A Book .....

Gifted by a friend whose love for books is insatiable I expected "Love in the time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez " to be a masterpiece. But, was disappointed from the very beginning to the end.
The book which is rumored to be loosely based on Garcia's parents' courtship has been beautifully written, but to me the story seemed to be very repulsive .The 3 central characters of the book , Folrentino Ariza , a poet devoted to love, Fermina Daza, a beautiful lady & Juvenal Urbino , a doctor somewhat stuck about himself.

Florentino & Fermina Daza who hardly communicate face to face fall in love with each other and carry on the secret affair entirely by way of letters. Like any typical father when Fermina Dazas' father gets to know he takes her on a long journey in order to forget the young lover. Though they still keep the relation alive by way of telegrams it comes to very abrupt end when Fermina Daza meets the lovesick poet after 3 years and realizes that he doesn't deserve her. And she goes ahead and marries an eligible bachelor Juvenal Urbino who falls in love with her from the moment he sees her.

For Florentino this is a traumatic setback. Since he had sworn to love all his life, he decides to wait and wait... In the mean time Florentino seems to have more than a hundred relationships not love but only physical. He did so with so much discretion that people of the village thought that he was weird , now who would suspect something wrong between a 14yr old and her guardian(Florentino) who would easily be her grand fathers age........ As is aptly described in the book his heart had more rooms than a whorehouse would ever have.

Florentinos' wait finally ends after 51 long years when Urbino dies rather absudrly trying to catch his parrot...And he had the audacity to propose to Fermina Daza on the same nite... She like a perfect lady chides him and orders him out of the house & to give vent to her anger she writes him a letter rebuking him on what he had done and opens the door again to the letter communication... which further leads to them meeting very often
The story ends with them going on a boat ride and never returning or rather never wanting to return.....

Does a marraige come to end when one of them dies ? Or is it that a marraige of 51 yrs was nothing but a farce...

For some the book shows the triumph of love .. for me it shows the incongruity of love..