I read the book a couple of days ago and have "digested" it now.
It was interesting. I liked the style: it seems to be a Spanish-influenced style as the few Spanish books I have read (after translation!) read like this. I generally dislike books that start at the end and work back, but this was managable.
The characters were human, I'll give them that. In that just as you start to like them, they pee you off. Urbino I did like - then he had loads of women while he was training. Then he had an affair just as you start to like him again.
Fermia Daza didn't think things through and married Urbino for security. She wanted to be married before age 21. Mmmm. I liked her thought that your love for your children grows as they do, grows with the friendship you develop with them. Then at the end she cuts her daughter off from her life for not liking that prat of a man she took up with. I didn't like Florentino at all!
I did love the way FD just took one look at the chap she'd been writing to and thought "what the hell have I done?" - but didn't like her treatment of FA after that. FA was an idiot though, he went about everything the wrong way. His stalking of her (and the 600+ affairs) was creepy.
As like the rest of you, I didn't like the riverboat ending. I'd rather it ended with FD closing the door on FA after JU died. It wasn't a great love story and quite frankly, I dated a chap a bit like FA (mistake!) and if he was still waiting for me, waiting for DH to die... eugh. The thought turns my stomach. If someone turns you down THAT much - accept it and move on. Find love again. Don't stalk them and sleep with hundreds of people (telling each woman they were his first... who honestly wants to be a chap's first when he's old and bald?) telling yourself you're waiting for this woman. You're not. You're weird.
Oh I couldn't agree more about the weirdness of it all LZ. I have been thinking about this book on and off for days. There are lots of different version of love and ways to have relationships depicted in the story. I would not wait 50 years for romantic love but I would wait that long for my son, to re-establish a relationship with him if something happened. I probably wouldn't even wait for a tenth of that time romantically if the other person was rejecting me though. I'm very pragmatic and not prone to romantic impulses. Having said that, I don't think Florentino actually waited for Fermina. He had heaps of sex and affairs and loved a couple of those women (or could have if he'd not been fixated on Fermina). I also agree that this is not really a love story. It's more a story about life in that part of the world in that historical context. The more I think about Florentino, the more I see him as somebody with mental health issues - he seems obsessive-compulsive to me and to have a very dependent personality style. Some of his physical health problems (constipation etc) seem to be brought on by stress/anxiety. And he developed into a pederast at the end. I was waiting for that young girl to expose him and felt disappointed that she killed herself instead.
I also can't get past the fact that he lied to Fermina at the end by telling her he'd waited and been chaste for her. He's basing their whole relationship on a lie. I can't get past that.
I also keep wondering what the author meant when he said readers shouldn't fall into his trap. I've been trying to work out what that actually means.
Thing is, everyone knew that Florentino was sleeping around: even Fermina. So why not call him up on that? I think you're right Kaz, he was seriously ill. Several screws loose. And sleeping with a little girl his parents asked him to look after while she was at school, then dumping her once Urbino died: he's so very, very wrong. In every sense of the word.
In my opinion; from the book, I think Kevin had a mental health issue, maybe something chemical. I dont think it was their parenting at all. Sure they werent perfect and made mistakes, dont we all, but nothing that other parents havent done and not every kid is running around becoming a school shooter. I think if you place blame on them that maybe it should be for not seeking the help of a psychiatrist looooooong before he did what he did.
I cried when she talked about finding Celia and her husband So horrible.
I dont blame the parents for they way they raised Kevin, there was something nqr in his brain....like you said kids just dont go around shooting people.
Perhaps they should have taken him to see someone, but when you have two parents who see Kevin in totally different lights, it would make it hard. Her husband thought Kevin could do no wrong, so if she had of brought it up, would he have agreed to him seeing someone? Maybe just to satisfy her, but he wouldn't have like it.
The ending was horrible. I wasnt expecting it to end like that... So very sad.
kaz - i think you hit the nail on the head, it wasnt real love for FA, it was indeed an obsession and he is manipulative. the way lied to all the women like he was their one and only. i think his mother had a lot to do with it. in some ways she molly-cuddled him.
yeah, i didnt like the way FD cut off her daughter, i guess it had always been all about her.
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So horrible.
So very sad.
LZ - I like your view on the whole thing!!
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