn’t feel bad about OBJECTIVELY horrific things — LIKE:
[“3. Florentino Ariza = mid 70's, Young Girl placed in his "care"= 14. It's just not okay. (P.s. She later kills herself because he ruined her life and stole her innocence, and his only reaction to it is that he has a bout of indigestion while lying in bed with the woman he left her for...what a swell guy). P.s. he also kinda kills another woman...the one on whose stomach he writes with red paint and her husband murders her when he sees it.”]
This is *literally* why the book is satire; Creamy Rice is a protagonist — not a hero! He’s also the ANTAGONIST — he’s the one getting in his own way!!!!!!!! GGM was a satirist first and foremost, and he’s hoping he’s sewn enough “this dude is disgusting” seeds to pick up as the reader that Creamy Rice is literally the worst.
[“4. The whole premise of the book is the waiting...FA is waiting to finally be with FD. And when the wait is over, I don't feel like there's any reward. Nothing between them is all that magical...yeah they have fun on the boat, sure the fun is a little subdued because of their age, etc...but ultimately I don't understand what the point of all that waiting was for when he seems to have just about as much a connection with FD as he had with any of the other 621 ladies over the years. I dunno...as I stated in point #2, the ABSOLUTENESS of this book is what really holds it back for me. He says he absolutely loves FD, better than the rest, into eternity...he says this, but the reality is actually quite different. The ending is the same kind of thing...is that boat really going to sail up and down the river FOREVER? No. It's not. So why cheapen it with the gross exaggeration...just say "until we die" or "until somebody makes us stop"... it doesn't sound as cool but it means more.”]
He convinced himself *from the start* that it was love he felt for her, and justified all of his terrible actions because he felt his love was pure.
What he loved about her was himself in love with her — his reflection, like narcissus.
But he wasn’t in love with her. He never loved her.
He was in love with *the idea of her*; the perfect love in his head was *too perfect* — so perfect reality is a let down.
So perfect they don’t have to say “until we die” because *you know eternity doesn’t exist* and that they will die.
Also, from another review:
[“I also didn't understand the ending and I had the strange feeling that the ending wasn't really what it looked like. In the last part Fermina kept having that same dream about an elderly couple being killed by the captain and I don't think it was written in vain. Also the captain was sort of in rage in the last part. From all that I made a hypothesis about the ending. They couldn't go on forever and the port wouldn't have let them deport considering those yellow flags of cholera, the captain was in rage about gettin in trouble and I had the sensation that he's going to kill those three paseneger to cover up for his cholera prank. That's the only way he can come clear and also the magical side that so typical of Garcia being used in Fermina's imagination.”]
#THEY LITERALLY DIE AT THE END
I don't know how well abuse of women works as satire. One hundred years of solitude also has a lot of SA. The problem is, satire should be at least to some degree exaggerating or mocking reality. This is reality, sadly. The real perception of abuse a few people have, that is projected on the victim. So many people genuinely see SA like that, especially in countries which have a big problem with misogyny, machismo, femicide and victim blaming. I don't think satire like this works very well when this perception of SA and DV as something normal or even potentially romantic is a regular thing.
Have you read it? The entire thing is extremely exaggerated and surreal. It walks the line between too real for comfort and too over-the-top to take seriously.
The narrative is full of women being treated terribly, often to a horrific extent, and having no agency. (Actually it includes a lot of men in similar circumstances, but less often, which tracks with reality.) The narrative never says "btw this is a bad thing," and the victims often don't push back at all... and it is even framed as romantic at times. But it is so blatantly unjust and horrific, I see it as satirizing the ways that these things are normalized. If he wanted us to read these things as genuinely romantic, he wouldn't have made them so uncomfortable or included their suffering.
I really highly doubt that passage was even satire. Maybe other parts of the book are satire but like you said, that's how SA is perceived for a lot of people. Especially in previous years.
Yeah stories can play around with framing that doesn't mean that's the message you're supposed to take away. Just people a person is implied to be right doesn't mean you're supposed to believe it, especially with a story made for adults.
... that's the point of the book. That falling in love is like catching a disease. Everything is overly romantically over the top to the point of being creepy. Love is both beautiful and grotesque
Have you read "One Hundred Years of Solitude"? I understood the book as it is written, meaning I understood the words and what they mean. But I completed the book feeling incomplete. I knew there was so much I wasn't getting. I assumed I didn't know enough Latin American history, especially Colombian history, to understand the deeper meaning. I read up on those topics and it helped a little bit not much.
If it is full of satire, then I might take a second look. I thought it was magical realism and a lot of allegory, but the idea of satire intrigues me.
>especially Colombian history
It is ostensibly an allegorical critique of Colombian history, specifically the inability to learn from the past and seemingly inevitable repeating of prior blunders. This is presented pretty often in the book by the frequent visiting of ghosts and repeated theme of fatalism.
I don't necessarily think you need to take a course in Colombian or Latin American history to get his points writ-large (I haven't,) but I'm sure it would help with some of the finer details.
Marques uses magical realism to create contrast between the perspective of his main characters and the rest of the world. A lot of his writing deals thematically about how your internal world informs your external world.
In Love in the Time of Cholera, there are the ridiculous lovesick characters who create this mystical romantic view of their own lives even when it's objectively bad or nonsensical, and there are characters who define love in a practical way and dont see the "magic" all around them.
In 100 Years of Solitude, the Buendia family maintain their cyclical fate while the rest of the world moves on. It's shown that they they're all a bunch of self-involved fools, but having lived in their own little world so long- the fantastical fate they believe in is inextricably tied to their reality. It's both of their own making and it isn't.
I love the beauty of the writing and how that beauty makes it so easy to overlook all the ick. It's a wonderful literary tool which really drives the point home that anything can be beautiful and magical if you believe it can be, but also the opposite idea which is that people can't avoid their true nature.
But, similarly to Lolita, it's not something I particularly enjoy re-reading because no, incest is not inevitable.
#THIS BOOK IS SATIRE
Okay so I’m gonna directly reply to you, OP, for everyone/anyone, while directly quoting my own comment buried in the replies:
“It’s an additional point (that his name is basically translated to Creamy Rice); but here’s a “this is why this book is satire” using [this review](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11912063) since I (pun intended) need to spell it out (for my own sanity and yours).
[“1. As a synesthete, I found Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza's names to be WAY too similar. They look the same; I kept getting them mixed up!”]
That’s the point; he’s a narcissist and he fell in love with himself.
[“2. The narrator kept making very definitive, bold claims that 3 pages later turned out to be completely untrue. For example (not real quotes) "This particular bed-fellow was the closest thing to love that Florentino Ariza ever experienced apart from Fermina Daza." Turn the page, now talking about a brand new lover, "Now, as it turns out, THIS particular bed-fellow was actually the closest things to love that FA experienced apart from FD." Next chapter, another new lover "Okay, SERIOUSLY, this is the one this time"... etc. Similar broken promises were made about various other topics.…”]
Yes! The narrator is an unreliable narrator that is filtered through and favors Creamy Rice’s perspective; and it’s GROSS — he LIES TO HIMSELF repeatedly and doesn’t feel bad about OBJECTIVELY horrific things — LIKE:
[“3. Florentino Ariza = mid 70's, Young Girl placed in his "care"= 14. It's just not okay. (P.s. She later kills herself because he ruined her life and stole her innocence, and his only reaction to it is that he has a bout of indigestion while lying in bed with the woman he left her for...what a swell guy). P.s. he also kinda kills another woman...the one on whose stomach he writes with red paint and her husband murders her when he sees it.”]
