At first I read this book literally, and if you do that while trying to think critically, you’re gonna hate it so much. This was my initial review under that lens:
GGM’s capability to write some beautiful prose has convinced everyone that a obsessed lifelong stalker finally breaking down his teenage crush 55 years later is the most beautiful love story ever. it’s a 2/10. Rape is lol’d and romanticized multiple times. MC is a little pissbaby creepo. Multiple women die in this book bc of him and he barely thinks about it (bc he can’t stop thinking about his one true love xoxo). It also drags on for so long that you wonder how it’s only 350 pages. ..
Then I realized it just cannot be intended to be read like this. There’s a couple of moments that really go over the edge and just have to be hints. And upon reflecting through that lens, it’s a pretty good book i guess, maybe 7/10. Truthfully, it is masterful that GGM convinced normie readers that this is an honest love story; and even further, that it’s a romantic one. The main takeaway for a reading without any critical thought is “man i guess old people can love too”. Like, Oprah said this shit was fire (“one of the greatest love stories I have ever read”), so GGM really succeeded in this subterfuge.
The subterfuge is not just a trick on the reader, bc MC thinks he’s a really good guy. But actually he blows. basically MC is an incel with a paradoxically high body count. Dude doesn’t care at all when one lover (who he wrote “this pussy is mine” on, edgelord dom daddy style) was murdered by her husband after finding out of her infidelity; he sneak attacked and raped a servant and bought her a house to shut her up after finding out she got pregnant (“in less time than a Filipino rooster he had left her in a family way”); and groomed his 14yo niece and made her his girlfriend for a few years before dumping her (she killed herself but he didn’t really mind much). And I actually can’t blame Oprah bc GGM’s writing is pretty, and he hides a lot of MC’s dogshit behavior in the middle of long paragraphs where he’s talking about how much he loves Fermina, or where other people talk about how MC rocks, so it’s pretty easy to gloss over.
The book starts with Dr. Urbino telling us “it was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love”. In this scene, the scent is from cyanide, but later, during their idealized romance of poems and letters, Fermina can always find MC watching her from under almond trees. Once Fermina rejects MC we are all well prepared for the absolute havoc MC is gonna wreck on this city, bc cholera and love have the same symptoms and oh boy is he gonna spread a plague. Over the next 50 years, as the Caribbean is ravaged by cholera and civil wars, MC fucks his way through the city, mentally frozen as a young man having a romantic penpal relationship. (note there is a nice parallel where Dr. Urbino treats the 20th century with contempt as well, both men are frozen in the past). In the end, MC finally breaks down Fermina, basically bc she was wooed by him having a typewriter and lots of postage stamps (in reality it’s actually kind of nice, he helps her learn how to live on as a widow and, in disillusionment of her social circle, finds refuge in this man from her past). So they take a river cruise. Now, MC is literally CEO of the river company, but missed what deforestation, poaching, and of course cholera did to what was once a very pretty ride upstream (bc he’s frozen in the past). Even as he and Fermina are finally together romantically, MC finds out his niece/victim killed herself, one last inevitable casualty of his plague. Ultimately, with the false pretense of a beautiful uplifting ending, they are left to “forever” cycle up and down the river, hoisting the yellow cholera flag. This was their fate; it was inevitable.