Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel Love in the Time of Cholera is a story the power of text to create and sustain both love and life over a lifetime.
Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza are childhood sweethearts whose romance is interrupted by fifty years--during which time Florentino Ariza pursues one romance after another with a number of widows and his goddaughter to stave off her loneliness, and Fermina Daza lives the life of a proper housewife and mother whose husband, Juvenal Ubrino, is a respected doctor in their claustrophobic South American community.
Juvenal Urbino's death from falling off a ladder while trying to capture his parrot creates the opportunity for Florentino Ariza to reintroduce himself to Fermina Daza. Over time, he wins her friendship and her heart in the most agreeable presentation of love in this novel.
Both the romance and the lifetime of waiting are sustained by the stories Florentia Ariza creates. After he hd fallen in love with her while delivering a telegram to her father, he courted her solely by letter. When her father, who disapproved of the romance, sent her to into the countryside to stay with family for a few years, the romance continued via letter. Whens she sees him three years later, she dismisses him with a shrug.
A lifetime passes during which the ardent young man fills his free time by writing love letters for men and women of the servant class. In some instances, he writes the letters for both parties in the romance, in effect falling in love with himself. The lovers not only survive the fiction but believe it, marry, and, in one instance, name their first child after the author of their relationship.
After Florentino Ariza's visit to the Widow Urbino's home following the death of the doctor, she sends him a scathing, incoherent letter that troubles the frustrated lover but does not stop him. He begins a one-way correspondence that over time helps the widow emerge from her grief to begin her life anew. In gratitude, she renews a relationship that never existed in reality but thrived in story.
The power of story--and the storyteller as power broker--becomes a part of the conversation between these two when Florentino Ariza asks the widow to return an unread letter. She gives him the letter, remarking that any letter actually belongs to its writer. He responds that this is perhaps why the love letters are the first items to be returned when a romance ends.
This conversation can take place now that life has mellowed the Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza into senior citizens who accept themselves, their lives, their bodies--in short, their stories--as they are and are grateful for the companionship and the love that insists on itself in the life of the human heart as well as the imagination.
Ultimately, the fictitious love story is a lie that tells a truth of love that the protagonists grow into and run away with, leaving the past behind. Some things are worth the wait.
Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza are childhood sweethearts whose romance is interrupted by fifty years--during which time Florentino Ariza pursues one romance after another with a number of widows and his goddaughter to stave off her loneliness, and Fermina Daza lives the life of a proper housewife and mother whose husband, Juvenal Ubrino, is a respected doctor in their claustrophobic South American community.
Juvenal Urbino's death from falling off a ladder while trying to capture his parrot creates the opportunity for Florentino Ariza to reintroduce himself to Fermina Daza. Over time, he wins her friendship and her heart in the most agreeable presentation of love in this novel.
Both the romance and the lifetime of waiting are sustained by the stories Florentia Ariza creates. After he hd fallen in love with her while delivering a telegram to her father, he courted her solely by letter. When her father, who disapproved of the romance, sent her to into the countryside to stay with family for a few years, the romance continued via letter. Whens she sees him three years later, she dismisses him with a shrug.
A lifetime passes during which the ardent young man fills his free time by writing love letters for men and women of the servant class. In some instances, he writes the letters for both parties in the romance, in effect falling in love with himself. The lovers not only survive the fiction but believe it, marry, and, in one instance, name their first child after the author of their relationship.
After Florentino Ariza's visit to the Widow Urbino's home following the death of the doctor, she sends him a scathing, incoherent letter that troubles the frustrated lover but does not stop him. He begins a one-way correspondence that over time helps the widow emerge from her grief to begin her life anew. In gratitude, she renews a relationship that never existed in reality but thrived in story.
The power of story--and the storyteller as power broker--becomes a part of the conversation between these two when Florentino Ariza asks the widow to return an unread letter. She gives him the letter, remarking that any letter actually belongs to its writer. He responds that this is perhaps why the love letters are the first items to be returned when a romance ends.
This conversation can take place now that life has mellowed the Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza into senior citizens who accept themselves, their lives, their bodies--in short, their stories--as they are and are grateful for the companionship and the love that insists on itself in the life of the human heart as well as the imagination.
Ultimately, the fictitious love story is a lie that tells a truth of love that the protagonists grow into and run away with, leaving the past behind. Some things are worth the wait.
1 comments:
Yes! Some things are worth the wait!
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