1985 was an ordinary year, when Márquez García was 57 years old and enjoying the growing world glory brought by the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Underneath the aura of immenseness, he wrote one of the world's greatest love stories, "Love in the Time of Cholera".
This book is full of the dignity and sorrow of life, all the possibilities of love, loyal, secretive, brutal, shy, platonic, **, fleeting, and with the passage of time.
It is no exaggeration to say that this book contains all the answers to love, and the advantage of reading this book is that it will make you believe in love again, and the disadvantage is that you realize that even believing will not help.
The origin of the book is a news story that Márquez saw in the newspaper about an elderly couple who had come to their hometown forty years ago to relive their honeymoon trip, and were beaten to death by the captain of the ship carrying them in order to rob them of their money.
The story of a pair of secret lovers, but with their own families, happy families and children and grandchildren, who have been on holiday together for forty years, was the inspiration for Márquez's work.
The protagonists, Florentino Arisa and Fermina Daza, are one such couple, spanning fifty-three years, seven months and eleven days, and finally the hero plays a waltz on the violin for his "goddess of flowers".
Florentino Arisa
Florentino first met Fermina in one afternoon, sending a telegram to Fermina's father, and on a hot afternoon, in the old house of the Gospel Garden, a woman's voice echoed in the bright courtyard, reading a text repeatedly, and it was in such a scene that the two met and became the source of this earth-shattering love that has not ended for half a century.
Florentino was a telegraph operator in his youth, he also played the organ at important ceremonies in the cathedral, and doubled as a tutor, and he could also Morse code, and he could play the violin, when he met Fermina at the age of eighteen, he was the most popular young man in their circle, he could dance fashionable dance music, he could recite sad poems, he could play the violin for someone, he was stubble, introverted, and despite this, there were many girls who were willing to follow him, knowing that that afternoon, meeting Fermina ended his happy days.
From then on, Florentino wrote to him and played the violin for her, until Fermina's father decisively took Fermina away in the name of tourism, dissipating the relationship between the two of them.
Florentino was willing to suffer for his love, and his mother told him, "Take advantage of this opportunity while you are young, and try to taste all the pain as best you can." "That's half a century old.
When Fermina returned from her trip, she had forgotten about Florentino and had married Dr. Urbino, a well-known local person.
At the request of his father, he married a famous family and became a noble lady.
When he knew that she was about to have a solemn wedding, and he, the one who loved him the most and would always love her, did not even have the right to die for her.
The jealousy in his heart gushed out, hoping that the lightning of justice would kill Doctor Urbino, but no, when he learned that Fermina was on his honeymoon in Europe, his dazed heart immediately decided to replace another love with one love, but this idea led her astray, he never married in his life, but he was immersed in the flesh of a woman all his life, he replaced love with sex, knowing that in the end, the wall in his heart collapsed, only to find that Fermina had been living in it.
Fermina Daza
She was Florentino's lifelong lover, the wife of Dr. Juvenal Urbino, and her doe-like body and the pride of her nation inevitably caused her many contradictions in her married life with her husband.
He also said that in married life, stability is important, not love.
Fermina almost broke the family because of a bar of soap.
Her love was cold and deep, her character was indecisive, and the same was true for Florentino, who after the death of her husband, Florentino kindled the flame of love for her, and before the funeral was over, Florentino came to her and said, "Fermina, I have been waiting for this opportunity for more than half a century, just to reaffirm to you once again my eternal loyalty and unswerving love for you." ”
But she said to her, "Get out of here, I hope I won't see you again for the rest of my life." Then he slowly closed the door and faced his fate alone, never realizing the weight and consequences of the tragedy that had been inflicted at the age of eighteen.
In the end, with Florentino's enthusiastic letters, the gap between the two was bridged.
For half a century, Florentino was immersed in ** love, and it was not until after Urbino's death that she re-faced her love for Fermina.
Juvenal Urbino
Dr. Urbino, who begins the book, is the most popular bachelor in the local family, who studied in Paris and was determined to come back to save her hometown, and that deep love for her hometown made her resolutely return.
But he was too young to know that memories always erase the bad and exaggerate the good, and it is because of this mystery that we can bear the burden of the past.
He saw the carcasses of animals floating on the water, the clothes of the poor to dry, and the motionless vultures, and he realized that he had fallen into the trap set by homesickness.
But even so, instead of being discouraged, he tried to do something for the land he loved, and the most important thing was to improve the sanitation of the city, knowing that the source of cholera was the problem of water.
Dr. Urbino married Fermina only to add to his social glory, but at the end of his life, he said, "Only God knows how much I love you." ”
After the death of Dr. Urbino, Fermina and Florentino found themselves falling in love again during their bed trips, and Fermina feared a scandal about it, so the captain raised the yellow flag representing the flow of cholera, escorting this love that would never be separated, love in cholera.