Book Review: Love in the Time of Cholera

What can I say about this book other than it made me understand love on a deeper level than ever before. Hence, just in time for Valentine's Day, I give you a book review about love, one of the greatest topics the world has ever known.




The author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, uses "magic realism," which is a strange blending of the fantastic and the mundane. It was a strange reading experience, because I do not do well with exhaustive detail and intense focus on a single topic or part of the story. Yet with love being the meat and potatos in this story I couldn't peel myself from the pages.



It is set in a coastal Colombian town between the years 1880 to 1930. Florentino Ariza falls in love with a young Fermina Daza. Her father doesn't like Florentino and takes her away on a journey. His plan works and Fermina Daza returns to find that she doesn't love Florentino and goes on to marry a wealthy and respected doctor. After 50 years of marraige, the doctor dies and Florentino returns to Fermina Daza's life.


There are a variety of beautiful things going on in the story. First there is the comparison of love and cholera. Anyone who's felt true love knows the pains associated with it. I've never had cholera, but I have felt love. From the descriptions in the book, the stomach is turned the same way by both.


The author goes to explore all the different types of love - true, platonic, sexual, incestial, timeless and a variety of others. Most of these are represented through Florentino, who is a well read, poetic man tormented by the wait for Fermina. Well, sort of tormented. I believe during his wait he has just over 600 affairs. Yet, somehow, the story remains romantic in a ferocious manner.


Finally, I completely fell for how the author treated love in old age. At the end of the story, the two love birds are about 70 years old. Again Marquez turns a mundane thing (a couple of old geezers) into something fantastic (poster "children" for growing old together). I have a very strong feeling that this kind of ageless love is present in my relationship and it's a warm feeling, to say the least.


I have read two other love stories before this one - the Namesake and Persuasion. Although the two of these love stories were fine, I didn't hear the beauty in the authors' words as I heard in Marquez's. He makes me FEEL the love - from it's ecstasy to it's gut-wrenching suffering. Love is a roller coaster that takes a person from high to low in a matter of seconds. That is what this book is. It is vivid and magical.


A final word on the book...it was translated from Spanish by Edith Grossman, who my colleague and fiction-guru, Kitty, said was reknowned for her translations. The proof is in the pudding. I can't imagine much of the meaning is lost as the translation comes through seamlessly. Bravo!


Highly recommended for the hopeless romantics out there.

Bush, House Hammer Out $150 Billion Stimulus Bill

Here's some facts about the stimulus package that the President and the House came up with the other week:

• House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) agreed to offer $28 billion in cash payments to 35 million working families that earn too little to pay income tax.
• The deal includes provisions from Boehner that would allow faster tax write-offs for corporate investment and immediate tax deductions for small-business investment in plants and equipment.
• Bernard Baumohl, managing director of the Economic Outlook Group, said the package would have a positive psychological impact on markets and investors.
• But he cautioned: "Practically speaking, this plan is not expected to have any meaningful impact on the economy until much later this year, perhaps in the fourth quarter. Even then, it's unlikely we'll see more than an extra blip in GDP growth."
• Under the deal, nearly everyone who earned a paycheck in 2007 would receive at least $300 from the Internal Revenue Service.
• The money would be borrowed and would increase the federal deficit.

EPA to reopen area library amid controversy

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Chicago research library will re-open next month, 17 months after it shut down.

...

Federal budget cuts closed the Chicago library, regional libraries in Dallas and Kansas City, Kan., the national headquarters library in Washington, D.C., and a specialist chemical and pesticide library, also in Washington. Hours were reduced at four other regional libraries, leaving only three regional libraries without a cut in service.“We’ve called what’s gone on here sort of a self-lobotomy,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of the non-profit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. He
is the founder of the group and a former California state government employee.

“Overall information is far less available to the public and to EPA’s own staff. There’s a lot less information and what’s there is a lot less accessible,” he said.

Recently, Congress approved an appropriations bill re-funding the library system.

The Common Cold

This past week I've battled with what started off as a hangover and then segued into a cold. Luckily, it did not reach influenza proportions and I thank not smoking for that. Anyway, here's some general things that I've learned about the common cold. Pardon the "earthy" language, as I'm still disgruntled by my illness.

• There's no damn cure. Your body is the only thing that can fight off a cold and you must rest to allow it do its thing. Don't start doing chores just cause you're stuck at home - bad move!
• You can't get vaccinated, cause there's about 200 different viruses that can give you a cold.
• DRINK LIQUIDS that don't include caffeine. No tea, no coffee, no soda.
• No Booze!
• Quit smoking, idiot!
• Humidify your home - dry air helps colds thrive, hence, why winter is when everyone is getting sick - NOT because of cold weather. The cold weather thing is a myth that just won't die.
• There was also some questions about chicken soup, the age old remedy for the colds. Only recently has there been some studies done on that claim and the verdict looks like chicken soup is a winner.

Check out this article from the good folks at the Mayo Clinic...Cold remedies: What works, what doesn't, what can't hurt.

A couple other good resources are:

• National Institute of Health - Common Cold
• American Lung Association - Cold and Flu Guidelines
• National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH, again)

In the subprime mortgage game, John Paulson won

Looks like not everyone is being negatively effected by the subprime mortgage disaster. From a Jan. 15 Wall Street Journal article, "Trader Made Billions on Subprime":

On Wall Street, the losers in the collapse of the housing market are legion. The biggest winner looks to be John Paulson, a little-known hedge fund manager who smelled trouble two years ago.

Funds he runs were up $15 billion in 2007 on a spectacularly successful bet against the housing market. Mr. Paulson has reaped an estimated $3 billion to $4 billion for himself -- believed to be the largest one-year payday in Wall Street history.

