Love in the Time of Cholera

Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Initially planned for the 2011 Global Reading Challenge, I was only able to complete it in Jan 2012.

The story of two lovers spanning more than 50 years, it takes place at a time when great social and technological changes occur in their city. Fermina Daza and Fiorentino Ariza fall in love as teenagers, but are separated when Fermina marries an up-and-coming doctor from a distinguished family. 50 years on, after her husband dies, Fiorentino professes his love for her again. Despite having had 422 affairs within that period of separation, Ariza claims he has been faithful to Daza.

Maybe this is typical of South American men, or Latino men, or men in general, but I fail to see how this makes it a great love story. Ariza is described as someone prone to lyricism due to his indulgence of poetry,  romances, and love letters - up to a point where he becomes ghost-writer to illiterate lovers and end up writing for both parties, such that the correspondence is in reality to himself. However, there is no explicit evidence or specimen of his writing in the book. His love is embodied in the physical sense through his many relationships with all sorts of women - widows and wives of other men included.

More striking to me is the love that Fermina Daza's husband, Dr Juvenal Urbino, has for his city. This is shown through his patronage of the Civil and Arts movements as well as his efforts at improving the health system. In a way, this also showcases the love that the author has for this region's history and geography, and most of all for the people inhabiting this city. Maybe this is the real love story it intends to portray.

In describing Dr Juvenal Urbino's fond memories of his hometown while studying in Paris:

"He was still too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past. But when he stood at the railing of the ship...only then did he understand to what extent he had been an easy victim to the charitable deceptions of nostalgia."

And when the penitent doctor arrives at his wife's cousin's ranch for reconciliation:

"It is better to arrive in time than to be invited."

Another wonderful quote is from Ariza' Uncle Leo responding to 'accusations' of being rich:

"No, not rich. I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing."