Synopsis: 'It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.' Fifty-one years, nine months and four days have passed since Fermina Daza rebuffed hopeless romantic Florentino Arizo's impassioned advances and married Dr. Juvenal Urbino instead. During that half century, Florentino has fallen into the arms of many delighted women, but has loved none but Fermina. Having sworn his eternal love to her, he lives for the day when he can court her again. When Fermina's husband is killed trying to retrieve his pet parrot from a mango tree, Florentino seizes his chance to declare his enduring love. But can young love find new life in the twilight of their lives?Review: This was my second Gabriel García Márquez book and though I didn't enjoy it quite as much as One Hundred Years of Solitude I still liked it a lot. The story takes place in the Caribbean so it was the perfect sun lounger read.
When Florentino Ariza delivers a telegram to the house of Lorenzo Daza and spots his daughter reading in the sewing room, he falls hopelessly and irretrievably in love with her. Fermina Daza is busy teaching her Aunt Escolástica to read and she casually glances up as Florentino passes the window, that casual glance is 'the beginning of a cataclysm of love that still had not ended half a century later.' Florentino set's out to learn all he can about the Daza family, and he turns into somewhat of a stalker. Very early in the morning he sit's in a nearby park, pretending to read a book of verses as he watches Fermina stroll by on her way to school or church or just out for a leisurely walk with her aunt. 'Little by little he idealized her, endowing her with improbable virtues and imaginary sentiments, and after two weeks he thought of nothing else but her.'
He decides to send her a note, or at least that's his original intention. But the note turns into a letter which itself turns into a dictionary of compliments, sixty pages written on both sides, inspired by books he has learned by heart because he has read them so often whilst waiting for her to stroll by in the park. Thankfully he has the good sense to ask his mother's advice and she, understanding his heart but realising that the girl will probably run for the hills if she receives this tome of a billet-doux, persuades him not to send it and instead advises that he subtly let Fermina know of his interest and try to gain the approval of her aunt. All this is quite unnecessary though for Fermina would need to be extremely dense not to have noticed Florentino lurking about in the park, and she's not, she's very astute and so is her aunt and they have not only noticed him but are expecting a letter at any moment.
Thankfully when Florentino does give Fermina the long looked for missive, he has shortened it quite considerably to half a page. In it he has promised, what he believes to be essential, his perfect fidelity and everlasting love. They soon begin a clandestine exchange of letters, leaving them in secret hidden places and behaving in the most ridiculously besotted way (or hopelessly romantic depending on your viewpoint) with Florentino eating roses until he is sick because they remind him of her, going without sleep and inscribing verses onto camellia petals with the point of a pin and Fermina sending him butterfly wings, bird feathers and a square centimetre of St Peter Claver's habit. After two years of this, Florentino eventually sends perhaps his shortest letter of all, one paragraph asking for Fermina's hand in marriage. They have hardly ever spoken to each other in person, their love affair has all taken place on paper. Fermina needs time to think it over but she eventually, with a bit of encouragement from her aunt who is a hopeless romantic, writes 'very well, I will marry you if you promise not to make me eat eggplant'.
Unfortunately, Fermina's father Lorenzo (Fermina is motherless as Florentino is fatherless) begins to suspect that something is up, he finds packets of love letters spanning three years hidden in the false bottom of Fermina's trunk. He's not happy, he has financial difficulties and has been fostering great plans to marry Fermina off advantageously. He packs off poor Aunt Escolástica, has words with Florentino and takes himself and Fermina off on an 'extended journey of forgetting.' The clandestine correspondence continues but when Fermina returns home and accidentally see's Florentino for the first time in ages, she realises that she's been mistaken, the ferocious and all encompassing love she has felt for him seems to be entirely notional. She feel's nothing for him now but pity. She returns all his letters and love tokens and asks that he return all of hers too. Florentino is heartbroken, he doesn't see her alone again for fifty-one years, nine months and four days when, on her first night as a widow, he returns to her and repeats his vow of eternal fidelity and love.
Now, I don't know what your idea of eternal fidelity is but mine is certainly not the same as Florentino's for although he keeps Fermina on her pedestal he is anything but constant during their fifty odd years of separation. Fermina soon after marries Dr Juvenal Urbino, a doctor committed to ridding the country of cholera, and Florentino begins his journey and exploration of purely physical love. This book could have only been written by a man, because all male fantasy's are played out here. Florentino is not handsome, or particularly prepossessing in any way but for some reason women are mad with lust for him. He spends an inordinate amount of time falling from one bed to another. The women wait in their houses naked or in various stages of undress, deceiving their husbands and lovers, hot blooded and practically attacking him in the manner of women who have been sex starved for a very long time. It's fairly racy stuff but not graphically described, it's almost as if he's bemused that all this love is coming his way (and frankly so was I). One of his conquests is a fourteen year old girl which made me feel more than a bit uncomfortable, especially as he is by now seventy and her guardian.
When Fermina's husband dies (this happens quite early in the novel, the story being told in flashback). Florentina is hoping for another chance, he begins to woo her for a second time with letters and visits. Is it possible that Fermina will accept his love this time.?
It doesn't have all the glorious magical realism of One Hundred Years of Solitude but it still has all the beautiful dreamy prose and wit.
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