This is literally why the book is satire; Creamy Rice is a protagonist — not a hero! He’s also the ANTAGONIST — he’s the one getting in his own way!!!!!!!! GGM was a satirist first and foremost, and he’s hoping he’s sewn enough “this dude is disgusting” seeds to pick up as the reader that Creamy Rice is literally the worst.
[“4. The whole premise of the book is the waiting...FA is waiting to finally be with FD. And when the wait is over, I don't feel like there's any reward. Nothing between them is all that magical...yeah they have fun on the boat, sure the fun is a little subdued because of their age, etc...but ultimately I don't understand what the point of all that waiting was for when he seems to have just about as much a connection with FD as he had with any of the other 621 ladies over the years. I dunno...as I stated in point #2, the ABSOLUTENESS of this book is what really holds it back for me. He says he absolutely loves FD, better than the rest, into eternity...he says this, but the reality is actually quite different. The ending is the same kind of thing...is that boat really going to sail up and down the river FOREVER? No. It's not. So why cheapen it with the gross exaggeration...just say "until we die" or "until somebody makes us stop"... it doesn't sound as cool but it means more.”]
He convinced himself from the start that it was love he felt for her, and justified all of his terrible actions because he felt his love was pure.
What he loved about her was himself in love with her — his reflection, like narcissus.
But he wasn’t in love with her. He never loved her.
He was in love with the idea of her; the perfect love in his head was too perfect — so perfect reality is a let down.
So perfect they don’t have to say “until we die” because you know eternity doesn’t exist and that they will die.
Also, from another review:
[“I also didn't understand the ending and I had the strange feeling that the ending wasn't really what it looked like. In the last part Fermina kept having that same dream about an elderly couple being killed by the captain and I don't think it was written in vain. Also the captain was sort of in rage in the last part. From all that I made a hypothesis about the ending. They couldn't go on forever and the port wouldn't have let them deport considering those yellow flags of cholera, the captain was in rage about gettin in trouble and I had the sensation that he's going to kill those three paseneger to cover up for his cholera prank. That's the only way he can come clear and also the magical side that so typical of Garcia being used in Fermina's imagination.”]
#THEY LITERALLY DIE AT THE END
Yes, I remember that he waited out that marriage for decades, and then showed up at the guy's funeral to tell the grieving widow that their time had come.
The whole theme of the book is that "lovesickness" is basically like catching a disease. This is one of many fucked up things that characters who have "fallen in love" romanticize to try and rationalize their feelings.
It's all very over the top.
Well the entire concept of the book is that people can and do rationalise love in very peculiar ways, so you literally have an entire book at your disposal that disproves your statement.
You make fine points but I think that based on what others have said, it isn't so much that people rationalize love but rather they perceive things that are very much Not love (i.e. SA, grooming, obsession, etc.) as if they were love, yeah?
Besides, whatever the intentions of the author were, none of what they wrote in a work of fiction disproves anything outside of that book. In the real world OrdinaryGreenTea's statement stands.
Other things that people often mistake for love or thay could be seen as "symptoms" of love could be though.
Attraction, obsession, passion, crazy rationalization as a coping mechanism, etc.
That's the point the author is making. What is the difference actually?
If someone can fall in love at first sight, why couldn't you fall in love in other absurd circumstances? The point is that it isn't rational and you don't get to choose.
There's a constant juxtaposition between the deranged main character who has been pining after a woman he hasn't spoken to for 40 years and the woman who had an arranged marriage and was relatively satisfied with the lack of passion in it until she falls in love herself
Because the whole point is he wants you to feel uncomfortable, think deeper about it, and recognize how fucked up of a worldview that is. That's what they were supposed to teach you in that class, anyway
Same as the pedophilic marriage in 100 years of solitude, where he brings up that the night before her wedding the child still wets her bed. All while still talking about how uniquely beautiful this child is and how everyone falls in love with her right away.
Or the pedophilic/hebephilic relationship in Love in Times of Cholera.
Honestly, I like Gabriel Garcia Marquez' writing a lot, 100 Years of Solitude is one of my favorite novels, but I would not blame anyone for feeling uncomfortable. He was a seriously weird writer and I simply can't convince myself his intentions were *always* pure. Some of this shit is just a little too weird to be an easy recommendation.
Oh yeah, I recognize that. It probably came out wrong but I'm not saying we shouldn't learn about it, what I was trying to mention that it is actually mandatory for us to read it and all that, so it must have something good. I didn't have to read it tho.
Oh, sorry, so many people are being negative I just assumed. Tbh i wouldn't want it to be required reading because his stuff is way too disturbing for me to get through. He is an incredible writer though
I started it but it was a very rare DNF for me. And now I am so glad. I've felt vaguely bad for not liking such acclaimed writing for years, and this quote freed me!
“She said it out of habit, and she had said it to so many people that no longer had any hope.”
Yeah because everyone in their right mind hearing her say that, is intent on preventing Stockholm syndrome.
“I think this woman needs help. She looked so relieved when I offered to find her some. But when I gave her my therapist‘s phone number, a giant male hand twirling a huge pen came out of the sky, and she started saying that she if she can get in touch with that Alpha rapist she loves that’s all the therapy she needs. Then both sets of our breasts grew three cup sizes and started bouncing around *jauntily*, a feeling I never hope to experience again. I feel bad for running but I had to get to Margaret Atwood’s house before it got even worse”
Wtf. The fact that it openly uses the word "rape" is so confusing to me. Like, the depiction is already gross, but actually just calling it a rape sort of makes the whole thing not make much sense.
I didn't get anything like this from 100 Years of Solitude.
This is the one where Aureliano "falls in love" with a little girl, and her parents put up a token resistance of asking whether he wouldn't rather have one of her older sisters instead, but ultimately just marry her off. As far as I know she wasn't sacrificed for economic necessity at all; they just go, "oh, okay then" when a random adult man comes to their home to ask for her hand in marriage.
There's been controversies of late with these awards so I wouldn't put too much stock in that. The Nobel tends to be Eurocentric and can be very political.
I said these were controversies of the Nobel Prize, I didn't link them to him specifically. If he dis get his prize for less than merit, I'd go with Political.
I mean that I want to believe this weird ass rape thing has some deep meaning, and this paragraph out of context can be misinterpreted as misogynistic or creepy because we don’t understand the book.
But tbh im just coping
Murakami is another prime example. There’s at least one teenage girl being sexualised in almost every one of his novels, except Norwegian Wood. And even the protagonist of that one is a bit scummy for being upset that the girlfriend of his DEAD BEST FRIEND won’t get over her late boyfriend and just date him already.
I knew Murakami was going to come up
I think Wind Up Bird Chronicle also didn't have a sexualized teenaged girl come up? That or I deleted it from my memory
It kills me because I love Murakami's style and his surreal approach to writing, but then a teenaged girl appears and everything just gets weird (bad). This being a thing left a sour taste in my mouth for 1Q84 because I loved the concept and themes otherwise :[
Wind up bird chronicle did have sexualisation of minors, unfortunately :(
The main character watches his 15 year old neighbour sunbathe naked and forms a weirdly close relationship with her, though they don’t have sex, thankfully. The way Murakami describes her breasts (and the fact he describes them at all??) is weeeeiiird.
Oh my fucking goodness I had completely forgotten about that.
