delightful

I really can't imagine a better afternoon than the one I'm having, curled up in the armchair by the window, thinking about maybe making some French onion soup for lunch, and reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. I love this book. When I read One Hundred Years of Solitude, it took me about a month. I liked it a lot, but I could only get into it for short amounts of time. I think that there's something intimidating about Marquez's super-long chapters. But I started this book Friday and I only have forty pages left.

I mean, there's something absolutely compelling about a passage like this, in which the perpetually-constipated protagonist shits his pants because he's so surprised by the sudden responsiveness of the object of his fifty-plus years' unrequited love:

Florentino Ariza thanked her, bid an urgent farewell with his hat, and left without tasting the coffee. She stood in the middle of the drawing room, puzzled, not understanding what had just happened, until the sound of his automobile's backfiring faded at the end of the street. Then Florentino Ariza shifted into a less painful position in the back seat, closed his eyes, relaxed his muscles, and surrendered to the will of his body. It was like being reborn. The driver, who after so many years in his service was no longer surprised at anything, remained impassive. But when he opened the door for him in front of his house, he said:
"Be careful, Don Floro, that looks like cholera.

I really lead a charmed life.