Novel – 350 pages – my copy (paperback; 1988) purchased from the best second-hand bookshop in Plymouth a decade ago, and recently read during May 2012
#42 of 2011-12 – #163 of All Time
- 5 nods out of 5 –
The Worm has recently considered how reading books has its own life and timeline, separate from reality. A decade ago the Worm was working in what turned out to be one of many faceless, pointless work environments and came across a person who turned out to be reading the very same author, very same book, and very same publication date pages… down to the same faded cover. It was the reading equivalent of Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers, and the connection was down to a book rather than anything else.
A decade of “real” time has since passed, but a return to Gabriel Garcia’s Marquez’s novel of love and hope appears to overcome such boundaries; the reader is taken back to earlier connections with the novel, to experiences seemingly long forgotten. Perhaps it is the strength of the writer, and the Worm feels obliged to Mr Marquez’s ability to fascinate in his prose.
Love in the Time of Cholera was originally written in Spanish, and given the somewhat exotic – to English eyes anyhow – title of El amor en los tiempos del colera. The novel is set in a coastal town of Colombia, and takes place during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It features a love triangle surrounding the characters Florentina Ariza, Fermina Daza and Jurvenal Urbino. Florentina and Fermina are feverish correspondents during their youth, hoping one day to marry; however, Fermina instead renounces her young love and marries Juvenal. Both male characters are seen as opposites: Juvenal a modern and dynamic doctor, searching for material gains; whilst Florentina is an old romantic, attached to dying ideals. At different points the novel focuses on each of these characters: on the death of Juvenal near the book’s beginning; the disputes in Fermina’s life; and the long wait endured by Florentina as he never gives up hope of one day winning Fermina back. At risk of spoiling the ending – as this book is more about the idea of love rather than mere plot – the old romantic’s dream does come true as they reunite in old age.
Alongside the main theme of love, is that of death: the youth of these characters is seen in the focus of old age. The majority of the characters – due to the passing of time within the novel – die: indeed, the first section is devoted to two such deaths; including one of the main characters, Juvenal Urbino. Such a combination – of love and death – is shown within the book’s very title, with there being the joy of love at a time of intense suffering. Such suffering can be seen nowhere more clearly than in Florentino’s voyeuristic vigil, awaiting the day when he has a chance to claim his former love as his again:
‘The years of immobilized waiting, of hoping for good luck, were behind him, but on the horizon he could see nothing more than the unfathomable sea of imaginary illness, the drop-by-drop urinations of sleepless nights, the daily death at twilight. He thought that all the moments in the day, which had once been his allies and sworn accomplices, were beginning to conspire against him….So it was reasonable to think that the woman he loved most on earth, the one he had waited for from one century to the next without a sigh of disenchantment, might not have the opportunity to lead him by the arm across a street full of lunar grave mounds and beds of wind-blown poppies in order to help him reach the other side of death in safety’.
For readers familiar with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s work, you will already applaud the writer’s skill at telling a story. Yes, the focus is on the characters and how they are neatly interwoven across decades of personal and national history; but also unravelled is the character of the nameless town: its pull – wanted or not – into the modern age. It is similar commentary alluded to in the epic One Hundred Years of Solitude; however, within this novel, the heart of these thoughts remain wed to central characters who remain and expand during the unfolding of the pages.
Call it the magic of this book, the magic of reading, or of chance and mere fluke: but Love in the Time of Cholera has quartered a special home in the reading memory of the Worm. On its second reading – ten years later – it retains the power to entrance and amaze. The Worm looks forward to a third reading, perhaps ten years from now.
Buy it here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Cholera-Gabriel-Garcia-Marquez/dp/014012389X
