An anatomy of Love

Love in the time of Cholera

by SHITU RAJBHANDARI

FROM ISSUE # 147 (March 2008) | IN THIS ISSUE
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No matter what I write, I could never do justice to Gabriel García Márquez's novel Love in the Time of Cholera. For someone who was one when Marquez won the Nobel Prize for literature (for One Hundred Years of Solitude), I felt that I had bitten off more than I could chew when I volunteered to write a review on it. But the book is so beautiful that I couldn't stop myself.

Stretching roughly over a period of fifty years, the story begins with the death of Doctor Juvenal, caused by falling off a mango tree while trying to save the family parrot. Assuming it to be the correct time, Florentino declares his love to Fermina but is shunned for his guts and insensitivity towards the situation. The book then moves back in time to unravel the interlaced relationship between the three, beginning when Fermina and Florentino were both young.

A chance meeting or glance starts a whirlwind romance through letters between Fermina and Florentino; but is soon ended by Fermina on her return from her hometown. Calling the affair an illusion and false, Fermina marries Dr Juvenal because he is more capable of providing her with security and other worldly things which she assumed will change into love someday. Despite being rejected by his lady love, Florentino vows to continue loving her and not be with any other woman, ever. But as the book moves forward we find out that he doesn't stick to his promise, as he's had a total of 622 love affairs. The last part of the book finds Fermina and Florentino once again resuming their exchange of letters. They rekindle their friendship and accept being in love with each other on a boat.

Through the course of the book we are able to see the individual growth of the characters and the choices they make to be where they are- personally and professionally. Set in an unnamed Carribean city, it ends on a positive note and in the course manages to make the reader happy, sad and even frustrated with the characters. Focusing on each character's description of love and how they choose to express it, Márquez's Florentino is extremely romantic and highly influenced by literature and poetry. The nucleus of the book, Fermina on the other hand is strong and independent and seems heartless when she rejects Florentino. 

At times, Love in the Time of Cholera is an antithesis to Paulo Coelho's By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept. While Coelho writes about imposing personal desires and rules onto the other person, Márquez pays tribute to unrequited love and glorifies the suffering of being in love.

The book reflects Márquez's mastery of expression and his ability to play with words transforming even the most mundane of situations into an exceptional piece of literature. That was the exact reason why I cringed a little when the movie was announced, for no matter who directs or acts in it, the subtleties of the book could never be captured on the screen. And as predicted, the movie bombed. As a personal request to all reading-give the book a read. Then only will you understand the melodrama of the above lines.