Love in the Time of Cholera (1985) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

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• Florentino Ariza: An obsessive, impassioned nymphomaniac, Florentino is desperately in love, and sleeps with other women until his chance arises.
• Fermina Daza: The wife of Dr. Juvenal Urbino and the object of Florentino's affection, Fermina is a sophisticated woman who, having grown up a peasant, takes pride in her haughty manner and unrelenting stubbornness; she cannot ever bear to admit that she is wrong. She is raised by her father, Lorenzo Daza, and her Aunt Escolástica after her mother dies when she is merely ten years old. Forced to attend and later expelled form a religious academy, she harbors an enduring disgust for Religion and the Church. She has a weakness for flowers, animals, and cigarettes.
• Dr. Juvenal Urbino: The City of the Viceroy's most educated doctor and most esteemed public figure, Urbino is an old-fashioned man, and still makes house calls to his patients. He is married to Fermina Daza for over fifty years, though he tarnishes their stable marriage with a brief affair for which he is deeply remorseful. He is an aristocratic, relatively unemotional man who enjoys chess and revels in regularity. He suffers a fatal fall from a mango tree when he tries to recapture his escaped, beloved parrot.
• Lorenzo Daza: Fermina's father who is suspected of fraudulent activity.
• Leona Cassiani: An ambitious young black woman with whom Florentino takes up employment at the shipping company, after mistaking her for a whore.
• Jeremiah De Saint-amour: A children's photographer and Dr. Urbino's only worthy competitor at chess.
• Hildebranda Sanchez: Fermina's older cousin and best friend - they both have a tormented love and this keeps them intimately linked.
• Don Leo XII Loayza: Florentino's paternal uncle and the President of the River Company of the Caribbean, he makes a habit of singing at funerals, and is most saddened when he cannot sing at his own. Upon Transito's request, he finds Florentino a job in a faraway city to help him erase Fermina from his memory. When Florentino returns, he grants him yet another job at the River Company. He urges Florentino to marry Leona Cassiani, and when he is too ill to continue running the River Company, he bequeaths it to Florentino.
• Euclides: The cunning twelve-year-old boy who Florentino hires to dive for the treasure of the galleon. He deceives Florentino by recovering only treasure he has planted himself.
• Lotario Thugut: The German telegraph operator who acts as a father figure to Florentino. He gives Florentino violin lessons and initiates his loss of innocence when, after leaving the telegraph office to own and manage a transient hotel, kindly gives Florentino a room free of charge. He enjoys a fast life, drinking in the taverns and sleeping with the "birds" (prostitutes) who live at the hotel.
• Sara Noriega: An older woman who Florentino meets at a poetry festival.
• Ofelia: The miserable daughter of Fermina Daza and Dr. Juvenal Urbino. Fermina banishes her from her home when she protests her mother's courtship with Florentino, and declares that love between elderly people is "disgusting."
• Don Sancho: Add a description of this character.
• Lucrecia Del Real Del Obispo
• Dona Blanca: Mother of Dr. Juvenal Urbino, she proves the bane of Fermina Daza's existence. She forces Fermina, her daughter-in-law, to take harp lessons and to eat eggplant, both of which Fermina detests. She dies while Dr. Urbino and Fermina are in Europe.
• Olimpia Zuleta: An interesting girl who keeps carrier pigeons, and respectfully withholds herself from Florentino, for a time.
• Rosendo De La Rosa
• Transito Ariza: Florentino's doting mother, to whom he tells his tales of woe, grief, and passion. He never divulges these facts to any other.
• Widow Nazaret: The woman with whom Florentino experiences his second sexual encounter, and who is forever grateful to him for "making her a whore."
• Magdalena
• Franca De La Luz

Quotes edit see section history

• “Each man is a master of his own death, and all that we can do when the time comes is to help him die without fear of pain.”

  Dr. Juvenal Urbino

• “The world is divided into those who screw and those who do not.”