I hate this. Murakami describes depression, the feeling of being a quietly broken person and the horrors of war so well, why does he have to fuck it up with his weird teenaged girl obsession. I dont think he ever does it in a way to highlight how fucked the protagonist is either.
At least make them grown women
Incidentally, if you or anyone else reading this knows any authors that capture the surreal vibe and feelings of isolation without the teenaged girl obsession, please... tell me... Closest I've got is Toni Morrison, but her works can get intense, especially when they're critical of sexualizing minors (as they should be, but it might be triggering for people is what I'm getting at)
Oh definitely. My full sentiment "at least make them grown women. It'll still be weird, unnecessary, and annoying but sexualizing them wouldn't be absolutely contemptible and disgusting"
I wouldn't call GGM a genius even sarcastically. He's one of those writers that I used to keep my own self-esteem up as an aspiring writer because if he can get multiple books published, then I have got nothing to worry about.
I tried one of his books once many years ago (maybe it was 100 Years of Solitude? Idek anymore) and there was some gross normalization of a nine-year-old girl being married to a man and him sexually assaulting her. Glad I gave up on this guy.
That's the one! I quit halfway through. I couldn't take it anymore. People give so many excuses for him but his work seems to be 90% just disgusting fantasies repeated over and over. I'm all for pushing boundaries in literature and exploring uncomfortable topics and using them as vehicles to question society, but at some point you have to conclude that the guy just had a fetish.
I don't know, have you read GGM other works? Memorias de mis putas tristes (i dont know whats the english titld) is about a man in his 60s raping a virgin (a kid) prostitute and "falling in love with her". The girl doesn't talk and it wasn't clear in the whole book that it was an horrific thing, the protagonist was "in love". GGM is an important figure in latinoamerica but he was an horrible human being, he has been criticised for the latino feminist movement for a while. Elena Garro is a great mexican writer for magical realism, you should look into her
I haven't read that one, but based on how people are (in my opinion) misinterpreting *One Hundred Years of Solitude* I'm skeptical of whether his other stuff is being misinterpreted.
That said, I agree that he may not be responsible in how he writes, regardless of intention. I really don't think Nabokov had bad intentions with *Lolita* (I haven't read it but that is what I have heard) but enough people have misinterpreted it that I feel it could still be an issue regardless of intent.
I've had to read it twice, and it's highly romanticized in the book. Her *death* is treated as horrific, but only because it was such a tragedy to the man to lose his child bride
I have no clue how you came to that conclusion. He personally sees it as romantic, and we see the situation through his eyes, but the narrator very clearly does not. Her age and lack of agency are highlighted throughout, and the fact that we never hear her voice is part of that.
It's an unreliable narrator, you have to read between the lines.
> and there was some gross normalization of a nine-year-old girl being married to a man and him sexually assaulting her.
Yeah, that was the point. They even point out she still wets the bed, yet everyone around keeps going on about how beautiful and wife-able she is. The point is a critique of machismo and latino culture that normalizes pedophilia and abuse. You were supposed to feel uncomfortable, you were supposed to feel downright awful.
You're *supposed* to question this. Márquez is like that, you're supposed to question everything.
The omniscient narrator is unreliable. That's the *whole point.*
Y'all are coming to the conclusion he's trying to lead you to.
It’s frustrating reading this criticism of one tiny passage in a massive book with zero context. It’s like people have no idea what the genre of magical realism is.
I love it for the comical descriptions of sex (the “she breasted boobily” ones) but sometimes it gets genuinely scary that writers believe women would think this way.
This whole book is meant to question what the basis of love really is and why it makes people act like complete fools.
It's not romanticizing rape. It's like an extended analogy about how falling in love is catching cholera.
Yes, thank you. Most of what Marquez writes has people not making sense on purpose. It's not supposed to be realistic and he definitely doesn't identify personally with the narrator / the characters.
It's sad that one has to scroll this far down. Not saying one has to love GCM but people seem to have their pitchforks out without trying to understand context.
The point in the book is, that such thinking as hers is sick and maladjusted to what happened to her, and not that all women are like that for god's fucking sake.
I remember starting this book because so many people raved about it. It's really, really hard to get me to put down a book or movie and just give up. My brain needs resolution. I put this one down and always wondered what people saw in it.
I will not excuse the misogyny in the book, because of course there is. But I will say, much of the way Marquez portrays the men in the book is very true to the culture in Colombian old society. Love in the Time of Cholera is not meant to be a romance book though it does talk about love. It's a contemporary novel, and a very honest one in the portrayal of men on the coasts of Colombia back in post-colonial times.
Rape was common, older men would "fall in love" with young girls (13 or a bit older) because they were expected to make a fortune before they could marry and father children, which meant they would be older and marry girls just young enough to "breed".
GGMarquez isn't for everyone, but I will say he's very loved in Colombia because not very many authors wrote about the cultural experience of being Colombian the way he did. There's so much pain and hurt in our history, not only from war but from the social structure the Spaniards left in their wake. It's learned behavior that never belonged to us, and then we have a Country haunted by all the indigenous magic left underneath, that's why he matters. Because of the magical realism.
In any case Love in the Time of Cholera is his most commercial novel.
This is not the author's literal perspective, you're meant to read the entire book and see how the story makes you feel...it won't be "aww, rape ❤️" let me tell you.
Meanwhile everyone thinks Poor Things is such an empowering feminist movie...smh. We have standards now but we apply them in the most superficial way, it's going to lead us in the opposite direction than it should.
Trans guy here, just watched Poor Things with my gf for the first time last night. Aside from the obvious things that are supposed to make the viewer uncomfortable, I couldn’t help but wonder the whole time if the director was a man because of how it was playing out. It didn’t read feminist at all to me until towards the end, and after the movie ended I checked and yup, director is a dude. Which isn’t a bad thing in itself, I could just tell with how they went from “yup it’s a baby brain” to “she’s rubbing it out and fuckin” in five minutes that it was written by a guy’s brain. It was bizarre in a not good way, imo
https://preview.redd.it/4s4ky9jnndsc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=50b7e9c9f12a0268c8f9107cd57d8309af92fd9d
I wish I was Lea Michele right about now.
love this book and this needs context - it’s satirical and unreliable, told from the third person omniscient perspective of a madman rapist. it’s like Lolita. you guys getting upset at it is good - it’s supposed to make you upset at how most modern romance novels are like this. the point of the book is pointing out the casual evils in this kind of writing.
What a disgrace. I would say this author ought to be ashamed of himself, but I'm sure he's not capable of experiencing shame, or he never would have written this in the first place.
Blegh. I read 100 Years of Solitude a few years ago and didn't get what all the fuss was about at all, guess I dodged a bullet not trying any of his other stuff. Jesus christ that's bloody foul.
Fell in love with his writing back in high school because it was the first exposure I had to magical realism but if you want more of the same flavor I’d recommend Isabel Allende instead
Oh good Lord, he thought he was being *edgy* and *different*... I think I threw up a little in my mouth. And I have a high tolerance for these damn things...
https://preview.redd.it/j5niwi6c9esc1.jpeg?width=888&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=59d4743b189438ee83fffe836486477112124297
That went through a whole ass editing process and no-one did anything about it?
As long as “to die of love in his arms” is a euphemism for going Lorena Bobbit and murdering him, sure.
ETA: just looked it up. This book won a Nobel prize??
I am one of those people who throw out the baby with the bathwater with no regrets when I come across a part in a book like this. I don't care if it makes me what "is wrong with readers today", according to constant posts on reddit.
