Will The Real Love Please Stand Up?
Written: Dec 30 '03 (Updated Dec 30 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Marquez burrows deep beneath the surface of the blessings and pitfalls of love
Cons: Marquez uses potty-humor to convey that one character is full of...
The Bottom Line: Despite the potty humor, Marquez elevates a conventional love story into an epic one with unconventional storytelling and characters.
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| Donlee_Brussel's Full Review: Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Chole... |
Note to readers: this review contains spoilers. While I do not believe the revelation of certain plot points will in any way compromise the reading experience, those who wish to read Love in the Time of Cholera without having a previous, general knowledge of plot developments would do well to stop reading now and return after they have read the novel.
In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera, love is a term that lost in oblivion characters throw around, with few, if any, experiencing or even realizing what true love really is. In this story, love is requited, and unrequited. Love is lust, the result of a clinical error, nothing more than an illusion. In this story, love occurs between man and woman, husband and wife, Lolita and Humbert, and above all, between hunter and prey. In this story, love is sadistic, masochistic. Love is obsession, vengeance, a weapon far mightier than the sword. People live for love. People die for love. And at the end of a lifetime, love is surrendered to and quarantined.
In this story, the difference between "true" and "false" love is subject to one’s perspective. To fully comprehend the various forms of love that take shape in this story, one must peruse the love triangle between Florentino Ariza, Fermina Daza, and Dr. Urbino as well as examine a handful of the relationships between Florentino and his 622 "long-term liaisons," (152). Moreover, one must question the intentions of the protagonists in their actions.
"They say it makes the world go round. Money can't buy it. And it conquers all. They say all is fair in love and war. So make love, not war. They say the first one always has a special place in your heart. They say it's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. They say love is blind. Love is colorblind. Love is a many-colored thing. There's first love, puppy love, platonic love, unrequited love, true love, unconditional love, love at first sight, the love of your life, the one you want your mama to meet, the one that got away... So we ride through the Tunnel of Love. Make out at Lover's Lane. Say our vows at the Chapel of Love. Take a cruise on the Loveboat and reserve the Honeymoon Suite. And sometimes we gotta stay at the Heartbreak Hotel. But hey, love is a battlefield. And I'm a soldier of love."
-- Tatsuya Ishida
Real Love?
The predominant story running throughout Cholera is that of star-crossed lovers, Florentino and his "Crowned Goddess" (70). When we first meet Florentino, he declares to Fermina that after "more than half a century, [I] repeat to you… my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love" (50). Flashing back in time, we see that the two were made for each other. Two people, both "in need of love" (78), find each other. However, their relationship is forced into hiatus when Lorenzo Daza, Fermina’s father, pulls a gun on Florentino (82) and sends his daughter away. Upon her return years later, Fermina dispenses the cold truth to her suitor who has been saving his virginity for her: "Today, when I saw you, I realized that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion."
"He was aware that he did not love her. He had married her because he liked her haughtiness, her seriousness, her strength, and also because of some vanity on his part…" (159)
On the flip side of all this is the marriage of Dr. Urbino and Fermina, a couple who marry for all the wrong reasons: "She’s a whore, [Sara Noriega] said… By virtue of marrying a man she does not love for money" (200). By contrast, after their first "miraculous" lovemaking sessions, there is a certain sweetness in their relationship that pops up sporadically even though Fermina becomes "a deluxe servant" (221) who has to baby her husband in his old age. Perhaps too little too late, Dr. Urbino repents at his moment of death for not expressing his true feelings for the woman he spent half a century with:
"He recognized her despite the uproar, through his tears of unrepeatable sorrow at dying without her, and he looked at her for the last and final time with eyes more luminous, more grief-stricken, more grateful than she had ever seen them in half a century of a shared life, and he managed to say to her with his last breath:
"Only God knows how much I loved you." (42-43)
Fake Love:
"In the darkness he could barely see the naked woman, her ageless body soaked in hot perspiration, her breathing heavy, who him onto the bunk face up, unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his trousers, impaled herself on him as if she were riding horseback, and stripped him, without glory, of his virginity… Then she lay for a moment on top of him, gasping for breath…
“Now go and forget all about it,” she said. “This never happened." (142-143)
His innocence stolen, an enlightened Florentino realizes "that his illusory love for Fermina Daza could be replaced by an earthly passion" (143). Gradually, then suddenly, Florentino seduces and destroys 622 women: sometimes obliviously, sometimes not. Widow Nazaret, his "first bedroom love" (152), coos, "I adore you because you made me a whore" (151).
His next, Auscencia Santander, an inconsiderate lover, leaves him with "the impression of being no more than an instrument of pleasure. He said: “You treat me as I were just anybody.” She roared with the laughter of a free female and said: “Not at all: as if you were nobody" (178).
With these women, Florentino is both using and being used. For him, these women are nothing more than a means for him to try and forget Fermina. For Widow Nazaret, he’s a rebound for her deceased husband and a sexual liberator. For Auscencia Santander, he’s a no-strings-attached lay.
Like his counterpart, Dr. Urbino, Florentino savors control. In all of these relationships, he "keeps the final decision for himself" (201) in regards to rejection by making these women fall for him and not the other way around. Whoever loves least controls the relationship. Hence, when Sara Noriega loves least, Florentino gets rejected for the second time in his life.
All the kinky games that Florentino plays ultimately have dire consequences. His arrogant actions often lead to Hildebranda’s "universal conception of love… that whatever happened to one love affected all other loves…" (129). When he sleeps with Auscencia Santander, she awakens to find all her worldly possessions stolen, left only with "…a message painted on the rear wall: This is what you get for fucking around," (179). When he paints "the pubis of the beautiful pigeon fancier with an arrow of blood pointing south, and on her belly the words: This pussy is mine" (217), Olimpia Zuleta’s husband slits her throat. When he takes advantage of Amèrica Vicuna, she becomes attached, and when he tries to break it off, the 14-year-old girl commits suicide.
The love is real for all the women, just not for Florentino.
Real Love:
"Someone smart once told me that you can't have sex with your soulmate. Can't marry her or him either, obviously. Once you consummate the relationship, the spell is broken. Your soulmate is your guardian angel, someone who understands you on a level that no lover or spouse ever can, someone to whom you are connected on an otherworldly level, someone with whom the word "inhibition" means nothing. But the relationship is destined to remain platonic."
-- Eugene Nokivov
Though they "kill the tiger" (259) with a few brandies, by the end of the novel, one could easily argue that it is Leona Cassiani that is Florentino’s true soulmate. In his old age, and in his rise to the top of the corporate ladder, it is always Leona who is the woman standing behind the man, giving him the support that he needs. She’s the only woman who sees Florentino for who he really is, giving him his enemas, taking care of him. The two of them share more than just a superficial crush that spans a lifetime. They share a friendship that is so much more than that.
Recommended:
Yes
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Donlee_Brussel
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Location: Los Angeles, CA
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