Love in the Time of Cholera - post III

The challenge for the reader, for me at least anyway, with Lobe in the Time… is working out which side you are going to take in the love triangle that revolves around Fermina Daza.

The skill of the writing is that just as you think you are going to back one of the men your feelings change and you are left keeping an open mind seeing how things develop.

Bullet points between pages 130 -180

* After ignoring the doctor’s advances for so long suddenly Fermina decides to allow him to court her and the next thing is that they are getting married and as a result Florentino Ariza spirals into depression and is sent away by his mother in an attempt to forget her

* However the trip is a failure and he returns home and seems content, starting an affair with a widow and forgetting his love by focusing on physical passion, but things spiral out of his hands when he sees her with her husband six months pregnant

* The married couple have returned back from a two-year stay in Europe, where they went for honeymoon, and they have grown to love each other after starting out on the relationship with not too much of that emotion in evidence

* In response to the sight of them both together Florentino dedicates himself to becoming successful enough to win her back and despite the marriage and pregnancy he seems convinced that there will come a point at which Doctor Urbino will die and he will get his chance

We know that of course he does have to wait for fifty years but will he get his chance or not? Even more of a question is if you want him to? On that I am far from sure.