The epidemic has brought people the loss of life, the loss of health, the double hard work, and the inconvenience of life. But there are also writers who use the plague as a background to tell a love epic that spans more than half a century, in which all the possibilities of love are exhausted: loyal, secret, rough, shy, platonic, debauched, fleeting, life and death... This is García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. Some people commented that Márquez's metaphor in the novel is "love is a cholera", because love is as "inevitable and hopeless" as cholera. Here, we bring you Akanishi's interpretation of the novel.
Half a century later, he confessed at her husband's funeral
He was 76 years old and she was 72 years old, and after 53 years, 7 months and 11 days apart, they boarded a ship to the Amazon basin and decided to start each other's lives again.
Every Tuesday afternoon not long ago, he buckled a white camellia flower on his chest and visited her at her estate. Two people in their seventies, eating tea and snacks in the warm sunset, are like going back to the time when they were young and exchanging love letters.
His name was Florentino Alyssa and her name was Fermina Dasa.
Fermina re-saw her first love at the funeral of her husband, Dr. Urbino.
Dr. Urbino, who is well-known throughout the city, received news of the suicide of his chess friend Amoul on the morning of his unexpected death. When he arrived at the scene, the police handed him Amoul's suicide note. In his letter, Amoul confessed to the doctor, probably his only friend, who had gone to the local area to find his secret lover and tell him about what was going on.
When the doctor returned home, he was already exhausted. Unexpectedly, the "family pet" parrot disappeared again. He found it in a tree and decided to climb it himself to catch it, but accidentally fell down, ending his eighty-one years of life.
Opening full play ending? The protagonists of the story are not this loving model couple.
After the funeral, all the mourning friends left, leaving only Alyssa, standing in the deserted living room. Before Fermina could thank him, he made a surprise confession—
"I have been waiting for this opportunity for more than half a century, so that I can once again reaffirm to you my eternal loyalty and unwavering love for you."
More than half a century, to be precise, fifty-one years, nine months and four days later, Fermina's husband died, and Alyssa finally waited for his chance.
At that time, the illegitimate son of the low-class people, when sending telegrams, fell in love with Fermina, the daughter of the upstart. He wrote her passionate love letters, and young Fermina, who was equally desperate, wrote back to Alyssa telling her, "I will always love you." He was twenty-two years old and she was eighteen.
The penpal offline "face base", but what awaits is Alyssa's nightmare. The moment Fermina saw him, she realized that she was extremely disappointed - not because Alyssa "saw the light and died", but Fermina suddenly realized that all she loved was the illusion of love!
"Poor man." She abandoned the low-level boy.
The love of the heart is above the waist, and the love of the flesh is down the waist
Soon after, Fermina married Urbino, who was well-versed and skilled. Urbino once said that their love was the result of a "misdiagnosis" – Fermina feared that she had contracted cholera, and Urbino fell in love with her in a diagnosis.
Also at first sight, Urbino appeared with a sense of identity, and Fermina was in an equal, mutually staring pattern from the beginning. Alyssa, on the other hand, timidly and bitterly expressed his desires in obscure corners, in hopeless letters.
After that, Alyssa waited for her for half a century, quite platonic torment. The New York Times commented that Love in the Time of Cholera was "the greatest romance novel ever written by mankind." This suffocating power of love is hidden from almost every reader.
However, Márquez was not a writer of second-rate novels.
"The love of the heart is above the waist, and the love of the flesh is below the waist." Sarah Noriega, one of Alyssa's lovers, made this "shocking" remark, which is Alyssa's own view of love.
For decades, Alyssa continued to guard his love in the shadows while having relationships with different women.
Alyssa uses it to escape the predicament and ease her lovesickness for Fermina.
A little bit of Alyssa's lovers.
Alyssa and the captain's lover, Osencia Santander, tacitly opt for further exploration after the captain is drunk. This underground relationship lasted for seven years, and it was a bit like the seven-year itch of an ordinary couple.
Sarah Noriega, the poetess, Alyssa's most stable relationship, separated by a dispute after five years of cohabitation.
After the death of her mother, Alyssa fell into an inner dilemma again, even dating different lovers strictly according to the schedule. Through Alyssa's life, the number of lovers was as high as 622.
"You eat when you're hungry, you don't have to lie when you love"
"Scumbag" Alyssa, the upper body is loyal to the spirit, the lower body is loyal to the flesh. Half a century later, her heart is still open only for Fermina alone. But so what?
Urbino brought Fermina the necessities of worldly life: security, harmony and happiness.
The reader may feel that Fermina made the right choice.
But don't forget, love is not a question of right and wrong. Márquez was also not a writer who liked moral judgment.
Urbino says the key to married life is learning to control disgust. In a simple sentence, it tells the essence of most marriages throughout the ages.
What breaks down feelings is often trivial daily chores.
For example, Fermina's three meals a day for her husband must be completely in line with her husband's preferences, and the meat cannot appear meaty, and the fish cannot appear fishy;
For example, the husband's infidelity.
Therefore, Márquez added a fatal sentence to their "safe, harmonious and happy" married life - "These things, once added together, may seem to love, but they are almost equal to love." But they are not love after all. ”
"Only God knows how much I love you." Looking at Urbino's last words to Fermina before he died, there was a kind of sad irony. Fermina never fully accepted his husband, and she occasionally remembered that when she was young, there was a teenager who was so difficult to love her, and love was so dizzy and unforgettable.
Therefore, it is not difficult to explain that when her "first love illusion" reappeared in front of her half a century later, from a poor boy to a celebrity, still writing hot and intense love letters for her, saying to her" "This is the most important moment in my life", she could no longer escape the fate of love.
The love of Alyssa, who is inferior, romantic, entangled and painful, finally makes her confused.
Everyone protested against her shocking behavior, and she said quietly—
"A century ago, people ruined my life with this poor man because we were too young; now they want to repeat the same trick on us because we are too old."
This time, Fermina saw her love clearly. On the ship that was ordered to sail back and forth, in order to gain complete tranquility, they had the captain hang a yellow flag representing cholera. When the captain asked the strange old lovers about the return time, Alyssa, Fermina's boyfriend, gave the answer -
Life.
Three years after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature (1982), Márquez completed Love in the Time of Cholera. What he called the "most satisfying" work, shone with a genius-like sparkle, a Marquez-like language that was unbridled, and full of passionate romance. Read it down, and there is joy everywhere.
As for the love between Alyssa and Fermina, whether it is love or not, Márquez naturally does not limit the reader.
However, he skimmed a sentence in the book: an honest way of life is actually to act according to the will of his body. You eat when you're hungry, and you don't have to lie when you love.
What do you think? Author: Akashi Sauce
*The picture is a still from the movie "Love in the Time of Cholera"
Source: Wenhui Network