It seems uncharacteristic that a petrol-sniffing, speed-loving, sausage-munching unker would enjoy a book about a man's 50 year long suffering for the unrequited love of his life.... but i really enjoyed this book.
A man falls in love with a woman and becomes obsessed with her. But she marries someone else and he waits 50 years for her husband to die before attempting to revisit his love for her. His life is pretty much an almost literal suffering of love-sickness, refered to as causing "similar symptoms to cholera" by the author. This is an example of the kind of humourous quips that are peppered throughout the book. One liners that are at once funny, yet serious and makes one stop and ponder for a moment before reading on. Another example is near the begining of the book when the main character, Florentino Ariza meets the husband of the object of his desires, and remarks it was a pity that such a decent man would have to die in order for him to be happy (i'm not quoting verbatim, as i am too lazy to look up the actual words).
There are several themes playing throughout the book - lovesickness is a disease, love in old age, to suffer for love. It is a well-written story and one might describe it as a "serious comedy" if there is such a thing. The writer does an excellent job of evoking images of the picturesque backdrop of the time and place where this tale is set, in the mind of the reader.
Highly recommended.
Next, I am reading a british novel which is a fictionalized account of certain events which took place during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. This won the booker prize for fiction in 1973.
"Krishnapur is a remote town on the vast North Indian plain. For the British there, life is orderly and genteel. Then the sepoys at the nearest military cantonment rise in revolt and the British community retreats with shock into the Residency. They prepare to fight for their lives with what weapons they can muster. As food and ammunition grow short, the Residency, its defences battered by shot and shell and eroded by the rains, becomes ever more vulnerable.The Siege of Krishnapur is a modern classic of narrative excitement that also digs deep to explore some fundamental questions of civilisation and life." - description from abbey books.