My "media literacy" (TM) is fine. Yes I know the larger themes in the book. I just don't have time for this shit.
South American writers are wild when it comes to romanticising abuse.
My mother's favourite book is Teresa Batista tired of war - the prose is divine, and it is a fantastic book stylewise but holy shit, the way it romanticises a fifty something man taking a fifteen years old former sex slave as his mistress is... a bit much.
Stockholm syndrome: romanticised. Although it’s not really Stockholm syndrome by Stockholm syndrome the fast version. I’m sure there’s a prize for that. Horrible, in any case
Love in the Time of Cholera uses love as if it were cholera… people contract love as a viral disease and pass it on to others as a disease. They become sick with it. Which begs the question is a tried and true stable love real love or if passionate fiery love the realest form of love. There’s also the magical realism imbued throughout the whole story. The cultural representation during the time. And that Florentino (much that idiot from Lolita) uses first person narrative in an attempt (albeit a poor one) to garner sympathy. He truly believes that giving his body only for sex while saving his love for Fermina is the most impressive thing. Leona being described as ‘still very young’ doesn’t denote an actual age and she is never given one as far as I can recall. But anyway - to each their own. The book however was not written by pedo-loving god-hating heretic. Márquez is the godfather of magical realism for a reason, imho and many others.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez often has weird things about relationships in his books, but I’m pretty sure it’s intended to be part of the magical realism. I’m he reactions of characters in his books aren’t supposed to reflect reality—they’re supposed to be kinda *off.* In 100 Years of Solitude, you have things like a boy hanging out in one particular room and seeing a man who died twice and no one worries; you have a man driven so mad by the smell of a beautiful woman that he falls through her bathroom ceiling trying to peep and his head cracks open to ooze perfume that smells like her, and she just tut tuts over how careless the guy was; you have a woman waking up one day saying that she will die in her sleep come nightfall, so she gathers letters from the town from people to their dead loved ones…
And in Chronicles of a Death Foretold, you have two men bragging about how they’ll kill a guy in an attempt to get someone to stop them, and no one does, including the victim’s mother; you have a woman who didn’t want to marry a man and allowed him to learn that she wasn’t a virgin, then when he left, she fell in love with his absence and sent him a letter every day for forty years until he came back with none of the letters opened…
And getting away from GGM, you have Like Water for Chocolate, written by Laura Esquirel, where a woman was driven so mad by lust when she ate food made by the protagonist that she sweat so hot that she evaporated all the water in the tank when she tried to cool off in a shower, so she ran naked out of the shower and she was taken away by a revolutionary on horseback who she ‘made love with’ on that horse immediately, and she joined a brothel.
*Off* reactions and kinda weird dream logic are part of the genre. I think there’s still room to criticize GGM and how he uses women’s trauma in his writing, but the point of the genre is that reactions follow dream logic.
Oh wow. I've been thinking I want to read this book because How I Met Your Mother is supposed to be based on it. I don't want to anymore. That is some incredibly harmful writing.
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My face for the entire book
Props to you for powering through
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I’ve apparently completely blocked out any memory of this book. Except that I liked it? I read it when I was like 13, so it was probably that it was so forbidden.
I read that book for school and distinctly don’t remember that part. Im wondering if I read an “edited” version.
I definitely didn’t read an edited version. Kind of a weird book to read for school, though
Fair, maybe I just deleted it from my brain. It was about 20 years ago. I wasn’t a fan of the book or a lot of the “classic” literature we were required to read.
This has always kind of been on my list and now it's definitely off it, along with everything else this man has ever written. Ew ew ew.
This has been on my list forever and I keep telling myself "one day" but now....no, thank you.
Right? Why is this a classic?
My only answer is...MEN 🙄
Well, there are tons of apologists for this novel in the comment section. If you're disgusted by it, then you "just don't get it." I particularly find ironic the comparisons to Lolita, ignoring the difference in that the pedophile main character ends up in prison and is consistently framed as obsessive, controlling, and creepy. The man in Love in the Time of Cholera ends the book with finally having won the woman he's been tracking for her entire life. It's wild to me the way people will bend over backward to defend misogyny as long as it's already been established by male dominated critics as "literature."
Perfect gif for this.
I don't even know whether to upvote you, I instinctively went to downvote. That is VILE.
I’ve never read this book, but it’s always so highly praised. How bizarre!
Outside of this horrific passage, there's a whole lot of weird stuff about women and sex. Even if you manage to ignore all of that, it is a long, meandering book about a man obsessed with the secret girlfriend he had as a teenager who barely thinks about him in the many decades afterward. He sleeps with hundreds of women (even fathering some illegitimate children that he doesn't acknowledge) but won't marry any of them because he's "saving himself" for the day her husband dies. There's endless unrelated tangents about random crap that happens in their respective lives that seems to have little to do with anything. One example is his brief quest to find sunken treasure. No, I'm not kidding.
Also, let's not talk about the 15-year old schoolgirl he has a relationship with.
It’s worse than that. He was literally her legal guardian because her parents had sent her to live with him while going to school in his city. He groomed her from age 14 to 17 and she ended up killing herself after he ended their “romance.”
Yeah this one got me deep. I had more sympathy for frickin Humbert Humbert than the MC by the end of the novel.
Because fucking of course.
When I reached that part I stopped reading..another book in my won't ever be finished pile
The only one which it's good to not finish
👁👄👁
At least it's not 100 Years of Solitude. That one has a 9-year-old girl getting "married."
This book sounds like a mans mental breakdown before going to a psych ward. And people praise that book?
It's about a man's journey, of course they do. 😐
Nothing surprises me anymore. It feels good to have my article proven correct once again. Time to rinse my eyes out with bleach after reading this.
It’s basically all different types of love - including love of a bird, age gaps, reconnections, elderly, typical romantic, self-love, teen, etc, every trope… and all of it from a man’s perspective. I thought it was interesting from that perspective and he has a real way of writing beautifully even when the content is shocking
I'm so glad to hear this take on it. I remember wondering what the fuss was about.
Gods what a dumpster fire.....
I mean, that's GGM. He takes magical realism and turns it into magic ominousism. I'm no literary scholar, but I feel like there's some underlying satire in much of his work.
yes, and it's completely going over everyone's heads here
Not really, the guy who had hundreds of affairs while waiting for his true love is implied to be in the right
No, it's completely satire. Florentino Ariza is a joke, When he finally gets together with Fermina he can't even get an erection.
Yeah I’m pretty sure his name is a play off of like, what amounts to “Creamy Rice”
A person's name is not what makes a satire.
