Aug 08, 2003 12:12 PM
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(Updated Aug 08, 2003 12:12 PM)
Love in the Time of Cholera is set in an “in-between” time: from the end of the nineteenth- into the first decades of the twentieth century. It takes place in a Caribbean seaport. The story hovers around the love of Florentino Ariza, who, with his long frock coat and melancholy air, resembles “a rabbi in disgrace” and Fermina Daza. Florentino is madly in love with Fermina although he is socially inferior to her. They became engaged through their letters, often exchanged through hiding places and telegrams in code.
Marquez has always shown his desire to experiment and play with his stylistic repertoire. Love in the Time of Cholera shares some similarities with his other masterpieces like the One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Autumn of the Patriarch; but the book quite deliberately avoids an exclusive reliance on either the stunning magical realism of the former or the lush density of the latter.
Like a true champion, Marquez picks out another weapon from his repertoire and maintains an almost folktale quality in the Love in the Time of Cholera. It is made spicier with the feel of everyday gossip and love is incorporated into that.
Florentino in a sense is the symbol of the romantic notion of the nineteenth century. He is excessively sentimental which at times seem beyond manageable proportions. He cannot even compose a normal business letter without being lyrical. He seems quite content to write letter after letter to Fermina and receiving answers from her.
But suddenly his life falls into pieces when Fermina suddenly and inexplicably rejects him, after returning from an exile imposed by her father, who disapproves her relationship with Florentino for reasons of class. She tells him to forget whatever happened between them. Fermina goes on and marries Dr. Juvenal Urbino. For Fermina, this is a marriage of convenience and love isn't a major factor in that. The marriage lasts for half a century amidst a civil war, cholera outbreaks etc. The somewhat stable and peaceful relationship is ended when Dr.Urbino falls from the tree trying to catch his pet parrot and dies.
Florentino Ariza wakes up at the news of the doctor's death. He is now about seventy and controls a wealthy shipping operation. He approaches Fermina saying, ''I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and ever-lasting love.'' Outraged by his ill-considered timing, Fermina throws him out of the house and tell him not to return again. Florentino, however, is determined to win her love and continues to do what he does best. Writing letters, but this time, with a difference. His letters are meditative and philosophic rather than flowery and romantic and they do impress Fermina and
the final courtship in the Love in the Time of Cholera commences.
The novel crosses a long stretch of time and assumes an air of epic to it. The aged love of Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza impresses with the wisdom and patience of age. In the final pages of the book where the couple travels in a boat they seem to be without any hurry, they seem to have gone beyond the pitfalls of passion, because ''they had lived together long enough to know that love was always love, anytime and anyplace, but it was more solid the closer it came to death.''
The book reads like poetry. Written in a typical Marquez style that is full of passion, drama and sensitivity, it moves the reader slowly and makes him marvel at each sentence. When you finish reading the book, chances are that you would be sad to have completed it. This is a classic from Marquez and in my humble opinion is at par with One Hundred Years of Solitude.