  Florentino Ariza

• “The problem in public life is learning to overcome terror; the problem in married life is learning to overcome boredom.”

  Fermina Daza

• “Humanity, like armies in the field, advances at the speed of the slowest.”

  Dr. Urbino Daza

• “... human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”

• “The problem with marriage is that it ends every night after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast.”

  Dr. Juvenal Urbino

• “But if they had learned anything together, it was that wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.”

• “…old age was an indecent state that had to be ended before it was too late.”

• “She reminded him that the weak would never enter the kingdom of love, which is a harsh and ungenerous kingdom, and that women give themselves only to men of resolute spirit, who provide the security they need in order to face life.”

• “…and nothing in this world was more difficult than love.”

• “Always remember that the most important thing in a good marriage is not happiness, but stability.”

• “I do not believe in God, but I am afraid of Him.”

• “It is incredible how one can be happy for so many years in the midst of so many squabbles, so many problems, damn it, and not really know if it was love or not.”

• “But when a woman decides to sleep with a man, there is no wall she will not scale, no fortress she will not destroy, no moral consideration she will not ignore at its very root: there is no God worth worrying about.”

• “Love becomes greater and nobler in calamity.”

• “For they had lived together long enough to know that love was always love, anytime and anyplace, but it was more solid the closer it came to death.”

• “…it is life, more than death, that has no limits.”

• “She would not shed a tear, she would not waste the rest of her years simmering in the maggot broth of memory, she would not bury herself alive inside these four walls to sew her shroud, as native widows were expected to do.”

• “But in her loneliness in the palace she learned to know him, they learned to know each other, and she disovered with great delight that one does not love one's children just because they are one's children but because of the friendship formed while raising them.”

• “And nevertheless, when they watched him leave the house, this may they themselves had urged to conquer the world, then they were the ones left with the terror that he would never return.”

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Caribbean
• Paris
• Europe
• San Juan De La Cienaga
• Gala Placidia
• Cathedral
• Riohacha
• Panama
• Flores De Maria
• France
• Valledupar
• Republic
• Curacao
• Rosalba
• Misericordia Hospital
• New Orleans
• Divine Providence
• High Mass
• Jamaica
• Colombia

