Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1985, translated to English in 1988)
Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza are young lovers, but her father breaks them up and soon Fermina is married to Juvenal Urbino, a medical doctor and a perfect man on paper. They have a long marriage, but at his passing Florentino reappears professing his love, having waited more then 50 years for his second opportunity.
Although Gabriel Garcia Marquez won the nobel prize for his earlier book, 100 Years of Solitude, I preferred this one. I had seen the book around, and decided to give it a try even though I wasn’t interested in anything too heavy, or a sappy love story. I was soon swept up in the plot and characters, and very much enjoying the writing style (or at least the translation there of)!
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The Poisonwood Bible – Belgian Congo
The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver (1998)
In 1959 the Price family moves from Georgia to the village of Kilanga in the Belgian Congo to serve as missionaries. Nathan Price, his wife Orelanna and their four daughters have no idea what to expect, and I particularly enjoyed the first half of the book, watching them prepare for their jounery, and settle into their new home. While the women were able to adapt, Nathan refused to grow and accept the people of his new land. The growing tensions lead to a series of misfortunes, culminating with a death.
The second half of the book explores what happened to the family members next, which personally I could have done without. The first half of the book is a great story, but the second half is more of an analysis of the characters, which plot line seems especially pale compared to the adventure of the first half.
The Corrections – St. Jude (Fictional Town in the Mid-west)
The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen (2001)
The Lamberts are a traditional (repressed) mid-western family whose three adult children live on the East Coast, but return home (by their mother’s guilt trip) for a family Christmas. The children discover their father is not well, and while their mother claims everything is fine, in reality the Lamberts are in shambles. The book reveals what has become of the family, and follows the disastrous choices the children have made, and how that affected their life.
I normally love quirky books, and the classic story city life v. country life (as well as enjoying a bit of dark humor), but found this book to be too much. The characters are depressing, and I disliked everyone (I never realized how important it is to root for at least one person in the book). Meanwhile, the side-plots wander for pages, leading the reader away from the plot and lost in the middle of nowhere, and give the impression the book is going no-where. This book may not be my style, or I may have been in the wrong mood when I read this, but it wasn’t for me. That being said, I certainly can recognize some good writing, and remain open to reading Mr. Franzen’s other works.
Note: The book moves between the fictional mid-western town of St. Jude and New York