book review - Memories of my Melancholy Whores

If there is a take away from this short book from Gabriel Garcia Marquez it is around the ideas of love and age. Ultimately you are never to old to fall in love but more importantly you can never be too cynical.

The cynical nature of the 90-year-old central character comes from his history of frequenting with incredible regularity the brothels in the South American town he inhabits. A man who has literally had hundreds of sexual encounters has almost trained himself to turn off any thoughts of love. He remembers the only occasion he came close to having any normal sort of relationship he ran away on the day of the wedding.

To celebrate his 90yj birthday he decides to visit the brothel but this time specifies that he must have a virgin waiting for him. Thus begins an off, non-conversational, relationship with a 14 year-old girl that is not given a sexual element until the very end. She sleeps, after working in a factory, and he talks to her and starts to plough all of his money into paying to see her.

At the same time the main character, who writes a weekly column for the main newspaper, decides he is going to stop writing. But he has gone through various stages of being criticised for being old-fashioned to a stage where he is in vogue. So the editor urges him to carry on and because of the costs of visiting the brothel he continues. As his columns start to cover the topics of love he becomes a must read in the town dividing readers but always sparking a debate.

He is advised finally to marry the girl to not only save money but to ensure that she is somewhere close by so his jealously, which is the other side of the love coin, does not eat up his last years.

The ending sees him vowing to live on in comfort with his young virgin discovering after believing that it was not possible what love is like and starting to understand why living for someone else is such a powerful life force.

Version read – Penguin paperback

Lunchtime read: Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Wow almost missed this. Almost forgot to post this last bit on this week's lunchtime read:

The downside for the poor old 90 year-old who has fallen head over heels for a young virgin whore is that with love comes jealousy. So when he gets it into his head that she has been with someone else and returns to him after an absence with make-up and jewels he vows never to see her again.

Friends advise him to grasp what happiness he can before his time runs out. So he finally swallows his jealousy and requests to see the girl again. After a life spent sleeping with women and avoiding commitment he has finally fallen in love. His columns for the newspaper reflect his position and he is seen in the odd light of almost being a love poet.

In the end he goes back to the girl with the words of the madam ringing in his ears that the young virgin is in love with the old man – who she has barely spent anytime awake with or said a word to. They have spent their hours with him talking to her, as she lies next to him asleep and providing her with gifts. But he has never taken what is arguably his by right – he has after all met the terms and conditions and paid. His love seems to be more genuine because it is non-sexual.

The morale seems to be that love can come to those who have given up looking or expecting it. There is also something to be said for age. A mad fool is an old fool. But is he so made if he finally finds contentment? Could anyone really understand what has happened to him?

A review will follow soon

Lunchtime read: Memories of My Melancholy Whores

For a 90 year-old that might be suspected of knowing better it is a slightly odd development to have him fall in love with the virgin prostitute.

She can barely read and write and always sleeps in the bed rather than talk and entertain him sexually but she still gets the love from the old man whether she wants it or not. They settle into a pattern with him coming to the brothel at the same time every night and sleeping with her before leaving early in the morning.

He starts to bring things to spruce the room up and make it an extension of his own home while they are together. He is advised to marry the girl and you sense he is seriously thinking about it. But maybe the ritual and the location of the brothel are just as important as the girl herself?

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Having failed to mark his 90th birthday with the virgin prostitute the journalist and bachelor starts to get a little bit introspective and decides to resign from his job as a columnist.

Having written in an old fashioned style the newspaper is not too keen to lose him because he has gone from being fashionable, despised and finally back to respected and appreciated.

The mistress of the whore house phones him up and offers the girl again as a birthday gift and after initially opting to turn her down the man accepts the offer and starts to get himself ready for round two.

There are some wonderful comments here about the way fashions come round and what can seem antiquated will return to popularity as long as it remains true to itself.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Memories of My Melancholy Whores

The slim novellas by Gabriel Garcia Marquez are always good for a lunchtime read. They rake you to a different world almost instantly. Plus they usually have a tight story concerning an aspect of love that are not confined to the first stages in teenage years.

This story concerns a 90 year old bachelor who has decided that to celebrate his birthday he is going to go to the whore house and sleep with a virgin. He has never slept with a woman he did not pay and has had hundreds of encounters in his lifetime.

But as he gets older it is the powerful allure of not only proving to himself that he still has the ability but also the attraction of virgin territory that motivates his call to the brothel and his request.

It is fulfilled in the shape of a 14 year-old girl who is waiting for him asleep in the room. He leaves her sleeping and gets ready but she resists him by carrying on sleeping so he lies next to her and hears the midnight chime and the dawn of his 90th birthday.

More tomorrow…

book of books - Love in The Time of Cholera

ne of the main things that makes you enjoy a book is the characterisation and for me I just couldn’t grow to like Florentino the man who holds a torch for his teenage love for fifty years. Maybe it was the Gabriel Garcia Marquez describes him in creepy dress and because of his numerous liaisons with women of varying ages but he never inspired sympathy or excitement.

