Love in the time of Cholera
(El Amor en los tiempo del colera)
One of the bestselling novels by Nobel laureate, the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez, who died yesterday at 87. His death & the book were trending on Twitter
The main characters of the novel are Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza. Both Florentino and Fermina fell in love with each other in their youth.
However Fermina's father disapproved, he gave his blessing to her subsequent marriage to an eminent man in society, a doctor, Urbino- who is also a cholera specialist
Ariza never stopped loving her ( though he had so many trysts an affairs on his own)
They had an opportunity to be together again in their old age when Dr Urbino died following an accident
Several themes were addressed in the Novel:
-Love sickness is literally an illness, a disease comparable to cholera.
The term cholera as it is used in Spanish, cólera, can also denote human rage and ire. (The English adjective choleric has the same meaning.) It is this second meaning to the title that manifests itself in Ariza's hatred for Urbino's marriage to Fermina,
-Love is imperfect and humans are complicated- Ariza's dalliances while still holding a torch for his one true love, Fermina.
- Love is endless. The question how long can you wait for love may not have an answer
-There are physical difficulties of love as one gets older. So one could be tempted to view love as a young person's prerogative
Two great quotes from the novel:
"He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
"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.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
There's a 2007 flick, starring Javier Bardem ( No Country For Old Men) based on the book. ( it got mixed to negative reviews by the Critics-basically showing the enormously daunting task of adapting such a brilliant book to the big Screen)
Shakira wrote 2 songs for the flick:
i. Despedida ( which means farewell, goodbye)
was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Song.
ii. Hay Amores ( Hey a Lovers) is another beautiful song.
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