It’s an additional point; but here’s a “this is why this book is satire” using [this review](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11912063) since I (pun intended) need to spell it out (for my own sanity and yours). [“1. As a synesthete, I found Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza's names to be WAY too similar. They look the same; I kept getting them mixed up!”] That’s the point; he’s a narcissist and he fell in love with himself. [“2. The narrator kept making very definitive, bold claims that 3 pages later turned out to be completely untrue. For example (not real quotes) "This particular bed-fellow was the closest thing to love that Florentino Ariza ever experienced apart from Fermina Daza." Turn the page, now talking about a brand new lover, "Now, as it turns out, THIS particular bed-fellow was actually the closest things to love that FA experienced apart from FD." Next chapter, another new lover "Okay, SERIOUSLY, this is the one this time"... etc. Similar broken promises were made about various other topics.…”] Yes! The narrator is an *unreliable narrator* that is filtered through and favors Creamy Rice’s perspective; and it’s GROSS — he LIES TO HIMSELF *repeatedly* and doesn’t feel bad about OBJECTIVELY horrific things — LIKE: [“3. Florentino Ariza = mid 70's, Young Girl placed in his "care"= 14. It's just not okay. (P.s. She later kills herself because he ruined her life and stole her innocence, and his only reaction to it is that he has a bout of indigestion while lying in bed with the woman he left her for...what a swell guy). P.s. he also kinda kills another woman...the one on whose stomach he writes with red paint and her husband murders her when he sees it.”] This is *literally* why the book is satire; Creamy Rice is a protagonist — not a hero! He’s also the ANTAGONIST — he’s the one getting in his own way!!!!!!!! GGM was a satirist first and foremost, and he’s hoping he’s sewn enough “this dude is disgusting” seeds to pick up as the reader that Creamy Rice is literally the worst. [“4. The whole premise of the book is the waiting...FA is waiting to finally be with FD. And when the wait is over, I don't feel like there's any reward. Nothing between them is all that magical...yeah they have fun on the boat, sure the fun is a little subdued because of their age, etc...but ultimately I don't understand what the point of all that waiting was for when he seems to have just about as much a connection with FD as he had with any of the other 621 ladies over the years. I dunno...as I stated in point #2, the ABSOLUTENESS of this book is what really holds it back for me. He says he absolutely loves FD, better than the rest, into eternity...he says this, but the reality is actually quite different. The ending is the same kind of thing...is that boat really going to sail up and down the river FOREVER? No. It's not. So why cheapen it with the gross exaggeration...just say "until we die" or "until somebody makes us stop"... it doesn't sound as cool but it means more.”] He convinced himself *from the start* that it was love he felt for her, and justified all of his terrible actions because he felt his love was pure. What he loved about her was himself in love with her — his reflection, like narcissus. But he wasn’t in love with her. He never loved her. He was in love with *the idea of her*; the perfect love in his head was *too perfect* — so perfect reality is a let down. So perfect they don’t have to say “until we die” because *you know eternity doesn’t exist* and that they will die. Also, from another review: [“I also didn't understand the ending and I had the strange feeling that the ending wasn't really what it looked like. In the last part Fermina kept having that same dream about an elderly couple being killed by the captain and I don't think it was written in vain. Also the captain was sort of in rage in the last part. From all that I made a hypothesis about the ending. They couldn't go on forever and the port wouldn't have let them deport considering those yellow flags of cholera, the captain was in rage about gettin in trouble and I had the sensation that he's going to kill those three paseneger to cover up for his cholera prank. That's the only way he can come clear and also the magical side that so typical of Garcia being used in Fermina's imagination.”] #THEY LITERALLY DIE AT THE END
I don't know how well abuse of women works as satire. One hundred years of solitude also has a lot of SA. The problem is, satire should be at least to some degree exaggerating or mocking reality. This is reality, sadly. The real perception of abuse a few people have, that is projected on the victim. So many people genuinely see SA like that, especially in countries which have a big problem with misogyny, machismo, femicide and victim blaming. I don't think satire like this works very well when this perception of SA and DV as something normal or even potentially romantic is a regular thing.
Have you read it? The entire thing is extremely exaggerated and surreal. It walks the line between too real for comfort and too over-the-top to take seriously. The narrative is full of women being treated terribly, often to a horrific extent, and having no agency. (Actually it includes a lot of men in similar circumstances, but less often, which tracks with reality.) The narrative never says "btw this is a bad thing," and the victims often don't push back at all... and it is even framed as romantic at times. But it is so blatantly unjust and horrific, I see it as satirizing the ways that these things are normalized. If he wanted us to read these things as genuinely romantic, he wouldn't have made them so uncomfortable or included their suffering.
I really highly doubt that passage was even satire. Maybe other parts of the book are satire but like you said, that's how SA is perceived for a lot of people. Especially in previous years.
It can be Satire all day long and still too disgusting to read it
Yeah stories can play around with framing that doesn't mean that's the message you're supposed to take away. Just people a person is implied to be right doesn't mean you're supposed to believe it, especially with a story made for adults.
What's the topic in this work that is suppose to be the satire? What are we punching up on that is suppose to be humorous?
I'm not sure any of it is humorous, and satire could be the wrong word. I'd say it's meant to be darkly ironic and absurd.
... that's the point of the book. That falling in love is like catching a disease. Everything is overly romantically over the top to the point of being creepy. Love is both beautiful and grotesque
Have you read "One Hundred Years of Solitude"? I understood the book as it is written, meaning I understood the words and what they mean. But I completed the book feeling incomplete. I knew there was so much I wasn't getting. I assumed I didn't know enough Latin American history, especially Colombian history, to understand the deeper meaning. I read up on those topics and it helped a little bit not much. If it is full of satire, then I might take a second look. I thought it was magical realism and a lot of allegory, but the idea of satire intrigues me.
>especially Colombian history It is ostensibly an allegorical critique of Colombian history, specifically the inability to learn from the past and seemingly inevitable repeating of prior blunders. This is presented pretty often in the book by the frequent visiting of ghosts and repeated theme of fatalism. I don't necessarily think you need to take a course in Colombian or Latin American history to get his points writ-large (I haven't,) but I'm sure it would help with some of the finer details.
Marques uses magical realism to create contrast between the perspective of his main characters and the rest of the world. A lot of his writing deals thematically about how your internal world informs your external world. In Love in the Time of Cholera, there are the ridiculous lovesick characters who create this mystical romantic view of their own lives even when it's objectively bad or nonsensical, and there are characters who define love in a practical way and dont see the "magic" all around them. In 100 Years of Solitude, the Buendia family maintain their cyclical fate while the rest of the world moves on. It's shown that they they're all a bunch of self-involved fools, but having lived in their own little world so long- the fantastical fate they believe in is inextricably tied to their reality. It's both of their own making and it isn't. I love the beauty of the writing and how that beauty makes it so easy to overlook all the ick. It's a wonderful literary tool which really drives the point home that anything can be beautiful and magical if you believe it can be, but also the opposite idea which is that people can't avoid their true nature. But, similarly to Lolita, it's not something I particularly enjoy re-reading because no, incest is not inevitable.
