Love in the Time of Cholera

"Think of Love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end, and itself."

The room for complete fulfillment lies on the individual doing his hobby, along with his burning passion and desire to forget bad memories. That made me think of a good hobby to start the year with, and probably, I'll end it 'till the day I die: reading novels and reviewing 'em up.

First stop: Love in the Time of Cholera, from the Nobel Prize awardee Gabriel Garcia Marquez. An online buddy recommended it for a good read about Love. Ideally, we see love as something that is made out of marriage, or a bond between two people, but in this novel, Florentino Ariza did eveything he could just to have the girl of his dreams, the one he loved most, until the age of 70+.

From the title itself, the setting of the story is on the time when cholera was an epidemic, when the world started growing up its population, developing its cities, but sewage problems lie for the people lead their garbage, as well as household sewage, at the rivers. These are the common problems of districts and countries in Latin America. Circa late 1800's to early 1900's.

I've got a glimpse of all kinds of love in this novel: Love made out of pity, love made out of the desire of having a family, domesticated love, and true love, among others. Garcia Marquez proved that love has no other means but patience, as what he wants the readers to see on his main character, Florentino Ariza, towards Fermina Daza, the woman of his dreams. He waited for Fermina's husband to die, who is ten years older than them, just to seize the moment of renewing his vow of internal fidelity and everlasting love, just what he did fifty years ago.

Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza had a dose of their puppy love moments, the time during their teenage years where they swore love to each other on letters due to the fact that Fermina's father didn't want Florentino for her. Time passed by and Fermina's love for Florentino faded away in time, probably because of maturity, but Florentino, whom I thought would forget her sometime in the story, really loved her, with the real definition of love, at its truest sense.

With the novel, I had the opportunity of opening my eyes on the hardships of married life, on infidelities, just how I knew regarding my Aunt's experiences. It's really hard being married and committing yourself to a person, without knowing how love works in your relationship. What's sad is that, even the bond of marriage don't work on your impulses. It's more decent to be single and living your life with your own means.

What Florentino did made me realize one thing: that man cannot live his life alone. He spent times forgetting Fermina through other ladies, doing the domestic stuff, but then at the end of the day, he still sees himself drowning on the memories of what was used to be between Fermina and him. What's more hurting is that, in important occasions, he sees Fermina along with her husband, a known doctor and respected man, Dr. Juvenal Urbino. Heartaches? Probably those thorns that really made his heart bleed were sharp enough.

But without pain, Florentino wouldn't push himself to his limits. He won't be that eager to develop his own skills, feed his mind with various knowledge, take his work seriously, and, it won't be possible for him to be the President of the River Company of the Carribean. Pain really does its job, destroy you for some point in your life, then later on, make you feel worthless, until you're back with your senses, and make yourself strive for something to happen, something impossible for others: Strive for perfection.

But he was really meant to be with Fermina. Even they only have short remaining days to live their life together, they knew that they are together because of love, not because of needing someone to be with, someone who'll help you out, or someone for show.

Love is patient, should be patient and must be kind enough. If it's not, then it's not love. And it's a matter of self-sacrifice, that one must be a person for another. They must meet halfway, and complete in their own selves.