García Márquez and Love in Latin America

Posted on 12. Jun, 2009 by in colombia, peru

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Latin culture is the most romantic in the world. Is this good or bad?

STORY SUMMARY

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez is set in an unnamed town assumed to be Cartagena, Colombia, and spans the late 19th century to early 20th century. As a teen Florentino Ariza falls in love with Fermina Daza the first time he lays eyes on her. He begins a letter-writing campaign professing his love. She falls in love with him and they write regularly. They plan a marriage without ever having spoken and behind the back of Fermina’s overbearing, ambiguously-criminal father.

Fermina’s father learns of the relationship and is infuriated because Florentino is the illegitimate son of a shopkeeper. He had plans of social-climbing by marrying his daughter off to blue blood. He takes Fermina on a weeks-long trip through the Colombian countryside in an attempt to break the affair. The lovers keep a secret correspondence and make plans to marry when she returns.

When Fermina returns she meets Florentino and impulsively ends the affair. Florentino is devastated. Fermina marries a promising young doctor who’s just returned from university in Paris. Florentino vows to have her someday despite the fact she’s just married. Dr. Juvenal Urbino and Fermina Daza have two children and lead a compatible life. Fermina’s father’s dream is realized as the couple ascend to the town’s social elite.

The book begins with Dr. Urbino’s death at an old age and proceeds to recount the characters’ histories. While the married couple led a marriage of convenience, Florentino Ariza embarked on 622 affairs to distract the love burning in his heart – all the while waiting patiently for the doctor to die so he could reclaim Fermina. On the night of the doctor’s funeral the now 70-something Florentino says to Fermina: “I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love.” On the night of her husband’s funeral. It was 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days after first professing his love to her as a teen. He knew the exact number because “not a day passed that something did not happen to remind him of her.” Fermina eventually succumbs and they live happily ever after.

END OF SUMMARY

Aside from the surrealism seen in all of Garcia Marquez’s and other Latino writers’ work, the theme of love is unrealistically portrayed with a passion absent in other cultures.

In America, “dropping the L-bomb” is slang for when your significant other first says, “I love you.” I got just as many A-bombs (Te amo in Spanish) from one year in Peru as the previous 29 in America – 3. And one of the American L-bombs came from a Brazilian exchange student. The quick-to-love sentiment didn’t just apply to me (gringo factor). I wasn’t special. Peruvian guys I knew experienced the same thing, and the females aren’t the only ones quick to love. I saw my buddy Roy crying his eyes out for a girl he’d been dating for just a few months.

The passion for love is palpable. Every neighborhood in Latin America has a small park. In every park on any night you see couples huddled up on the benches – cuddling, kissing, talking, and holding hands. Public displays of affection are controversial to nobody. Latinos spend much more time in intimacy. Married couples are different. The men enjoy their wives’ company. They’re proud of their wives. They love their in-laws.

A higher percentage of Latin music is about love and relationships. There are certainly party songs and political songs, but love songs are most common. Even in reggaeton – Latin America’s version of hip-hop – love is a more consistent theme than in American rap. There’s less misogyny. No bitches or hoes.

Contrast that with what you hear in American music. The most popular rapper of all time, Tupac Shakur, wrote one song in praise of women: Keep Ya Head Up. Ironically, it was released around the time he was convicted / in prison for sex abuse. His other songs professed he’d never love a woman. Snoop said in ’94, “We don’t love them hoes.”

Playing romantic music in America can be a cultural faux pas. I dig love songs. Probably because I wasn’t desired by many women until well after puberty, I used to dream about love. I dreamed about love and having a perfect marriage in which we had a ton of kids and lived happily ever after with no divorce. I built the idea up in my head just as Florentino Ariza did with Fermina Daza.

But it ain’t cool to play that music in gringo culture. My college buddies made fun of me, or they’d yell to turn it off. It’s “gay”- I never understood how songs about love between a man and a woman were gay. “We don’t love them hoes” sounds gay to me.

On the other hand, I’ve seen a group of Colombian guys drink together all night singing along to sensual ballads. One night my drinking buddy Miguel said, “Yo creo que una mujer es para amar.” I believe a woman is supposed to be loved. He wasn’t trying to impress anybody; there were no girls at the table. Gringos don’t talk like that.

Latinos don’t say “tener sexo” - or ‘have sex‘. They say “hacer amor” - ‘to make love’. Saying “make love” in English is corny. Gringos don’t talk like that. Gringos “play it cool.” They protect their hearts. They date casually and take it slow. They delay commitment. They try different potential “partners.” It’s considered wise, practical. When I was 16 a high school crush told me that she hates “mushy love shit.” You could search your whole life without finding a Latin girl say that.

