Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Posting books by a Nobel Prize winner here feels a bit like cheating, but if you haven't read this book yet run...do not walk. I enjoy classical literature, but it's a bit of a crapshoot -- sometimes I'm bored to tears. NOT the case with LitToC.
The characters are realer than real. The love (obsession?) demonstrated by Florentino is...well it's what everyone fears their healthy love could corrupt into. And I love the variance of passions shown. Urbino the husband is a self aggranizing bastard (sometimes) but damn it if his love isn't real and profound, same with the love Fermina betows on both of them.
And then the setting. Unnamed, crumbling and decayed, the Colombian city they all inhabit is perhaps the richest setting ever penned. It's beautiful, even as the corruption of decadance is laid bare.
There is one bit at the end I, and I am sure many others, don't like. Doesn't ruin it by any means, but WOW to drop a cringe factor with 10% of the book left to go. I guess it's to prevent us romanticizing TOO much, but jeepers. Tough one.
What do you folks think? I for one -- despite its acclaim -- think this book is UNDERrated, at least in North America.