There are few times where I've been this angry at a book and yet respected the artistry and execution of the themes.
Summary:
Fermina Daza has captured the love of two men, her husband Dr. Juvenal Urbino and her childhood sweetheart Florentino Ariza. The novel chronicles the young romance that Fermina left behind, the dedication of Florentino to earn her back one day, and the steadfastness of Juvenal to stay true to his wife while holding back the disease that tries to overcome the country.
Verdict: 9/10
This book would have been a 10 if I wasn’t so angry about the ending. I felt like it negated all of the character development that I had seen. But everything else was outstanding!
The themes in this book were beautiful and expressed real love in a way few fictitious works have. Unlike the love that Hollywood often portrays (pining over someone for years, never letting them go, admiring them from afar), Gabriel Garcia Marquez shows this to be but a hollow obsession. If you look at Florentino Ariza’s relationship with Fermina Daza, he never really knows her or talks to her. He writes 60 pages about a girl he knows nothing about. Fermina comes to realize that it isn’t really love where Florentino refuses to see this reality. He dedicates his life to a fantasy. By contrast, Dr. Urbino and Fermina have a much more realistic love. It has ups and downs in feeling, fidelity, and more, but their dedication and intimacy goes beyond the physical or emotional. Staying married despite the challenges shows more love for the other than any passionate affair ever does.
I could go on and on about the many masterful motifs the author wove in (the two suitors’ views of the city’s beauty, the “desirable” suffering of love vs cholera, sex vs connection and friendship, family dynamics, public marriage vs private marriage, love throughout different stages of life, the illusion of nostalgia, the emotional effects of the press, plague and isolation tactics especially in light of COVID now, etc.) I could write countless essays on this novel. No wonder it won the Nobel Prize!
Another thing I found fascinating was that the book starts at what many would consider “the end”, with the passing of who we think is going to be the main character. Garcia Marquez basically writes a short story in the first chapter that summarizes elderly life. At first, I thought ‘what else could there be?’ There was enough in the first 50 pages/50 years of marriage to be a whole life in itself. I’ve never thought about a romance that way. Dating is a short part of your life compared to the rest of aging and marriage. But it’s often the section of a story that is focused on the most as it’s perceived as the most volatile. But this novel shows that the drama continues far beyond courtship. It is so so true!
The description of the culture was also eye-opening. I’ve never read about Central America at that time or thought about the European influence and the culture of the Caribbean wealthy. Garcia Marquez includes so much detail about aspects of his characters’ lives and history about the places they go. It can seem a bit obscure or lengthy at times (such as the section of Florentino’s treasure hunt), but it gets you invested in their lives and personalities so well that you don’t really notice the length. All of those details of everyday life such as fights over soap put you in their shoes and make their mindset all the more understandable. And I was baffled at how well Garcia Marquez accurately depicted the perspective of every age and gender.
The only thing I couldn’t understand was the ending. SPOILERS AHEAD
Florentino is the artist/poet that you would expect to win in a love story, and yet we know he ultimately doesn’t as seen in the first chapter. It was such an unusual, unique and refreshing take. UNTIL he gets the girl in the final pages. Seriously?! Why?!?!
I thought his torrid affairs that ruined lives in his wake would come back to bite him. I mean he wrecked marriages, got a woman killed by her husband, became a pedophile with his ward and ultimately spurred her suicide… AND THERE’S NO CONSEQUENCES FOR THAT?! He does not deserve Fermina, and she even admits that she doesn’t love him. SO WHY WOULD SHE ASSENT TO LIVING OUT THE REST OF HER DAYS WITH HIM??? Ahhhhh it’s so frustrating to me, like all of plot build-up was for nothing.
I was really hoping the young ward, America, would come and kill both Fermina and Florentino, or at least him. Instead she kills herself and there’s no reckoning for the disgusting, rapist, sex addict, pedophile! So anticlimatic! This is one that I would love an alternate ending for
SPOILERS OVER
Ultimately, even with my ranting, I thought this book was amazing! I will add a disclaimer as it’s fairly explicit. Some of the affairs Florentino gets into are seriously MESSED UP. Not for younger readers.
Regardless, this book broke all the norms. It is a saga of perspectives. The fact that even my disagreement didn’t turn me off of this book should speak volumes.
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