This book is a bit of a slow burner and because it is about waiting and love you feel that you spend a lot of time waiting for the story to develop. There is a clever device at the start because you know that the waiting does end but it takes a long time to get back to that moment of decision.

Plot summary
A young ill at ease boy Florentino Ariza falls in love with Fermina Daza someone who is above his position in society and through stalking, writing letters all the time and serenading her he breaks down her resistance and she agrees to marry him. The father takes her away and on her return she cannot understand what she ever saw in him and then is courted by Dr Urbino who comes from a wealthy family and eventually wins her hand in marriage. Florentino decides to wait for the doctor to die and rises up in the River Company to gain the status that would be fitting of Fermina. The doctor does die and he does manage to win her heart but it is a fraught process that ends with them trying to hide from the world on a boat flying the flag of cholera to keep other people away.

Is it well written?
The structure is interesting because you follow the story of the doctor discovering a dead friend and then having a fatal accident himself and so by page 50 the man you expected to be the centre of the narrative has died. Then it shifts back to the past and slowly builds up the story of the relationships between the main characters until that point of death and then takes the story to a conclusion. As with the Garcia Marquez books it is beautifully described and set firmly in its location but the characters, which are introverted and not that loveable, and of course at the end are elderly are not that easy to identify with.

Should it be read?
When I picked this book up in a second hand bookstore in Bath the owner said approvingly when he handed it over that it was his best one. I still have 100 Years of Solitude to read but my feeling is that it is a book that resonates with readers in different ways. It should be read because it is the only way of taking a side in the argument and working out if you identify and sympathise with the characters.

Leads to
More Garcia Marquez is the next obvious step but the idea of waiting for a long lost love is also something that crops up in Thomas Hardy’s work particularly Two on a Tower.

Version read - Penguin paperback

Love in the Time of Cholera - post VII

The book comes to an end and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. If someone was holding a torch for my wife just waiting for me to pop my clogs then I am sure I would be far from happy about it. But on the other side of the coin no doubt there is a certain romance about it.

Bullet points between pages 292 - 348

* Florentino has to wait for the letters to be replied and then plucks up the courage to visit Fermina and then it becomes a regular thing each month although she never concedes that he has a chance of developing the relationship beyond friendship

* He is 76 and she is 72 and there is an increasing emphasis on age and despite all the care he has taken to be in shape when they are finally free to marry she says she is old and he starts to accept that things are not the same

* She starts to correspond with him on a daily basis after he falls down the stairs in his office and is bed bound but then two stories are written in the local paper that undermine her - one being about an affair her husband is meant to have had and the other about the shady business dealings of her father

* When Florentino finally gets out of bed with a walking stick and goes to visit her they both seem decrepit and old, beyond love almost, but he still holds out hope and his persistence does seem to wear her down plus he writes an article under the name 'Jupiter' that tries to redress the lies printed in the paper

* Fermina’s daughter hears about the growing friendship between her mother and Florentino and tries to stop it but is told by her mother never to enter the family home again and leaves after only just healing the rift

* Meanwhile the young lover of Florentino discovers the hidden cache of love letters from Fermina and following her failure of her exams kills herself

* The news comes to Florentino when he is aboard a river cruise with Fermina, a trip that sees them finally move from letters and conversations to something physical and love blossoms

* But as the trip starts to end they panic about the possibility of going back to real life and so they hoist the yellow flag meaning that there is cholera aboard and come down the river without interruptions

* But when they reach port the health authorities want to know what is going on and the captain panics to which he is told by Florentino to go back up river and repeat the trip again - when asked how long he can keep doing that the old man who has waited so long for love tells him he can keep doing it forever

Review follows in the next couple of days

Love in the Time of Cholera -post VI

It has been hard to read much of this book today because of other demands on my time but I have squeezed in a few more pages to keep the highlights moving on and will aim to finish it tomorrow

Bullet points between pages 260 - 292

* The story catches up with the first chapter when Dr Urbino died and it describes how Floretino rose to the top of the River Company and how he looked after himself always readying himself for the day when he could be there for Fermina Daza

* As he makes love to the 14 year old that has become his legal custodian, something a bit unpleasant here, the bells ring out for the death of the doctor and he rushes round to the house

* Although he knows it is wrong he blurts out his declaration of love and then spends the next two weeks ill with regret and worry until he comes home one night to find a letter waiting for him in a puddle outside his door

* She sends him a letter full or rage because she is genuinely grieving and the timing could not have been worse but she cannot stop thinking about him but when he gets the letter it hits him and he realises that it was the response he should have expected

The end comes tomorrow…

Gabriel Garcia Marquez link

The beauty of the Internet is that it provides virtual libraries of information about a book or an author. If the links are good it can really add value to the reading experience. In a brief scan of what is out there on Gabriel Garcia Marquez The Modern Word site stands out and is not only a good place to find out all about the author but also a chance to read the latest news, which includes a mention of the Guardian story from the summer on the possibility that Love in the Time of Cholera is going to be made into a film.

