Love in the time of Cholera

How long would you be willing to wait for the person you love?

This is what appears to be the fundamental question asked by Gabriel García Márquez in his epic novel, Love in the Time of Cholera. Yet, dig beneath the layers and very different questions will surface.

What one would easily mistake for a love triangle between the three main characters is, in fact, a faithful representation of how stark the contrasts are between between illusions and reality. Streaming half a century, the novel is a whirlwind collision of illusions, dreams and the harshness of a society where expectations and traditions cast in stone. (Pay close attention to García Márquez’s views on Latin America, as they are still of great relevance today.)

The basis for this novel is straightforward: Florentino Ariza meets Fermina Daza and falls head over heels in love with her. She seems to share his love for a while but eventually comes to realize that it is a love based on illusions. To her father’s great joy, Fermina Daza marries Dr. Juvenal Urbino, the antithesis to Florentino’s boyish, lustful and aching love. A love triangle ensues where both men are dependent upon Fermina as the source of their happiness but where only one will physically suffer from his love.*

All in all, this novel is one of questions and reassessments. Nothing is exactly as it seems and appearances are treacherous. This is where the genius of Nobel Prize Winning Colombian Author Gabriel García Márquez truly lies: in forcing you to question all you have ever held as true.

*It should be known that “García Márquez’s main notion is that lovesickness is a literal illnes, a disease comparable to cholera” (wiki)

Madame Bovary

When Flaubert wrote Mme Bovary, it certainly wasn’t with the intention of making his character beloved.

At best, Emma Bovary is naive, spoiled, egocentric and annoying.  However, it is of little importance. Whilst reading of her disillusions, it is impossible not to try and like her. Flaubert writes of her desperate and futile attempts to join the ranks of the aristocratic with such tenderness that you cannot help but feel that perhaps the author felt a certain love  for his antihero.

Emma Bovary is convinced that life has dealt her an unjust card: she believes she is entitled to riches, happiness and a fabulous existence. This arrogance is what causes her to be disliked, both by those who surround her and by the reader. She yearns for an aristocratic lifestyle yet lacks the consideration and gentle touch needed to make social connections. She ruins every opportunity by her childish attitude and fails to realize that happiness cannot be bought.

Madame Bovary is a tragedy, if only because Emma is a tragic character: she has everything to make her life enjoyable, yet she is wretchedly unhappy.

This novel should have been horrible. The main character’s attitude towards life is appalling and the whole novel is centered around her. Nevertheless, there is something magical and beautiful about this classic.

That the tale of a sad, apathetic, suburban wife should have stood the test of time and should be considered one of the best novels of Western Litterature is, quite simply, a testament to the brilliance of Gustave Flaubert and that is reason enough to read this novel.

“Everything immediately surrounding her – boring countryside, inane petty bourgeois, the mediocrity of daily life – seemed to her the exception rather than the rule.  She had been caught in it all by some accident: out beyond, there stretched as far as eye could see the immense territory of rapture and passions.”

A Tale Of Two Cities

Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix

“It was the worst of time. It was the best of times.”

Spectacular is one word that comes to mind when thinking about Charles Dickens’ revered historical novel. Heartbreaking is another.

The French Revolution has been called the most important event in history. Like all history students, I learnt from textbooks. I committed to memory horrifying events yet still struggled to grasp the raw reality of the horror and the terror of the Revolution.

As an aspiring historian, I can tell you: It is one thing to memorize dates. Its is another altogether to have the fury of the French Revolution brought to life through Dickens’ pen. Whatever you will say about the ideals and intentions of the revolutionists, there is one thing that simply cannot be denied: the rage, the blood and the madness was inexplicably gruesome. Behind each death and behind each number is a story, a person and a face.

It is easy to forget how dreadful and dire history truly is. Just as our descendants will be horrified with the wars and genocides our century bore, so Dickens was horrified by the French Revolution* .  His novel is a warning, a severe warning to Aristocratic Britain. I like to think that his warning trancedes time and applies to our century as well.

To learn history is not to justify or make excuses for the horrors that our ancestors have perpetuated. To learn history is to take the first of many steps in understanding our present and applying lessons history yearns to teach us. Greater men and women have failed abundantly and left records of these errors so that we do not have to repeat them. The torch has been passed on, it is our task now to learn from it and bequeath it to what is hopefully a more deserving generation.

In spite of all this, there are things you simply cannot learn in school. When learning about the Revolution, there are sentiments that one simply cannot express in textbooks. That is when I turn to classics. More often than not, its authors express more about human triumph and human agony than a scheduled hour of class time ever will… When it comes to teaching about the human heart, one often learns best from one’s own readings and sentiments.

For these reasons (and many more I cannot reveal without stealing from the plot), I wholeheartedly recommend A Tale Of Two Cities to all. It is a chilling admonition… Lest we forget…

“Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious licence and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind”.

*even though he sympathized with the persecuted poor, having been “forced to work in a factory as a child” (wiki).

If you are interested in learning more about the Revolution, I suggest the History Channel’s documentary, available on YouTube.

The Little Prince

Once in a lifetime, there comes along a novel that is so touching, so innocently poignant, that just by reading it, you feel your heart shatter and soar at the same time. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Éxupéry is the apotheosis of all such novels.  Published in 1943, it has become one of the bestselling novels of all time, sold more than 80 million copies and been translated into more than 180 languages¹.  Some would classify it as a childish story. Perhaps it is. Yet to categorize it as such would be to deny the fundamental philosophical truths it hides behind the simplicity of the narrative. 

In 2006, I was blessed with the opportunity to visit France. One of my first reactions to the old continent was how deeply engraved The Little Prince was in french culture*.  It seemed the philosophical lessons of this short novel were everywhere, to be read or to be bought.  The Little Prince has morphed into a capitalist’s dream: his notebooks, postcards, bookmarks can be bought everywhere. I should know… I bought a few myself.  

Do not let that stop you. Do not judge this book by how commercially successful it is. There is a reason behind the fervor. Do not reduce it to “children’s literature”. It would be reducing the human heart to a mere muscle. Do not judge it by its cover… Antoine de Saint-Éxupéry has achieved the seemingly impossible: he has illustrated (both linguistically and visually) all that is beautiful about love. 

Reader, whoever you are, I urge you: let the little prince seduce you. He will break your heart in the best way possible.

 

“What makes the desert beautiful,” says the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well.”

 

¹wikipedia

*Literally; on my first or second day, I saw a carving of the Prince on a sidewalk. 

The Red and the Black

This novel is beyond  sublime. Although I am a great lover of literature(duh) very rarely have I been so completely and utterly surprised, enthralled and bewitched by a classic. A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen were similar epiphanies. Perhaps it comes from expecting nothing at all and receiving everything in return. However, je divague.

The title says it all whilst saying almost  nothing. Le Rouge et le Noir: a young man’s choice between the scarlet red of the militia and the sober black of religion. A secret admirer of Napoleon, his life choices will always be made not with the intent of duplicating his hero’s path but rather with the intent of surpassing the old emperor’s glory. He will be torn in his love life as well, hesitating between two women who represent diverging aspects of his character. To a certain extent manipulative and hypocritical, Julien Sorel is almost an anti-hero. His crime however does not lie in his faults but rather in his great misunderstanding of the world and of himself.

I recommend this book to patient readers. At times, the novel may seem to be wearily advancing. Be that as it may, the magnificent finale is worth the journey.

“There is no place in contemporary French society for a superior man born without the advantages of money and social connections.¹”

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_and_the_Black