| Love in the Time of Cholera | |
|---|---|
 1st US edition cover |
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| Author | Gabriel García Márquez |
| Original title | El amor en los tiempos del cólera |
| Translator | Edith Grossman |
| Country | Colombia |
| Language | Spanish |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
| Publication date | 1985 (English trans. 1988) |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 348 pp (First English hardback edition) |
Love in the Time of Cholera (Spanish: El amor en los tiempos del cólera) is a novel by Nobel Prize winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez that was first published in Spanish in 1985, with an English translation released in 1988 by Alfred A. Knopf. An English-language film adaptation was released in 2007.
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The main female character in the novel, Fermina Daza, is the strong axis around which the story revolves. Fermina easily rejects Florentino Ariza in their youth when she realizes the naïveté of their first romance, and she weds Juvenal Urbino at the age of 21, the "deadline" she had set for herself, ultimately because he seemed to be able to offer security and love to her. Urbino is a doctor in medicine devoted to science, modernity, and "order and progress." He is committed to the eradication of cholera and to the promotion of public works. He is a rational man whose life is organized precisely and who values his importance and reputation in society to the utmost. Urbino is a herald of progress and modernization.[1]
His function in the novel is to provide the counterpoint to Ariza’s archaic, baldly romantic, love. Urbino proves in the end not to have been an entirely faithful husband, confessing one affair to Fermina some years into their marriage, and leaving another to be apparently uncovered by Fermina after his death. Though the novel seems to suggests that Urbino's love for Fermina was never as spiritually chaste as Florentino Ariza's was, it also complicates Florentino's devotion by cataloging his many trysts and apparently a few, possibly genuine, loves. By the end of the book, Fermina has recognized a change in Ariza and their love is allowed to blossom in their old age. For most of the novel, their communication is limited to occasional public niceties or uncertain correspondence by letter; not until the end of the book do Fermina and Florentino converse at length.
The story takes place in an unnamed port city somewhere in the Caribbean, near the Magdalena River. While the city remains unnamed throughout the novel, descriptions of it led one to the conclusion that it must be Cartagena, in Bolívar, Colombia, where García Márquez spent his early years. The city is divided into such sections as "The District of the Viceroys" and "The Arcade of the Scribes." The novel encompasses the half-century roughly between 1880 and 1930.[2] The city’s "steamy and sleepy streets, rat-infested sewers, old slave quarter, decaying colonial architecture, and multifarious inhabitants" dot the text and mingle amid the lives of the characters.[3] Locations within the story include:
Some critics choose to view Love in the Time of Cholera as a heart-warming story about the enduring power of true love. Others criticize this view as simple, contending that the author has woven a story so dense that the reader risks falling into its trap of sweetness and simplicity if they do not pay close attention to what is happening. García Márquez himself said in an interview, "you have to be careful not to fall into my trap."[4]
This is manifested by Ariza’s excessively romantic attitude toward life, an attitude which shapes his obsession with Daza, and his gullibility in trying to retrieve the sunken treasure of a shipwreck. It is also made evident by the fact that society in the story believes Daza and Urbino’s marriage is perfect and happy, while the reality of the situation is not so ideal. Critic Booker relates Ariza’s situation to that of Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, saying that just as Humbert is able to charm the reader into sympathizing with his situation, even though he is a "pervert, a rapist, and a murderer," Ariza is able to garner the reader’s sympathy, even though the reader is consistently reminded of his more sinister exploits.[4]
The notion that Marquez's "trap" refers to our temptation to oversimplify and reduce his narrative to an elementary love story is further abetted by the fact that the novel holds up and interrogates romantic love in a myriad of forms, both "ideal" and "depraved", and continually forces the reader to question such ready-made characterizations by introducing elements antithetical to these facile judgments.
García Márquez's main notion is that lovesickness is a literal illness, a disease comparable to cholera. Ariza suffers from this just as he might suffer from any malady. At one point, he conflates his physical agony with his amorous agony when he vomits after eating flowers in order to imbibe Fermina's scent. In the final chapter, the Captain's declaration of metaphorical plague is another manifestation of this. 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 both on the level of Ariza's hatred for Urbino's marriage to Fermina, as well as the theme of social strife and warfare that serves as a backdrop to the entire story.
Jeremiah Saint-Amour's death inspires Urbino to meditate on his own death, especially the infirmities that accompany it. It is necessary for Fermina and Florentino to transcend not only the difficulties of love, but also the societal view that love is a young person's prerogative (not to mention the physical obstacles that old age brings to physical love).
Florentino's penchant for high drama as a poet and a lover is portrayed as both ridiculous and serious. He may go to outlandish lengths for love, but in the end the absurdity is ennobling and his suffering has a kind of dignity. He also endures physical pains.
In the film Serendipity, this novel is the one of which Jonathan (John Cusack) must find a copy in order to retrieve Sara's (Kate Beckinsale) phone number.
In both the novel High Fidelity and the film based on the novel, Rob Gordon (also played by John Cusack in the film) makes reference to this book along with The Unbearable Lightness of Being, saying that he's not the smartest guy in the world, but that he's not the dumbest either, having read these books and thinking he's understood them: "They're about girls, right? Just Kidding," he quips.
Steve Martin, in his humorous essay "Writing is Easy," talks about why Love in the Time of Cholera does not make a very good title. It's all tongue-in-cheek, of course. The essay can be found in his book Pure Drivel.
In the 21st episode of the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, lead character Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) describes his ideal wife's favorite book as being Love in the Time of Cholera.
In The Simpsons episode "Lisa's Rival," Marge is reading a book entitled "Love In The Time Of Scurvy." Also, in the episode titled "Bart vs. Lisa vs. the Third Grade," Lisa is on the bus reading "Love in the Time of Coloring Books."
Mexican film director Alfonso Cuarón's directorial debut, Sólo con tu pareja, was released in the English-speaking world as Love in the Time of Hysteria.
Icelandic singer Emiliana Torrini released an album in 1999 titled Love in the Time of Science.
In Annie Wang's book "People's Republic of Desire" Lulu writes a book during the SARS scare called "Love in the Time of SARS", later renamed "Love in the Time of Socks".
Stone Village Pictures bought the film rights from the author for US$3 million, and Mike Newell was chosen to direct it with Ronald Harwood writing the script. Filming started in Cartagena, Colombia, in September 2006.[5]
The $50 million film, the first major foreign production shot in the scenic, walled city in twenty years,[5] was released on November 16, 2007, by New Line Cinema. On his own initiative, García Márquez convinced singer Shakira, who hails from the nearby city of Barranquilla, to provide two songs for the film.
Love in the Time of Cholera (El amor en los tiempos del cólera, 1985) is a novel by Gabriel García Márquez about a fifty-year love triangle between Fermina Daza, Florentino Ariza and Doctor Juvenal Urbino set in the late 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century (roughly 1880 to 1930). The novel, a picturesque tale of unrequited love, which is written in Márquez's trademark form of magical realism, deeply explores the idea that suffering for love is a kind of nobility.
   | ''THE HEART'S ETERNAL VOW '' - THE HEART'S ETERNAL VOW - The New York Times |
| | A.R. Lakshmanan, Indira. "Love in the Time of Cholera: On location, out on a limb". - The New York Times > Log In |
| | choleric - Choleric Definition | Definition of Choleric at Dictionary.com |
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