Love in the Time of Cholera - post V

The parallel lives of Fermina and Floretino carry on with both growing older. He notches the times with being present at her public appearances and she seems to grow old without much of a thought for him but more of a general mental trawl back through her past

Bullet points between pages 210 – 260

* There is a short but savage passage where a love affair with a married woman and Florentino ends abruptly after he pains a message on her body and her husband reads it and then slashes her throat

* In the meantime the appearances of Fermina and Dr Urbino seem to be happy but behind the public smiles they are drifting apart and she is given plenty of chances to dwell on her marriage and her past

* Things come to a head and they separate for two years after she discovers he has had an affair with a female patient, a black woman living with a preacher, who manages to possess his good senses and make him almost risk losing everything for lust/love

* She finds that heading back to where she was born and staying with her cousin is deeply depressing as so much has changed and even her cousin has become a fat old woman so she is overjoyed when her husband finally comes for her to take her home

* Florentino goes to the cinema and Fermina is behind him and as the lights come on he notices that she needs help from her husband walking down the steps and it dawns on him that he might die before she does

More tomorrow…

Love in the Time of Cholera - post IV

It's been a busy today putting the decorations on the Christmas Tree and rushing round trying to get the heating fixed so reading was very much pushed back on the list of things that had to be done. As a result very few pages were consumed but I thought it worth while just posting some brief highlights

Bullet points between pages 180 - 210

* The two men - doctor urbino and Florentino Ariza finally meet and despite his years of wishing him dead Florentino actually feels sympathy for him and understands that they are both attached to the same yoke with their love for Fermina Daza

* Florentino continues to go through relationships, which are based on a sexual basis because his heart belongs to Fermina, that end unsatisfactoraily and lack the power that real love would bring to the coupling

* For the first time since she spurned Florentino you get an insight into the mind of Fermina and she feels guilt over the decision and although publicly seems very happy with her husband is unhappy and often sits in the bathroom smoking in secret in tears

Hopefully more tomorrow on what might be a less packed day...

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.

Love in the Time of Cholera - post II

Today has been a real challenge on the reading front. It is cold and wet and my boiler has broken so I’m trying to read and compete with my wife for space by the electric heater and inevitably I lost.

Still what makes the few pages you do get through so rewarding is that the story continues to surprise you and keep you with it.

Bullet points between pages 72 – 130

* The story goes back to relate the love story between Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza and after he asks for her hand in marriage things start to develop at a slow pace until she is discovered writing love letters to him and expelled from school

* To try and get her to forget her father takes her away for a year and half but because he had telegrammed all the relatives they were going to stay with Florentino is able to send messages via telegram offices on her route

* Her love for him remains intact and she returns home and they meet as he follows her around the market and as she sees him she is full of horror and cannot understand why she fell for some one like him and calls the marriage and the relationship off

* The narrative then shifts focus to concentrate on Doctor Juvenal Urbino and explains that he is so keen to stop cholera because the disease keeps breaking out in the Caribbean and ravaging the local community and his father was a victim of the last major outbreak

* After being sent to check on Fermina, who is suspected of having cholera, he falls in love with her and because the father approves of the match he is given the sort of access and parental support that was never on offer to Florentino who the father once threatened to shoot

* She resists the growing pressure to start a formal courtship with the doctor and her cousin comes who feels that it is tragic she broke off with Florentino and reopens a dialogue with him at the Telegraph office

Tomorrow should brings more twists and turns…

Love in the Time of Cholera - post I

There is something about the way that Garcia Marquez takes apart the normal structure of a novel and rebuilds it in a way that makes you think about the development of a story in a different way.

You put all your concentration into an 81 year old doctor who is sketched out in quite a lot of detail and there are 50 pages spent building this character and his world up before the rug is pulled from your feet ands you find that the real story could be coming from a different direction.

Bullet points between pages 3 – 72

* The focus of the opening few pages is the discovery of a suicide and the calling to the scene of a aged doctor, Dr Urbino, who happens to have been a friend of the victim and makes sure that the suicide is kept secret and the burial takes place quickly

* The friend, Jerimiah de Saint-Amour has left him a note that really disturbs the doctor because it contains not only the revelation he has had a mistress but that he was an escaped convict who in his time had resorted to cannibalism

* Dr Urbino then goes home and his wife Fermina Daza, who it is revealed he has had a strained relationship with as they grow old, and you discover that he has become weaker and more infirm as the years have gone by but he still dominates the town

* He has a talking parrot that is quite a local attraction and it escapes and in a moment when it loiters in the trees Urbino climbs up to get it but slips and crashes down to the earth and after telling his wife he loved her more than she knew he dies

* Then the story shifts dramatically as a man steps forward to the widow – Florentino Ariza and declares his undying love for Fermina – and the story goes back to a summer when the two young people were in love and he had asked and had his proposal of marriage accepted

Quite where it will go from here is not clear but that is the beauty of Garcia Marquez…