I remember Sarah Anderson's comic about reading a book so good that leaves you brooding for quite sometime. This book has given me that feeling. After hearing so much about GGM, I finally decided to pick up this beautiful edition. I have developed the habit of taking notes while reading which helps a lot while reviewing the book, which in this case I took way too many (says volumes about the book). This is a story of Florentino Ariza, Fermina Daza and Dr. Juvenal Urbino with many other significant and memorable characters. It spans around more than fifty years with lot of love and heartbreaks. What I loved about this book is the depiction of people with heartbreaking sense of reality; with warts and all. After reading Jane Austen, this book is the polar opposite experience. GGM doesn't pull his punches, which by the way, hit in you in guts many times (lot of gory and revolting narratives). He has a cruel sense of humour which makes you feel guilty while laughing. In this book, there is infidelity in surprisingly large amount or maybe it's always there but we don't see it; but it doesn't mean love isn't there. Maybe the most illustriously written part of this book is the depiction of ageing process in all its micro details which sometimes make you depressed, thinking about imminent future. One quirky thing written here is about smoking cigarettes with lit end inside the mouth, which I found one of those fun tricks/facts you take away from a novel. There is no dearth of fantastic mono/dialogs in it like "It is life, more than death, that has no limits" and "My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse". I couldn't list them all or it would become a short story sized review. I want to sum up the review by adapting from one of the lines in this book - 'It is a meditation on life, love, old age and death.'
Classics! The old ones! They're always really tough to review; always so different style of writing than what I'm used to. This was no different. I liked the narration despite it being heavy with complex and long (which make you lose track really) sentences and outdated phrases like "they all looked their assent" (which means they all acknowledged), etc. The plot will put Indian daily soaps to shame. So many twists and turns; so many WTH moments! The thing I didn't like though is the story was too simple (some pearls of wisdom were there) compared to today's stories, but it should be expected though I guess. What disappointed me the most was the typical happy ending. It just broke my heart, but hey, who am I to judge? These book are what they are. Some love them, some not so much! All the classics I've read till date, especially before 20th century have simple story but profound prose, which to be frank can get repetitive and boring. If taken in an alternate sense though, it can be melancholic and enlightening (which I felt reading Dostoevsky but couldn't feel while reading Austen). Following are some points I felt necessary to note down while reading: 1. When and what do these people (especially women) do for day to day work? They're always having tea or chit-chatting or going for walks. They always get time to go and visit someone. 2. People give way too much importance to inheritance, money and hence, dowry while discussing marriages. 3. Austen tends to explain her characters where she needn't. Why one did, what he/she did; nothing is left for reader's imagination. 4. However passionate may the argument or dialog between people be, in that era, people always used civil language; how sad! 5. Old classics, this book included, use long sentences, consisting a lot of commas and semicolons. It makes one lose track of the sentence. 6. Both the instances of "friend-zoning" in this book are actually opposite compared to today's general scenario; men friend-zone ladies here, hence, reverse friend-zoning. 7. There were some creepy customs in 18th-19th century England, like exchanging lock of hairs as a symbol of love. Downright creepy! So, that's all! Though I didn't love this book, it was definitely a very interesting read.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen