Love In The Time of Cholera Discussion

A big thank you to Debbie for hosting us and Sally for leading our lively discussion. It was pretty much decided early in the discussion that most of us didn't like the book or the main characters from the book. Seeing the movie didn't improve our book reading experience since it was agreed no one really cared for the movie, either. (Although, it was generally agreed that Benjamin Bratt did look pretty good on the big screen!)

Florentino was described as an obsessive stalker, a pervert and a manipulative, unfeeling womanizer with an odd maternal relationship. Several members of our discussion group questioned his character when he seduced his fourteen year old ward and his reaction at her later suicide. Even having a child out of wedlock with one young women and causing the murder of another never seemed to matter to Florentino. While Fermina was depicted as a lonely and rigid women, she was also very class conscience, possibly because of her humble origins. Dr. Urbino, the only character that was described favorably by club members, was called a humanitarian but still a man of his times. The club also believed that Dr. Urbino and Fermina eventually fell into a true love while Florentino's love was called obsessive and selfish.

Several people questioned what, if anything, the suicide of Jeremiah de Saint-Amour had to do with story. It was agreed that one of the themes of the book was aging and also, living fully in spite of your age. The opinions on this point ranged from Saint-Amour's death having nothing to do with the themes of the book to the opinion that the manner of his death was the actual theme of the book.

Some of the themes we discussed included love as a disease, causing both physical and emotional pains; the environment (the river) as an analogy for the changes from young love to mature love; and the many birds throughout the book, the parrot that causes the Doctor's death, prostitutes called birds, the young mother carrying her child in a birdcage as well as the perfumed crows and the pigeons kept by the murdered girl.

Most of the girls next door agreed they were glad to have read the book but probably would not read anymore of Garcia Marquez' books. More than a few of us wondered 'what was Oprah thinking'?