“His examination revealed that he had no fever, no pain anywhere, and that his only concrete feeling was an urgent desire to die. All that was needed was shrewd questioning, first of the patient and then of his mother, to conclude once again that the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera.”

I’ve been in something of a Marquez mood recently – perhaps it’s the season. In any case, this one follows on a review of Strange Pilgrims last week.

Choler, one of the Greco-Roman humours, was believed to cause irritation or temper: hence the English word choleric, or the French colerique. The principle of the humours underlay much of medieval medicine, and argued that imbalances between basic bodily fluids led to illness and odd behaviour. Choler was linked to fire, and the temperament of ruling. It also represented passion. Today, of course, the phrase is more commonly linked to the disease cholera, one of the leading causes of infant mortality until the introduction of Oral Rehydration Therapy, a simple mix of water, sugar, and salt that helps prevent dehydration.

Love in the Time of Cholera raises both the idea of passion and of disease in its study of love in an unnamed port city near the Caribbean. Many interpretations of the book are possible: Marquez, apparently, is known to have warned readers to be careful not to fall into his trap. For me, though, it is a reflection on love, particularly flawed love. Many types of love are suggested in the story, but all of them suffer from flaws, no matter how well written or sympathetic the character. One couple matches the societal ideal of love, while struggling to be happy themselves: another man is a philanderer and to some extent sociopath, but believes eternally in the idea of true love.

As usual, meditations on death and stunning visual imagery are par for the course: Marquez is always phenomenal in that respect. A particular strength of LitToC (I couldn’t resist!) is the scope for interpretation by the reader: to my eye, it gives more room for ambiguity of sentiment than some of Marquez’s other work, though not as much as some of the extremes in that area, such as Don Quixote. An excellent read.