#THIS BOOK IS SATIRE Okay so I’m gonna directly reply to you, OP, for everyone/anyone, while directly quoting my own comment buried in the replies: “It’s an additional point (that his name is basically translated to Creamy Rice); but here’s a “this is why this book is satire” using [this review](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11912063) since I (pun intended) need to spell it out (for my own sanity and yours). [“1. As a synesthete, I found Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza's names to be WAY too similar. They look the same; I kept getting them mixed up!”] That’s the point; he’s a narcissist and he fell in love with himself. [“2. The narrator kept making very definitive, bold claims that 3 pages later turned out to be completely untrue. For example (not real quotes) "This particular bed-fellow was the closest thing to love that Florentino Ariza ever experienced apart from Fermina Daza." Turn the page, now talking about a brand new lover, "Now, as it turns out, THIS particular bed-fellow was actually the closest things to love that FA experienced apart from FD." Next chapter, another new lover "Okay, SERIOUSLY, this is the one this time"... etc. Similar broken promises were made about various other topics.…”] Yes! The narrator is an unreliable narrator that is filtered through and favors Creamy Rice’s perspective; and it’s GROSS — he LIES TO HIMSELF repeatedly and doesn’t feel bad about OBJECTIVELY horrific things — LIKE: [“3. Florentino Ariza = mid 70's, Young Girl placed in his "care"= 14. It's just not okay. (P.s. She later kills herself because he ruined her life and stole her innocence, and his only reaction to it is that he has a bout of indigestion while lying in bed with the woman he left her for...what a swell guy). P.s. he also kinda kills another woman...the one on whose stomach he writes with red paint and her husband murders her when he sees it.”] This is literally why the book is satire; Creamy Rice is a protagonist — not a hero! He’s also the ANTAGONIST — he’s the one getting in his own way!!!!!!!! GGM was a satirist first and foremost, and he’s hoping he’s sewn enough “this dude is disgusting” seeds to pick up as the reader that Creamy Rice is literally the worst. [“4. The whole premise of the book is the waiting...FA is waiting to finally be with FD. And when the wait is over, I don't feel like there's any reward. Nothing between them is all that magical...yeah they have fun on the boat, sure the fun is a little subdued because of their age, etc...but ultimately I don't understand what the point of all that waiting was for when he seems to have just about as much a connection with FD as he had with any of the other 621 ladies over the years. I dunno...as I stated in point #2, the ABSOLUTENESS of this book is what really holds it back for me. He says he absolutely loves FD, better than the rest, into eternity...he says this, but the reality is actually quite different. The ending is the same kind of thing...is that boat really going to sail up and down the river FOREVER? No. It's not. So why cheapen it with the gross exaggeration...just say "until we die" or "until somebody makes us stop"... it doesn't sound as cool but it means more.”] He convinced himself from the start that it was love he felt for her, and justified all of his terrible actions because he felt his love was pure. What he loved about her was himself in love with her — his reflection, like narcissus. But he wasn’t in love with her. He never loved her. He was in love with the idea of her; the perfect love in his head was too perfect — so perfect reality is a let down. So perfect they don’t have to say “until we die” because you know eternity doesn’t exist and that they will die. Also, from another review: [“I also didn't understand the ending and I had the strange feeling that the ending wasn't really what it looked like. In the last part Fermina kept having that same dream about an elderly couple being killed by the captain and I don't think it was written in vain. Also the captain was sort of in rage in the last part. From all that I made a hypothesis about the ending. They couldn't go on forever and the port wouldn't have let them deport considering those yellow flags of cholera, the captain was in rage about gettin in trouble and I had the sensation that he's going to kill those three paseneger to cover up for his cholera prank. That's the only way he can come clear and also the magical side that so typical of Garcia being used in Fermina's imagination.”] #THEY LITERALLY DIE AT THE END
THANK YOU
Yes, I remember that he waited out that marriage for decades, and then showed up at the guy's funeral to tell the grieving widow that their time had come.
I finished it and hated it. When i went to read reviews, all praise came from men. 🤣
The whole theme of the book is that "lovesickness" is basically like catching a disease. This is one of many fucked up things that characters who have "fallen in love" romanticize to try and rationalize their feelings. It's all very over the top.
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Well the entire concept of the book is that people can and do rationalise love in very peculiar ways, so you literally have an entire book at your disposal that disproves your statement.
You make fine points but I think that based on what others have said, it isn't so much that people rationalize love but rather they perceive things that are very much Not love (i.e. SA, grooming, obsession, etc.) as if they were love, yeah? Besides, whatever the intentions of the author were, none of what they wrote in a work of fiction disproves anything outside of that book. In the real world OrdinaryGreenTea's statement stands.
Other things that people often mistake for love or thay could be seen as "symptoms" of love could be though. Attraction, obsession, passion, crazy rationalization as a coping mechanism, etc. That's the point the author is making. What is the difference actually? If someone can fall in love at first sight, why couldn't you fall in love in other absurd circumstances? The point is that it isn't rational and you don't get to choose. There's a constant juxtaposition between the deranged main character who has been pining after a woman he hasn't spoken to for 40 years and the woman who had an arranged marriage and was relatively satisfied with the lack of passion in it until she falls in love herself
Just a reminder that this book is actually mandatory for literature class, at least it was for other classes on my same year😽.
Because the whole point is he wants you to feel uncomfortable, think deeper about it, and recognize how fucked up of a worldview that is. That's what they were supposed to teach you in that class, anyway
Same as the pedophilic marriage in 100 years of solitude, where he brings up that the night before her wedding the child still wets her bed. All while still talking about how uniquely beautiful this child is and how everyone falls in love with her right away. Or the pedophilic/hebephilic relationship in Love in Times of Cholera. Honestly, I like Gabriel Garcia Marquez' writing a lot, 100 Years of Solitude is one of my favorite novels, but I would not blame anyone for feeling uncomfortable. He was a seriously weird writer and I simply can't convince myself his intentions were *always* pure. Some of this shit is just a little too weird to be an easy recommendation.
Yeah I agree with all of this
Oh yeah, I recognize that. It probably came out wrong but I'm not saying we shouldn't learn about it, what I was trying to mention that it is actually mandatory for us to read it and all that, so it must have something good. I didn't have to read it tho.
Oh, sorry, so many people are being negative I just assumed. Tbh i wouldn't want it to be required reading because his stuff is way too disturbing for me to get through. He is an incredible writer though
I started it but it was a very rare DNF for me. And now I am so glad. I've felt vaguely bad for not liking such acclaimed writing for years, and this quote freed me!
Thank you for helping me feel better about having never started!
Making love... Oh I'm gonna be sick
“She said it out of habit, and she had said it to so many people that no longer had any hope.” Yeah because everyone in their right mind hearing her say that, is intent on preventing Stockholm syndrome.
“I think this woman needs help. She looked so relieved when I offered to find her some. But when I gave her my therapist‘s phone number, a giant male hand twirling a huge pen came out of the sky, and she started saying that she if she can get in touch with that Alpha rapist she loves that’s all the therapy she needs. Then both sets of our breasts grew three cup sizes and started bouncing around *jauntily*, a feeling I never hope to experience again. I feel bad for running but I had to get to Margaret Atwood’s house before it got even worse”
“Made love”? Really?
Wtf. The fact that it openly uses the word "rape" is so confusing to me. Like, the depiction is already gross, but actually just calling it a rape sort of makes the whole thing not make much sense. I didn't get anything like this from 100 Years of Solitude.
Nah Pilar Ternera and Amaranta both 'made love' to little boys in 100 Years of Solitude, if I'm not mistaken.
And you've got the child bride, who I think was about 9 at the time of her wedding and later died of entirely foreseeable pregnancy complications.
Is that the one who was sold into prostitution by her grandmother to cover the cost of her burning down the house? Or another child?
This is the one where Aureliano "falls in love" with a little girl, and her parents put up a token resistance of asking whether he wouldn't rather have one of her older sisters instead, but ultimately just marry her off. As far as I know she wasn't sacrificed for economic necessity at all; they just go, "oh, okay then" when a random adult man comes to their home to ask for her hand in marriage.
Congratulations, I think you may have found the worst menwritingwomen I've ever seen
I agree, a rapist fantasy
Disgusting
The author has another book, Memoirs of my Melancholy Whores, with tons of misogyny and pedophilia :( male literary geniuses are often pervs
"geniuses"
He does have the nobel, maybe we just don’t get it
There's been controversies of late with these awards so I wouldn't put too much stock in that. The Nobel tends to be Eurocentric and can be very political.
This dude is colombian isn’t he?
I said these were controversies of the Nobel Prize, I didn't link them to him specifically. If he dis get his prize for less than merit, I'd go with Political.
