Love in the Time of Cholera

Love in the Time of Cholera
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
read: circa 2003
Guardian 1000 Novels

I liked but didn't love One Hundred Years of Solitude, but I adored Love in the Time of Cholera. Part of that was the time when I read it; in my livelorn early 20's, the struggle of protagonist Florentino Ariza really resonated with me. Now, his obsession kind of smacks of the classic Onion headline "Romantic-Comedy Behavior Gets Real-Life Man Arrested."  Really, asking a woman out at her husband's funeral?

Aside from the love story, the novel has a number of passages of what it means to grow old. There's one passage about Dr. Juvenal Urbino and his memory of being able to urinate long distances in a tight stream, and how that contrasts with the present indignity of having to sit down like a woman to pee. It's a silly detail that's stuck with me because of how evocatively it captures aging's effects on even the most mundane activities.