"Kafka", "Alchemist", and "Cholera"

After 20 weeks of LSE-ing, I finally had time to read three novels.

Thirdly, I read Gabriel García Márquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera”. Having studied “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” in English last year, I expected more of the postmodern narrator and over-the-top magical realism, but “Cholera” was much less pretentiously postmodern and literary than I expected. In fact, it was almost too normal, considering that Márquez is a Nobelist.

I absolutely enjoyed reading “Cholera” because, to me, it is a meditation on love of all types: romantic love, sexual love, irrational infatuated love, and, most importantly, pedophiliac love. (I kid.) Márquez’s style of narration is still as vague as in “Chronicle”, but here the deliberate postmodern tendencies are toned down, which makes “Cholera” much more of a pleasure to read. For example, one overarching theme seems to be that it is noble and good to suffer for love. Florentino Ariza, who has waited for over fifty years for his one love Fermina Daza (51 years, 9 months, and 4 days exactly), is portrayed positively throughout the novel. But Florentino’s numerous affairs with other women – 622 of them with widows, married women, mothers, and fourteen-year olds (not counting the one-night stands of course!) – are simply glossed over. The narrator wilily suggests that these affairs are merely ways to pass the time. The negative aspects of Florentino’s affairs are never given any importance. Now, I don’t want to be misunderstood, so I’ll say this very clearly: Florentino is a real man for sleeping with more than 622 women, but most people would not think the same. And in my opinion, it’s rather lame to wait for a woman’s husband to die so that you can get with her, especially when the aforementioned woman rejected you quite plainly.

The surrealism and magical realism is more toned down here than in “Chronicle”, but on the occasions where it does appear Márquez puts the technique to good use. For example, when Fermina was first attracted to Juvenal Urbino, her husband, after she married him when she heard him urinating strongly and masculinely in the toilet. The concept of love is so incongruous with talk of urination, but Márquez makes it work in a beautifully poignant paragraph. Also, I liked how Fermina found out about her husband’s infidelity by simply sniffing his clothes everyday.

What I liked most about “Cholera” was that it allowed me to think and reflect about the novel’s themes, and did not force-feed me with a dogmatic message. The second book I read, Paul Coelho’s “The Alchemist”, unfortunately did the latter.

I wish I could have liked “Alchemist”, because it has the potential to be one of the most uplifting books I have read, but Coelho chooses to let the plot and characters be merely tools for his grand theme, rather than let the grand theme be shown through the plot and characters. As a result, “Alchemist” reads more like a fable or allegory than a novel.

The world’s greatest lie is that at some point in our lives, destiny will take over and we will be unable to reach our dreams. Everybody has a Personal Legend that is to be followed. All things are one in the Soul of the World. Every moment spent searching for your Personal Legend is a moment directly in contact with God and with eternity. All things are one. Everybody has a Personal Legend. Follow the omens, especially for what is called the Personal Legend.

And so on. The only quotable line I liked went something like this: It is not what goes into a man’s mouth that is evil; it is what comes out of it that is. I’m using that to justify drinking!

And firstly, I read Haruki Murakami’s “Kafka on the Shore”. I picked it up only because “Kafka” was on the title. The name-dropping proved to be just that; I’m considering suing because I read over 430 pages of drivel with two parallel storylines that did not converge at the end. For all that, however, I’m betting that the pretentiousness and surrealism of this novel should win Murakami the Nobel Prize in the next ten years.