First Sentence edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Ineluctable: inevitable
• Palliative: to alleviate or make less severe
• Inculcate: to implant by repeated statement or admonition; teach persistently and earnestly (usually followed by upon or in): to inculcate virtue in the young.2.to cause or influence (someone) to accept an idea or feeling (usually followed by with): Socrates inculcated his pupils with the love of truth.
• Tertian Fever: Tertian malaria Infectious disease A fever characterized by febrile paroxysms occurring every 3rd day, as in the 48-hr febrile peaks in P vivax malaria–benign tertian malaria; malignant TF is caused by the virulent P falciparum which, in its most intense form, may be fatal within days. See Malaria. Cf Quartan fever
• Quadroon: a person having one-fourth black ancestry; the offspring of a mulatto and a white.
• Foment: to instigate or foster (discord, rebellion, etc.); promote the growth or development of: to foment trouble; to foment discontent.2.to apply warm water or medicated liquid, ointments, etc., to (the surface of the body).
• Miasmic: noxious exhalations from putrescent organic matter; poisonous effluvia or germs polluting the atmosphere.2.a dangerous, foreboding, or deathlike influence or atmosphere.
• Atavistic: reverting to or suggesting the characteristics of a remote ancestor or primitive type.
• Pedagogy: teaching, educating
• Anthurium: any tropical American plant belonging to the genus Anthurium, of the arum family, certain species of which are cultivated for their glossy red heart-shaped bract surrounding a rodlike spike of tiny yellow flowers.
• Curlew: any of several shorebirds of the genus Numenius, having a long, slender, downcurved bill, as the common N. arquata, of Europe.
• Hegemony: leadership or predominant influence exercised by one nation over others, as in a confederation.2.leadership; predominance.3.(especially among smaller nations) aggression or expansionism by large nations in an effort to achieve world domination.
• Lignum Vitae: Lignum vitae is a trade wood, also called guayacan or guaiacum,<1> and in parts of Europe known as pockenholz, from trees of the genus Guaiacum. This wood was once very important for applications requiring a material with its extraordinary combination of strength, toughness and density. It is also the Jamaican national flower
• Irremediable: not allowing for remedy, repair or cure
• Troglodyte: a prehistoric cave dweller.2.a person of degraded, primitive, or brutal character.3.a person living in seclusion.4.a person unacquainted with affairs of the world.5.an animal living underground.
• Impetus: a moving force; impulse; stimulus: The grant for building the opera house gave impetus to the city's cultural life.2.(broadly) the momentum of a moving body, especially with reference to the cause of motion.
• Erudition: knowledge acquired by study, research, etc.; learning; scholarship.
• Gerontophobia: severe fear or dislike of the elderly
• Intransigence: the state or quality of being intransigent, or refusing to compromise or agree; inflexibility
• Cieba Tree: Ceiba is the name of a genus of many species of large trees found in tropical areas, including Mexico, Central America, South America, The Bahamas, Belize and the Caribbean, West Africa, and Southeast Asia. Some species can grow to 70 m (230 ft) tall or more, with a straight, largely branchless trunk that culminates in a huge, spreading canopy, and buttress roots that can be taller than a grown person. The best-known, and most widely cultivated, species is Kapok, Ceiba pentandra.Recent botanical opinion incorporates Chorisia within Ceiba, raising the number of species from 10 to 20 or more, and puts the genus as a whole within the family Malvaceae.Ceiba species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) species including the leaf-miner Bucculatrix ceibae which feeds exclusively on the genus.
• Canticle: one of the nonmetrical hymns or chants, chiefly from the Bible, used in church services.2.a song, poem, or hymn especially of praise.
• Hemostatic Bandage: medical gauze used for covering wounds
• Breviary: Roman Catholic Church. a book containing all the daily psalms, hymns, prayers, lessons, etc., necessary for reciting the office.
• Passementerie: trimming of braid, cord, bead, etc., in any of various forms.
• Hermetecism: Describe this term.
• Hermetecism: Hermeticism is an ancient spiritual, philosophical, and magical tradition. It is a path of spiritual growth. Hermeticism takes its name from the God Hermês Trismegistos (Greek, "Thrice-Greatest Hermes"), a Græco-Egyptian form of the great Egyptian God of Wisdom and Magic, Thôth. What the Hermetic Fellowship defines as Hermeticism has also been called the Western Esoteric Tradition, and embraces the Perennial Philosophy or the Ageless Wisdom
• Mullein: any of various plants belonging to the genus Verbascum, of the figwort family, native to the Old World, especially V. thapsus, a tall plant with woolly leaves and a dense spike of yellow flowers.
• Lugubrious: mournful, dismal, or gloomy, especially in an affected, exaggerated, or unrelieved manner
• Pharaonic: (sometimes lowercase) of or like a Pharaoh: living in Pharaonic splendor.2.(usually lowercase) impressively or overwhelmingly large, luxurious, etc.: a construction project of pharaonic proportions.3.(lowercase) cruelly oppressive; tyrannical: pharaonic tax laws.
• Modus Vivendi: Modus vivendi is a Latin phrase signifying an agreement between those whose opinions differ, such that they agree to disagree.Modus means mode, way. Vivendi means of living. Together, way of living, implies an accommodation between disputing parties to allow life to go on. It usually describes informal and temporary arrangements in political affairs. For example, where two sides reach a modus vivendi regarding disputed territories, despite political, historical or cultural incompatibilities, an accommodation of their respective differences is established for the sake of contingency. This sense of the term has been used as a keystone in the political philosophy of John Gray.Diplomatically, a modus vivendi is an instrument for establishing an international accord of a temporary or provisional nature, intended to be replaced by a more substantial and thorough agreement, such as a treaty. It is usually fashioned informally, and so never requires legislative ratification. Typically armistices and instruments of surrender are modi vivendi.
• Tenebrous: dark; gloomy; obscure.
• Stevedore: person in charge of loading or unloading of cargo, as in cargo on ships
• Cruller: a rich, light cake cut from a rolled dough and deep-fried, usually having a twisted oblong shape and sometimes topped with sugar or icing.
• Vetiver: the long, fibrous, aromatic roots of an East Indian grass, Vetiveria zizanioides, used for making hangings and screens and yielding an oil used in perfumery.2.Also called khus-khus. the grass itself.
• Aguardiente: a type of brandy made in Spain and Portugal.2.a liquor, popular in South and Central America, made from sugar cane.3.(in Spanish-speaking countries) any distilled spirit.
• Asepsis: absence of the microorganisms that produce sepsis or septic disease.2.Medicine/Medical. methods, as sterile surgical techniques, used to assure asepsis.
• Alimentary: concerned with the function of nutrition; nutritive.2.pertaining to food.3.providing sustenance or maintenance.
• Viceregal: Of or pertaining to a viceroy (a person appointed to rule a country or province as the deputy of the sovereign)
• Capitular: a member of an ecclesiastical chapter.2.capitulars, the laws or statutes of a chapter or of an ecclesiastical council.
• Ossuary: a place or receptacle for the bones of the dead.
• Endemic: natural to or characteristic of a specific people or place; native; indigenous: endemic folkways; countries where high unemployment is endemic.2.belonging exclusively or confined to a particular place: a fever endemic to the tropics.
• Pedant: a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning.2.a person who overemphasizes rules or minor details.3.a person who adheres rigidly to book knowledge without regard to common sense.4.Obsolete. a schoolmaster.
• Reliquary: a receptable or container for relics
• Ausculation: Auscultation is the method of listening to the sounds of the body during a physical examination, normally either by ear or stethescope
• Plenipotentiary: The word plenipotentiary (from the Latin, plenus + potens, full + power) has two meanings. As a noun, it refers to a person who has "full powers." In particular, the term commonly refers to a diplomat fully authorized to represent his government as a prerogative (e.g., ambassador). As an adjective, plenipotentiary refers to that which confers "full powers."
• Batiste Blouse: a style of 19th century Victorian ladies' cotton shirtwaist blouse
• Icaco Plant: The Coco Plum, or Chrysobalanus icaco, is known as "Abajeru" in Brazil and has a history of use there as a folk remedy http://www.allvita.net/RAAX11.html