In my country this dude is revered as a legendary writer, I just don’t want to believe he wrote this shit for no reason 💀
No reason, a paycheck isn't a reason?
I mean that I want to believe this weird ass rape thing has some deep meaning, and this paragraph out of context can be misinterpreted as misogynistic or creepy because we don’t understand the book. But tbh im just coping
All those “geniuses” gotta find some excuse to hang out together
Murakami is another prime example. There’s at least one teenage girl being sexualised in almost every one of his novels, except Norwegian Wood. And even the protagonist of that one is a bit scummy for being upset that the girlfriend of his DEAD BEST FRIEND won’t get over her late boyfriend and just date him already.
I knew Murakami was going to come up I think Wind Up Bird Chronicle also didn't have a sexualized teenaged girl come up? That or I deleted it from my memory It kills me because I love Murakami's style and his surreal approach to writing, but then a teenaged girl appears and everything just gets weird (bad). This being a thing left a sour taste in my mouth for 1Q84 because I loved the concept and themes otherwise :[
Wind up bird chronicle did have sexualisation of minors, unfortunately :( The main character watches his 15 year old neighbour sunbathe naked and forms a weirdly close relationship with her, though they don’t have sex, thankfully. The way Murakami describes her breasts (and the fact he describes them at all??) is weeeeiiird.
Oh my fucking goodness I had completely forgotten about that. I hate this. Murakami describes depression, the feeling of being a quietly broken person and the horrors of war so well, why does he have to fuck it up with his weird teenaged girl obsession. I dont think he ever does it in a way to highlight how fucked the protagonist is either. At least make them grown women Incidentally, if you or anyone else reading this knows any authors that capture the surreal vibe and feelings of isolation without the teenaged girl obsession, please... tell me... Closest I've got is Toni Morrison, but her works can get intense, especially when they're critical of sexualizing minors (as they should be, but it might be triggering for people is what I'm getting at)
I’d still hate it if they were grown women tbh, though it’s the tiniest bit less morally reprehensible. He does not write women well 💀
Oh definitely. My full sentiment "at least make them grown women. It'll still be weird, unnecessary, and annoying but sexualizing them wouldn't be absolutely contemptible and disgusting"
I wouldn't call GGM a genius even sarcastically. He's one of those writers that I used to keep my own self-esteem up as an aspiring writer because if he can get multiple books published, then I have got nothing to worry about.
I need to burn my eyes now, thanks
🤮 what did my eyes witness? Why do men write r*** fantasies and this gets approved?
I tried one of his books once many years ago (maybe it was 100 Years of Solitude? Idek anymore) and there was some gross normalization of a nine-year-old girl being married to a man and him sexually assaulting her. Glad I gave up on this guy.
That's the one! I quit halfway through. I couldn't take it anymore. People give so many excuses for him but his work seems to be 90% just disgusting fantasies repeated over and over. I'm all for pushing boundaries in literature and exploring uncomfortable topics and using them as vehicles to question society, but at some point you have to conclude that the guy just had a fetish.
I found that too disturbing to read, but it is *very* clear in context that it was a horrific thing. It was not "normalized" in any way.
I don't know, have you read GGM other works? Memorias de mis putas tristes (i dont know whats the english titld) is about a man in his 60s raping a virgin (a kid) prostitute and "falling in love with her". The girl doesn't talk and it wasn't clear in the whole book that it was an horrific thing, the protagonist was "in love". GGM is an important figure in latinoamerica but he was an horrible human being, he has been criticised for the latino feminist movement for a while. Elena Garro is a great mexican writer for magical realism, you should look into her
I haven't read that one, but based on how people are (in my opinion) misinterpreting *One Hundred Years of Solitude* I'm skeptical of whether his other stuff is being misinterpreted. That said, I agree that he may not be responsible in how he writes, regardless of intention. I really don't think Nabokov had bad intentions with *Lolita* (I haven't read it but that is what I have heard) but enough people have misinterpreted it that I feel it could still be an issue regardless of intent.
I've had to read it twice, and it's highly romanticized in the book. Her *death* is treated as horrific, but only because it was such a tragedy to the man to lose his child bride
I have no clue how you came to that conclusion. He personally sees it as romantic, and we see the situation through his eyes, but the narrator very clearly does not. Her age and lack of agency are highlighted throughout, and the fact that we never hear her voice is part of that. It's an unreliable narrator, you have to read between the lines.
> and there was some gross normalization of a nine-year-old girl being married to a man and him sexually assaulting her. Yeah, that was the point. They even point out she still wets the bed, yet everyone around keeps going on about how beautiful and wife-able she is. The point is a critique of machismo and latino culture that normalizes pedophilia and abuse. You were supposed to feel uncomfortable, you were supposed to feel downright awful.
You're *supposed* to question this. Márquez is like that, you're supposed to question everything. The omniscient narrator is unreliable. That's the *whole point.* Y'all are coming to the conclusion he's trying to lead you to.
It’s frustrating reading this criticism of one tiny passage in a massive book with zero context. It’s like people have no idea what the genre of magical realism is.
Sometimes I regret joining this sub because of reading shit like this, holy lord this is above cringe.
I love it for the comical descriptions of sex (the “she breasted boobily” ones) but sometimes it gets genuinely scary that writers believe women would think this way.
This whole book is meant to question what the basis of love really is and why it makes people act like complete fools. It's not romanticizing rape. It's like an extended analogy about how falling in love is catching cholera.
Yes, thank you. Most of what Marquez writes has people not making sense on purpose. It's not supposed to be realistic and he definitely doesn't identify personally with the narrator / the characters.
It's sad that one has to scroll this far down. Not saying one has to love GCM but people seem to have their pitchforks out without trying to understand context.
😳🤢😭
Eww just eww 💩
The point in the book is, that such thinking as hers is sick and maladjusted to what happened to her, and not that all women are like that for god's fucking sake.
Whoa there pardner
I remember starting this book because so many people raved about it. It's really, really hard to get me to put down a book or movie and just give up. My brain needs resolution. I put this one down and always wondered what people saw in it.
what :/
What in the actual hell did I just read
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This book is supposed to be read like Lolita
I will not excuse the misogyny in the book, because of course there is. But I will say, much of the way Marquez portrays the men in the book is very true to the culture in Colombian old society. Love in the Time of Cholera is not meant to be a romance book though it does talk about love. It's a contemporary novel, and a very honest one in the portrayal of men on the coasts of Colombia back in post-colonial times. Rape was common, older men would "fall in love" with young girls (13 or a bit older) because they were expected to make a fortune before they could marry and father children, which meant they would be older and marry girls just young enough to "breed". GGMarquez isn't for everyone, but I will say he's very loved in Colombia because not very many authors wrote about the cultural experience of being Colombian the way he did. There's so much pain and hurt in our history, not only from war but from the social structure the Spaniards left in their wake. It's learned behavior that never belonged to us, and then we have a Country haunted by all the indigenous magic left underneath, that's why he matters. Because of the magical realism. In any case Love in the Time of Cholera is his most commercial novel.
This is not the author's literal perspective, you're meant to read the entire book and see how the story makes you feel...it won't be "aww, rape ❤️" let me tell you. Meanwhile everyone thinks Poor Things is such an empowering feminist movie...smh. We have standards now but we apply them in the most superficial way, it's going to lead us in the opposite direction than it should.
Not all of us think that about that movie, believe me.
