Love in the time of Cholera (book review)

Title: Love in the time of Cholera

Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Note: All efforts have been made to keep this review short and spoiler-free. However, there are some spoilers because analysis does require some factual substantiation.  I shall try and avoid adding too many facts. The point here is to provide an analysis. This is not a gateway for potential bluffing by lazy potatoes who would rather not read those 348 pages.

I avoided most of the major works of Marquez for years. It was just one of those phenomena where one hears so much about something that one takes a cerebral detour due to being alienated by the hype. That, and in my time as an adolescent I did not wish to prove my sibling correct in his estimation of Marquez's literary prowess.

Imagine my bemusement when this book was offered as a gift by someone who, ironically, has his birthday just two days before the sibling's birthday. Ah, life..

This novel appears to be placed somewhere in the Caribbean, shortly after the independence of the colonies. It is an overwhelming read because it tackles many themes and issues. Some the themes that I gleaned were: 

• Modernity versus the ravages of the old world: This is most obviously noted in the pages that compare the experiences of Fermina Daza in Paris and in her home town in the Caribbean.

• The importance of medicine that is usually linked with issues of backwardness, sanitation, hygiene and pragmatism:  This is emphasised by the vehement endeavours of Dr. Juvenal Urbino to impose the latest ideas in the city's hospital and to improve the unhygienic sanitation of the city [Marquez, 1988: 108-115].  An amusing example is when Dr. Juvenal Urbino attempts to convince the staff of the city hospital that it is not necessary to adopt evening wear and chamois gloves in the operating room because elegance is not a protection against sepsis [Marquez, 1988: 108]. An example of superstition is when the author noted that the city's way to tackling cholera was by shooting a cannon from a fortress every quarter hour, due to the local superstition that gunpowder purified the atmosphere [Marquez, 1988:112]. Such descriptions, even if they may be exaggerated convey how backward thoughts and approach superseded pragmatic medicine and hygiene, to the detriment of all.  
  
  This issue regarding the challenges and the efforts to introduce the modern medicine of the time  appears in many novels that take place in times of transition. An example of this would be the novel, "The Name of the Rose",  which takes places somewhere in the dark ages, after schisms within Christianity take root. In this novel, Umberto Eco (1980) mentions how medicine is introduced in the form of an offering after prayer in order to convince the common man to ingest the medication.

• Domestic life within the Caribbean - adulterous partners, passionate killings, illegitimate progeny, the addiction of habituation et al, 

• Morality (or perhaps, a realistic description of the absence of it), 

• Preoccupation with race: it was interesting to note that when discussing the woman that Dr. Urbino loved, i.e., Ms. Barbara Lynch, that while the author described her black father, that there is barely any description about her white mother [Marquez, 1988:240-243] 

• Love: Above all, however, this book is about love, the many forms and perceptions of love that can exist in a lifetime and the distinction as well as overlap between emotional and physical love. In this novel love appears to be understood as being a passionate, obsessive regard and desire for someone. In her book, "Illness as Metaphor ", Susan Sontag (1978:38) notes that in certain fiction, cholera is viewed as the penalty for a secret love. This analogy would be apt in this book owing to two factors: (1) the symptoms of Florentino Ariza's ardour lead his mother  to initially believe that he has contracted cholera and; (2) the fact that - aside from his mother - Florentino Ariza never tells anyone else about his love for Fermina Daza. From Marquez's description itself it appears that at the time that the novel takes place, the notion of love was considered to be so potent and passionate that it was akin to cholera in both its symptoms - weak pulse, hoarse breathing, pale perspiration, fever and pain followed by a keen desire to die -  and its fatality [Marquez, 1988: 62].
  
  Central to this, it appears, is the hypothesis of whether one can live a life without love. Fermina Daza begins to believe that she can live without it and that is when the schism between her and Florentino Ariza appears and widens. She continues her life without love and subsequently comforts herself with a utilitarian adaptation.  Florentino Ariza, on the other hand, immerses himself into a libertarian lifestyle wherein the perceptions of love are feverish to the point of being manic, and sometimes, even deadly. Dr. Juvenal Urbino believes that he can live without love until he meets Ms. Barbara Lynch thereby ensuring that atleast once in his life he is willing to lose much for it. Post-humously Dr. Juvenal Urbino's dalliance with another lover, is eventually uncovered . Towards the end of the novel most of characters, by virtue of their emo-physio-moralistic abandonment appear to concede that a life entirely without love is impossible. This is best acknowledged by Fermina Daza when attempts were made to thwart her reconciliation with Florentino Ariza and she confessed:
  
  "A century ago, life screwed that poor man and me because we were too young and now they want to do the same because we are too old"

Owing to its many inter-mingling nuances, it is easy to actually forgot the intensity of the book and only concentrate on the relationships of the protagonists. From that perspective it is quite a light read. However, owing to the overall mood of fatality that hovers over the book, probably because of the cholera epidemic, it might be prudent to not read it when one is very unwell or burdened with many things.