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

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• Narrative as seduction: García Márquez has said that "you have to be careful not to fall into my trap". The story has events and conditions which cover up what is the truth, or what is really going on.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by Catching Fire, and followed by Fahrenheit 451.

Preceded by Marley & Me, and followed by The Glass Castle.

Preceded by The Parable of the Blind, and followed by Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.

Followed by The Feast of the Goat.

Preceded by Gone With the Wind, and followed by Five Point Someone.

Preceded by The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and followed by Of Mice and Men.

Preceded by The Name of the Rose, and followed by Rebecca.

Preceded by Middlesex, and followed by The Pillars of the Earth.

Preceded by Eldest, and followed by The Shack.

Preceded by Kane & Abel, and followed by Girls in Love.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Gabriel García Márquez (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Edith Grossman (Translator)
2. Nina Kovič (Translator)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Oprah's Book Club selection (2007)
• BBC's Big Read (April 2003: Best-Loved Novel, #97)
• Waterstones Books of the Century (1997, #43)
• New York Times Best Books of the Year (1988)
• New York Times Bestseller (1988: Fiction)
• Los Angeles Times Book Prize (1988: Fiction)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PQ8180.17.A73 A813 1988
• Dewey: 863.64

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Add a note to help parents select a book for a child.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( G ) › Garcia Marquez, Gabriel
• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › Latin American
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary

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Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history