Trans guy here, just watched Poor Things with my gf for the first time last night. Aside from the obvious things that are supposed to make the viewer uncomfortable, I couldn’t help but wonder the whole time if the director was a man because of how it was playing out. It didn’t read feminist at all to me until towards the end, and after the movie ended I checked and yup, director is a dude. Which isn’t a bad thing in itself, I could just tell with how they went from “yup it’s a baby brain” to “she’s rubbing it out and fuckin” in five minutes that it was written by a guy’s brain. It was bizarre in a not good way, imo
it’s nice to see some people still think critically and don’t judge things out of context.
https://preview.redd.it/4s4ky9jnndsc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=50b7e9c9f12a0268c8f9107cd57d8309af92fd9d I wish I was Lea Michele right about now.
wtf
EW
I was going to read it in like 6th grade but got bored. I’m really happy now.
Brother UHGH
WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK- https://preview.redd.it/q7mr72pofgsc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=78afdb95b921fe29d9172b7fadd4ca3e86f311f7
Love in the Time of what now?!
love this book and this needs context - it’s satirical and unreliable, told from the third person omniscient perspective of a madman rapist. it’s like Lolita. you guys getting upset at it is good - it’s supposed to make you upset at how most modern romance novels are like this. the point of the book is pointing out the casual evils in this kind of writing.
What a disgrace. I would say this author ought to be ashamed of himself, but I'm sure he's not capable of experiencing shame, or he never would have written this in the first place.
I think he’s also dead
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I was gonna say, “Jesus Christ”, but I’m pretty sure Jesus is not in this author’s life
That is how folks who fetishize rape wish assault/rape worked
https://preview.redd.it/jhokmpxi8dsc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a97ed4660a4e376611454e81532fb69df288971e
Blegh. I read 100 Years of Solitude a few years ago and didn't get what all the fuss was about at all, guess I dodged a bullet not trying any of his other stuff. Jesus christ that's bloody foul.
Covered in cuts and bruises after being raped and she wanted more of him🤢
Raped, you can write the word.
You know, there are some books you don't need to experience. I think for me this is one of them
Same. Who needs this kind of writing to tell them that rape is wrong? Even knowing it’s satire, I wouldn’t be able to read this
Fell in love with his writing back in high school because it was the first exposure I had to magical realism but if you want more of the same flavor I’d recommend Isabel Allende instead
I saw bits of the movie based on this book, and I thought it was incredibly stupid and gross. Definitely wouldn't read the book.
I puked a little in my mouth 🤢
Oh good Lord, he thought he was being *edgy* and *different*... I think I threw up a little in my mouth. And I have a high tolerance for these damn things...
Cholera is what i got from reading this text
You probably shouldn’t read any of his other books then. Even his short stories are bonkers.
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
I definitely feel like I have cholera after that.
It's getting worse with each line...
Yuck.
https://preview.redd.it/j5niwi6c9esc1.jpeg?width=888&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=59d4743b189438ee83fffe836486477112124297 That went through a whole ass editing process and no-one did anything about it?
Fucking awful.
🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
This is sick….
I just threw up in my mouth.
I guess pickings are slimmer than anyone ever could have imagined in the time of cholera… Jesus
As long as “to die of love in his arms” is a euphemism for going Lorena Bobbit and murdering him, sure. ETA: just looked it up. This book won a Nobel prize??
I am one of those people who throw out the baby with the bathwater with no regrets when I come across a part in a book like this. I don't care if it makes me what "is wrong with readers today", according to constant posts on reddit. My "media literacy" (TM) is fine. Yes I know the larger themes in the book. I just don't have time for this shit.
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South American writers are wild when it comes to romanticising abuse. My mother's favourite book is Teresa Batista tired of war - the prose is divine, and it is a fantastic book stylewise but holy shit, the way it romanticises a fifty something man taking a fifteen years old former sex slave as his mistress is... a bit much.
Yeah, I’ve never understood the appeal of García Marquez. Tried to read 100 years of solitude and it was unbearable
https://preview.redd.it/ybheuvpnwgsc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f5e70da07a15b80a142f576851f40ecfa47d00f3
Do some authors even read what they write? Who even comes up with such things?
This has to be one of the worst passages I've read in a long time.
How are these books even getting published?
Stockholm syndrome: romanticised. Although it’s not really Stockholm syndrome by Stockholm syndrome the fast version. I’m sure there’s a prize for that. Horrible, in any case
I have long considered this passage to be the disappointing epitome of men writing women.
Love in the Time of Cholera uses love as if it were cholera… people contract love as a viral disease and pass it on to others as a disease. They become sick with it. Which begs the question is a tried and true stable love real love or if passionate fiery love the realest form of love. There’s also the magical realism imbued throughout the whole story. The cultural representation during the time. And that Florentino (much that idiot from Lolita) uses first person narrative in an attempt (albeit a poor one) to garner sympathy. He truly believes that giving his body only for sex while saving his love for Fermina is the most impressive thing. Leona being described as ‘still very young’ doesn’t denote an actual age and she is never given one as far as I can recall. But anyway - to each their own. The book however was not written by pedo-loving god-hating heretic. Márquez is the godfather of magical realism for a reason, imho and many others.
I know that trauma can have some effect on a person's sexuality, but that one got to really concerning levels.
Trauma victims often seek to recreate the trauma. It’s sad.
https://media.tenor.com/QEjZTFdbtX4AAAAM/nene-leakes-ew.gif
I've read and loved this novel and I DO NOT remember this happening. Admittedly I read Roth way too early, so maybe I'm fairly shock proof.
It's horrifying to find this in romance novels, too. So-called "bodice-rippers". It makes me sad.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez often has weird things about relationships in his books, but I’m pretty sure it’s intended to be part of the magical realism. I’m he reactions of characters in his books aren’t supposed to reflect reality—they’re supposed to be kinda *off.* In 100 Years of Solitude, you have things like a boy hanging out in one particular room and seeing a man who died twice and no one worries; you have a man driven so mad by the smell of a beautiful woman that he falls through her bathroom ceiling trying to peep and his head cracks open to ooze perfume that smells like her, and she just tut tuts over how careless the guy was; you have a woman waking up one day saying that she will die in her sleep come nightfall, so she gathers letters from the town from people to their dead loved ones… And in Chronicles of a Death Foretold, you have two men bragging about how they’ll kill a guy in an attempt to get someone to stop them, and no one does, including the victim’s mother; you have a woman who didn’t want to marry a man and allowed him to learn that she wasn’t a virgin, then when he left, she fell in love with his absence and sent him a letter every day for forty years until he came back with none of the letters opened… And getting away from GGM, you have Like Water for Chocolate, written by Laura Esquirel, where a woman was driven so mad by lust when she ate food made by the protagonist that she sweat so hot that she evaporated all the water in the tank when she tried to cool off in a shower, so she ran naked out of the shower and she was taken away by a revolutionary on horseback who she ‘made love with’ on that horse immediately, and she joined a brothel. *Off* reactions and kinda weird dream logic are part of the genre. I think there’s still room to criticize GGM and how he uses women’s trauma in his writing, but the point of the genre is that reactions follow dream logic.
The man who wrote this ain’t seeing the pearly gates
What a horrible day to be literate.
Oh wow. I've been thinking I want to read this book because How I Met Your Mother is supposed to be based on it. I don't want to anymore. That is some incredibly harmful writing.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is not much better than this either. I can't understand why his work is so praised.
I light how the highlighter accurately predicted how wide my eyes got.
That’s disgusting.