Love in the time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez

I am not sure what I was expecting from this book, but it wasn't what I got. I found it completely distasteful and claustrophobic at times. I am sure the claustrophobia was intentional, and came from the skill of the author in describing the oppressive atmosphere of the city where the characters live as well as the social and personal binds they create or find themselves in. 

In terms of the distaste, I am not sure how we are supposed to view Florentino Ariza. I imagine there are two parallel readings, one where he is an admirable, poetic and heroic figure, and my reading, which was that he is completely insufferable, self delusional and vampiric, feeding off the idea of an idea of a woman his whole life. Having said that I was charmed by the ending of the novel and fully appreciate what García Márquez says about different forms of love and relationships. 

Some of the themes are similar to The Return of the Native; someone falls in love with the idea of a person and the disconnect between idea and reality has a ripple effect. He also talks about marriage and what makes a good one, the role of women and loss of self-hood in marriage, which for the time must have been perceptive. And then there are both long term and short lived affairs, and the idea of loving and being with multiple people at once. There is a particularly disgusting and predatory relationship between the old Florentino Ariza and a teenager, which I think is there to show disillusionment and degradation of old age, but which is awful and marring.

The whole novel is written in such a way that it all, except the first and last chapters, feels like background information, the author seems to be skimming over events whilst giving us details, everything seems to be taking place in fast forward somehow and I am not sure exactly where that feeling comes from. I found it engaging, but could completely understand someone who stopped reading part-way through.