Smart guy and at the right place, right time - hence: winner.

Presidential Candidates 2008

I have never seen the primaries being quite this big a deal. It looks like each step of the way is going to be a dog fight for candidates. I found this lovely guide to all the candidates, courtesy of the Washington Post, a fine, fine rag if I may say so myself. I don't care who you vote for, just know WHAT and WHO you're voting for.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/

Also, Michigan voters remember you must present a photo ID when you go to vote. Check out an earlier post about that HERE.

Vocabulary: Business, part 1

In my glorious journey through the land of business reference, I have learned many new things. In the same breath, I've developed many more questions, especially when it comes to business vocabulary. I noticed that there were a number of words I didn't understand when listening to the Wall Street Journal podcasts. So I made a list of words I often hear. I'm offering a definition and an article about each term, for myself and for you.

consumption smoothing - basically what I found on this was two things: huge research papers and random comments by folks. On Assetbuilder.com, a guy named Scott wrote that, "[Consumption Smoothing] is the idea that we all try to “smooth” our consumption over our lifetime, extracting the maximum utility. It means that we don’t squander our youth to benefit our old age, or squander our money when young to impoverish our old age." It's a good, concise post and I recommend reading it.
Article: Receiving fire at the front line: Consumption smoothing is a novel idea, not hucksterism

windfall profit/gain - An unexpected profit arising from causes not controlled by the recipient

Article: Standard Life conjures up £100m in annuity windfall

portfolio - a list of the financial assets held by an individual or a bank or other financial institution

Article: Gold may glitter, but in a slowdown focus on your portfolio instead

subprime mortgage - the practice of making loans to borrowers who do not qualify for the best market interest rates because of their deficient credit history

Article: You could probably find a trillion articles on this very relevant topic, but here's one to get you started...Student loans stung by subprime mortgage crisis

Vocabulary: Love in the Time of Cholera

In my triumphant return to the land of pleasure reading, I've picked up a couple books about some serious disease: the first on the plague and the other about cholera. Why? I generally read books in a topical matter...Indians, hippies, sports and lately it's been disease. I won't review either book just yet, but I did want to look at a number of words from the book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez entitled, Love in the Time of Cholera. So far, the book is great and a wonderful love story. It is, however, a bit of a higher brand of fiction and comes with some words that I either haven't seen before or couldn't accurately define them. Here goes:

• insipid - lacking flavor or zest; not tasty
• belied - to picture falsely; misrepresent
• camphor - an extract from the camphor laurel tree. Used in households to deter moths in cupboards
• crepe - a type of very thin cooked pancake usually made from wheat flour. The word, like the pancake itself, is of French origin, deriving from the Latin crispa, meaning "curled
• portico - a porch or entrance to a building consisting of a covered and often columned area
• lugubrious - exaggeratedly or affectedly mournful
• cisterns - an artificial reservoir (as an underground tank) for storing liquids and especially water (as rainwater)
• ossuary - a depository for the bones of the dead
• pastille - a small mass of aromatic paste for fumigating or scenting the air of a room
• perfidious - of, or relating to the quality or state of being faithless or disloyal
• landau - a four-wheel carriage with a top divided into two sections that can be let down, thrown back, or removed and with a raised seat outside for the driver
• libertine - usually disparaging : a freethinker especially in religious matters
• novenas - a Roman Catholic period of prayer lasting nine consecutive days
• curlew - any of various largely brownish chiefly migratory birds (especially genus Numenius) having long legs and a long slender down-curved bill and related to the sandpipers and snipes

For most of these definitions I used Merriam-Webster Online, which was a very cool, clean and easy-to-use resource

Digital Television Transition

In the latest American Libraries, I read an article about the Digital Television Transition (DTT). I hadn't heard about this before, but I at least should have foreseen it. Basically, those good ol' fashioned analog channels that some of us grew up with are going digital for good. A snippet:

TV stations serving all markets in the United States are airing digital television programming today, although most will continue to provide analog programming through February 17, 2009. At that point, full-power TV stations will cease broadcasting on their current analog channels, and the spectrum they use for analog broadcasting will be reclaimed and put to other uses.

Ideas for a funner NHL All-Star Game...

Just the other day I was commenting to my significant other about how All-Star Games in general stink. I referenced the Pro-Bowl in Hawaii. Seriously, the fact the National Football League's finest would be congregating on that gorgeous island still doesn't spark even a wee bit of interest in me. There's better things to do in Hawaii than watch a glorified game of flag football.

I opened my email today and found that the Hockey News came up with about 56 ideas of their own about how to make the National Hockey League's All Star Game a bit more "razzle-dazzle." In his blog, Jason Kay provides a sneak peek, the first of these examples is probably my favorite. And as for the third example: the idea of throwback jerseys is ALWAYS a good plan. I look forward to see what else they came up with when my mag comes in the mail.

1. Pit the 29-and-under all-stars against the 30-and-older all-stars. Pride would be on the line, especially for the old guys who may want to prove Sid and Alex ain’t necessarily all that.
2. The biggest problem with the all-star game is the absence of any defense or grittiness, so provide incentive for at least some conscientious play. Award bonus points for blocked shots, takeaways (including on the forecheck), blocked passes etc. Once you accumulate a pre-determined number, your team gets a penalty shot.
3. Scrap the conference jerseys. They’re meaningless and leave me cold. Instead, have the home team wear throwback jerseys from the city in which they’re playing (this year, it’d be the East in Atlanta Flames togs), while the visitors would wear old school sweaters as selected in an online vote by fans. My first pick would be the Oakland Seals.