Love in the Time of Cholera

‘he convinced her that one comes into the world with a predetermined allotment of lays, and whoever does not use them for whatever reason, one’s own or someone else’s, willingly or unwillingly, loses them forever.’

“Love is the only thing that interests me”, he said.
“The trouble”, his uncle said to him, “is that without river navigation there is no love”.

By reading the above lines, you must have realized by now as to which author I am referring to. Anyone, with even a fleeting interest in this author, can recognize that these lines can come from no other author than Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

The book that I am talking about is Love in the Time of Cholera. It is a wonderful love story set in the late-19th and early 20th century Caribbean coastal city of Columbia, during a period stricken by cholera. It revolves around Florentino Ariza and his relentless quest for his only love Fermina Daza, who was once his lover in childhood. The story takes you from their furtive love letters in their childhood to the conjugal life of Fermina Daza and Dr Juvenal Urbino, from Florentino’s stratagems to keep himself informed of everything concerning Fermina Daza to his promiscuous lifestyle despite his professed fidelity for her and un-lost virginity, and from his rise through the ranks in the River Company of the Caribbean to his final victory on a ship sailing in the river Magdalena when Fermina Daza accepts his love.

Before I read this book, I had also read One Hundred Years of Solitude and Living to Tell the Tale both by the same author. These books portray magic realism in all its glory and somehow instill distinctiveness and an aura of surrealism in not only in their protagonists but also in their other characters, so much so that by the time you have finished reading these books, you realize that you have not only been a passive reader but also an active character before whom the entire story unfolded. And so, quite obviously, I had high expectations from ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ also. No doubt, the book is a good read but there is something that is amiss. It doesn’t have that liveliness and imagery as does have ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ nor does it have that improvised frankness and quick narration as does have ‘Living to Tell the Tale’. I think that is because the book is a little closer to reality. Moreover, the book becomes a little bland towards the end and so, is not able to enthuse the reader from cover to cover. Overall, I would say, this is a book that must be read at least once.

Au revoir