Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

It's been a few years since I read any Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but I do recall this one receiving strong recommendations.

The book begins with the final day of one Dr. Juvenal Urbino, who dies falling off a ladder while making a grab for a parrot (In the odd way these things often work, his day began with the death of a dear friend). Later that night, as Fermina Daza, the new widow, tries to face the life ahead of her, Florentino Ariza approaches. He reminds her that he loves as much as he did 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days ago, when she sent him away. Which is exactly what she does here, with a few invectives added for good measure.

From there, Marquez takes us through their lives, starting roughly the day Florentino first saw her. Through their budding courtship, her father's attempts to halt it (which succeeds, though not in the manner he might have expected), and on from there. Fermina meets Dr. Urbino, eventually marries him, and gradually adapts to the challenges married life presents - the in-laws, the concessions to another's desires, the fact she came from a lower social class, which means dealing with a lot of snobbery - while the memory of Ariza gradually fades. Florentino, however, does not move on. Oh, it might appear that he does, as he moves his way up from a telegraph office to eventually, decades later, control of a riverboat company, all while engaging in hundreds of relationships. Some are brief, names and faces barely known. Others last for years, the fire starting whenever the opportunity arises.

Even so, Ariza considers these relations completely separate of his feelings for Fermina Daza. They are physical love, or even "love without love" on some occasions. It might be physical love, spiritual love, or even both, but as far as he's concerned, he's simply biding time, waiting for Dr. Urbino to die, so that he can profess his love to Fermina Daza once again.

Eventually the book catches back up to the present, and at that point, I had no idea how it might go. Any number of possibilities seemed viable, and I wasn't sure which I was hoping for. I'm satisfied with the one Marquez opted for, with one minor exception. There's a supporting character who reacts very strongly to learning of Florentino's love for Fermina, and takes drastic action. It's briefly mentioned, then dismissed as quickly as stating that Florentino put it out of his memory.

I thought maybe that was a point Marquez was making about Florentino, he was so focused on Fermina that he ignored to wreckage of lives he left in the wake of his 600+ affairs.  That or the old saying about life being what happens while you make other plans. Ultimately, though, I think it's about love, and the idea that it comes in many forms, and one of those isn't necessarily better than another. Ariza experienced lots of kinds of love, some platonic, and there's no sense of judgment in the writing about that. There is some sense of it in how he goes about, that he's actively seeking women (Ariza's referred to as "hunting", or "his days of falconry", and the women as "little birds"), but the physical acts, not so much. Fermina is in no way hassled for rejecting Florentino, except by some part of her that pities him, and didn't like causing him pain. Her love for Urbino is something different from what Ariza feels for her, but it's legitimate. There are several of the side characters, women Ariza slept with, who regularly sleep with several men, and the book doesn't judge them for that, either. Oh, there's mention of certain people in the city who disapprove, but that feels perfunctory, an acknowledgement that there are going to be people like that, who feel others' personal business is also their business. Otherwise, the book is open to the idea people are going to love who they love, when they love them, and that's fine (It's perhaps a little too open for me, when Ariza in his 70s, begins sleeping with a teenager he's supposed to acting as guardian for.)

When I discussed The Unpossessed City last week, I talked about how Fasman seemed invested in fleshing out his characters, often to the detriment of plot development. Before that, there was The Long Midnight, where Alan White kept the story moving at such a brisk pace, he had to stop periodically to try and force in some added character backstory. Maruqez demonstrated the gap between himself and both of them. There are numerous digressions from the main plot, usually to describe the life of some character we've just heard of. This is also usually someone Ariza is screwing, but not always.

The skill Marquez has is these are so well written, I never begrudge him the diversion. Normally, I'd get annoyed by such things taking place right up to the end of the book, but Marquez is descriptive without being overly long, so effective at giving us an understanding of the character's importance, that I love reading them. Every character has a distinct history, something unique that they did, said, or experienced that makes them stand out. I actually look forward to them because I know there's going to be something good in there.

I can't recommend Love In The Time of Cholera highly enough.

'He was still too young to know 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. But when he stood at the railing of the ship and the saw the white promontory of the colonial district again, the motionless buzzards on the roof, the washing of the poor hung out to dry on the balconies, only then did he understand to what extent he had been an easy victim to the charitable deceptions of nostalgia.'