In The Time of Cholera, Love and Other Musings
I never did imagine one could read the way I do now.
I picked up Love In The Time of Cholera for the 3rd time last month, in an attempt to finally read it. I've been rummaging through it for years now, making futile efforts to move beyond three or four pages. The fact is, at the time, I would have start building the streets that Dr. Urbino, Florentino and Fermina walked on all over again each time I started after keeping it down for a day. It becomes exhausting, imagining the crowded streets, nauseating odours and myriad of emotions throughout.
This time around, all of it changed. I knew the city already. I could see it forming in my mind as I opened the pages to where I had last stopped. Somehow, I could fathom every cobbled path in the city as surely as the characters tread upon them. Florentino Ariza's love letters seem written by a hand no more experienced than mine. All it takes is one whiff of the air and every floating aroma, odour and smell from the harbour comes rushing to my head, overwhelming the senses for a moment. Magdelana and the port city it feeds has come to be a second home for my weary mind to wander about in when I dream.
For yes, I dream of the city and the church. I seem to feel the motion of the carriages as they move about the city and the rage that Fermina radiates towards Dr. Urbino. The filth and plague that besot the city are now my own, often with a tinge of love-sickness added to the mix. The heart feels more desperation for love than it ever did before, for now it preceds the lovers of Daza in their quest.
Never before have I found it quite so simplistic to shape a world before me like the way I do now. Is it because I have travelled now, seen the world to start building one of my own? Is it simply the way Marquez writes his prose, wishing for the readers to become ensnared in his envisioned city? Or is it a simple case of understanding words in a way I did not before?
I do not know the answers to this, neither do I seek them for long. For as long as I can bury myself by the sound of the docks and endless passions over and over again, I shall be content.
I picked up Love In The Time of Cholera for the 3rd time last month, in an attempt to finally read it. I've been rummaging through it for years now, making futile efforts to move beyond three or four pages. The fact is, at the time, I would have start building the streets that Dr. Urbino, Florentino and Fermina walked on all over again each time I started after keeping it down for a day. It becomes exhausting, imagining the crowded streets, nauseating odours and myriad of emotions throughout.
This time around, all of it changed. I knew the city already. I could see it forming in my mind as I opened the pages to where I had last stopped. Somehow, I could fathom every cobbled path in the city as surely as the characters tread upon them. Florentino Ariza's love letters seem written by a hand no more experienced than mine. All it takes is one whiff of the air and every floating aroma, odour and smell from the harbour comes rushing to my head, overwhelming the senses for a moment. Magdelana and the port city it feeds has come to be a second home for my weary mind to wander about in when I dream.
For yes, I dream of the city and the church. I seem to feel the motion of the carriages as they move about the city and the rage that Fermina radiates towards Dr. Urbino. The filth and plague that besot the city are now my own, often with a tinge of love-sickness added to the mix. The heart feels more desperation for love than it ever did before, for now it preceds the lovers of Daza in their quest.
Never before have I found it quite so simplistic to shape a world before me like the way I do now. Is it because I have travelled now, seen the world to start building one of my own? Is it simply the way Marquez writes his prose, wishing for the readers to become ensnared in his envisioned city? Or is it a simple case of understanding words in a way I did not before?
I do not know the answers to this, neither do I seek them for long. For as long as I can bury myself by the sound of the docks and endless passions over and over again, I shall be content.
You have this incredible imagination, and you are an amazing writer. And this is why I love you.
ReplyDeleteSometimes we have to be in a particular frame of mind to understand a specific piece of literature or art. Take for example, Beethoven's Symphony No.3 "Eroica" which was composed when Napoleon was leading his massive military campaign across Europe. The symphony would eventually start the "Heroic" period in western classical music, with use of dynamic changes and martial instruments.
ReplyDeleteYou write beautifully. Impressed.
There's probably always this serendipitous quality that some writings have. You can wrestle with one for hours, days without getting anywhere and one day, you feel wired into its world like you never have before. Maybe it has to do with being in a certain frame of mind, like mgeek says. Maybe it is your life experience that makes some things stand out, making it very easy to build up that world inside your head. I remember reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, I cud only enjoy it most on quiet afternoons, reading it at any other time of day was just not as pleasurable. Haven't read this one. Now, really want to, just to see how it feels.
ReplyDelete:) You really are an amazing writer!
mgeek & TUIB: Thank you, thank you a lot. :)
ReplyDelete