Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia
Marquez, translated by Edith Grossman, is the most romantic book I've
ever read and ever expect to read.#
On pets and reminiscent of C. S. Lewis:#
He said that people who loved [animals] to excess were capable of the worst cruelties toward human beings. He said that dogs were not loyal but servile, that cats were opportunists and traitors, that peacocks were heralds of death, that macaws were simply decorative annoyances, that rabbits fomented greed, that monkeys carried the fever of lust, and that roosters were damned because they had been complicit in the three denials of Christ. [p. 21]
In the first chapter, there is a great discussion of married life
and disagreements. The husband notices there is no soap in the shower
three days in a row and tells his wife that there was no soap for five
days in a row to `get the job done' faster. This upsets his wife and
they spent the next few months in a feud and do not speak to one
another. One night he falls asleep in their bed (rather than in his
study where he has been sleeping) and she wakes him up, asking him why
he is sleeping there. He answers:#
"Let me stay here," he said. "There was soap." [p. 29]
The story, however, is mostly about Florentino Ariza and Fermina
Daza. When Fermina's husband dies, she thinks of Florentino for the
first time in many years.#
Florentino Ariza, on the other hand, had not stopped thinking of her for a single moment since Fermina Daza had rejected him out of hand after a long and troubled love affair fifty-one years, nine months, and four days ago. He did not have to keep a runtime tally, drawing a line for each day on the walls of a cell, because not a day had passed that something did not happen to remind him of her. [p. 53]
A great line: "She had felt an irresistible desire to devour him
with kisses." [p. 136]#
On the lack of sexual activity deep into marriage:#
She always had a headache, or it was too hot, always, or she pretended to be asleep, or she had her period again, her period, always her period. So much so that Dr. Urbino had dared to say in class, only for the relief of unburdening himself without confession, that after ten years of marriage women had their periods as often as threes times a week. [p. 210]
On husbands and their foibles:#
He was a perfect husband: he never picked up anything from the floor, or turned out a light, or closed a door. In the morning darkness, when he found a button missing from his clothes, she would hear him say: "A man should have two wives: one to love and one to sew on his buttons." Every day, at his first swallow of coffee and at his first spoonful of soup, he would break into a heartrending howl that no longer frightened anyone, and then unburden himself: "The day I leave this house, you will know it is because I grew tired of always having a burned mouth." He would say that they never prepared lunches as appetizing and unusual as on the days when he could not eat because he had taken a laxative, and he was so convinced that this was treachery on the part of his wife that in the end he refused to take a purgative unless she took one with him. [p. 222]
There is this really gross plot line about Florentino have a
relationship with a fourteen-ish year-old when he is quite old. It is
very bizarre and can't recommend it.#
On marriage:#
Always remember that the most important thing in a good marriage is not happiness, but stability. [p. 300]
Old people in love:#
Seeing him like this, dressed just for her in so patent a manner, she could not hold back the fiery blush that rose to her face. She was embarrassed when she greeted him, and he was more embarrassed by her embarrassment. The knowledge that they were behaving as if they were sweethearts was even more embarrassing, and the knowledge that they were both embarrassed embarrassed them so much that Captain Samaritano noticed it with a tremor of compassion. [p. 330-331]