Latinos say “gringo frio” – cold gringo. They say our culture is cold. It’s a unanimous opinion.

My last girl in Arequipa and I had sex the first night we met. Our entire relationship was spent in my apartment, plus a few times going to the local chicken joint when we were hungry. In relationships that follow this course in Gringolandia, both the man and woman know exactly what the relationship is about – and more importantly what it’s not about. That understanding didn’t exist in this case. Milagros bought me an alpaca scarf and a cute Christmas card with a heart-felt message inside. I miss her.

I posed the question at the start of this essay: Is this passion for love good or bad? What did Gabriel García Márquez believe?Literary scholars began to point out that the story may be critical of love. When asked if his story was something other than a heart-warming tale about the enduring power of love, García Márquez was quoted as saying that readers “have to be careful not to fall into my trap.”

The title uses the words “love” and “cholera” together. Cholera is a nasty, often fatal disease. Stories of cholera ravaging Colombia permeate the novel as often as stories of love. Is this a contrast or analogy?

What happens because of love? One character’s lover allows him to commit suicide because she loved him too much to stop him. When Fermina agrees to marry Florentino, he eats so many roses in euphoria that he vomits. In treating his symptoms of love, Florentino has 622 affairs and contracted an STD. One of his lovers was murdered by her husband when he learned of her affair. His last affair as an old man was with a teenage second-cousin he was charged with taking care of. When he broke off the affair she committed suicide. And because of his life-long love, Florentino never had children.

Dr. Juvenal Urbino is the perfect contrast of the romantic Florentino Ariza. Dr. Urbino tells his wife love is not as important as stability and compatibility. He transforms the town’s health services. The couple are beloved. Critics say the novel deals with the challenges in Colombia (and all of Latin America for that matter) in implementing sound political systems, making societal progress, and developing healthy cultural attitudes. If this is true,Dr. Juvenal Urbino would be the story’s hero. Love would be the antagonist.

The fact that García Márquez approved adapting the novel into a cheesy Hollywood love film skews his intent further. But moving past his intent, what’s the truth about the utility of love?

Modern advances require hard intellect free of romantic delusion. Cold, calculating gringos have made most societal advancements. What about love? There’s a higher prevalence of brothels and prostitution in Latin America. I’ve met many married guys who openly told me they bang whores or have girlfriends on the side.

Am I really the romantic I think I am? I had other girls during my relationship with Milagros. We had sex on the first night, plus she was 20. My cold gringo nature, the natural skeptic and realist inside told me it wouldn’t work.

But aside from gringo tendencies in coldness, I am a romantic. I prefer life here. The passion is refreshing. Exciting. Invigorating. But a balance is surely needed.

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2 Responses to “García Márquez and Love in Latin America”

  1. Christopher K

    14. Mar, 2010

    Like you, I love the passion, energy, and wackiness. But I’ve met more than a couple married Colombian guys who cheat … MUCH more than a couple. In fact, I’m convinced the infidelity rate for men is 100%, and only slightly lower for women. The guys who say they don’t are lying. Maybe there are a few outliers here and there, but they’re definitely the oddballs. The culture is not geared for fidelity.

  2. Samuel

    24. Apr, 2011

    This is one of your most intelligent posts here, to be sure. I’ll be quite curious to read the book. I have a couple books published and they are both love stories, so its certainly a favorite topic of mine.

    you mentioned here the “utility of love”, and the results that follow the two contrasting societies, one productive and effective, the other poor, broke, etc.

    I also understand the confusing place of both wanting to believe in “love” somehow that a girl might actually not be lying or otherwise self-motivated to profess their love, and that they truly care deeply for you, would sacrifice heavily for you, and will not flake out on you or even undermine you…

    and while we dream of that magic place, we struggle to trust it because we know the corrupt and inconsistent nature of people, including ourselves and our own selfish tendencies (which are generally a poisonous opposite to serving someone else, someone we love. )

    We also struggle to trust it because we love to chase girls and slay some tail and do all sorts of dirty stuff, and the girls are just as capable of damage and destruction as well, as anyone who has ever met one or tried to love one knows very well.

    Your hint at retaining a balance seems to make sense, the idea that we must both allow love to flow, lest we be robots, and we must also be logical and not lose our minds for “love” to where we ruin all sorts of key factors in our life for love’s sake, or the madness that follows when the pain comes.

    this quote-

    “”The best life comes not in the absence of our passions, but in our mastery of them”

    is a favorite of mine and says it well. We must not be without a heart, but we must master it, lest we be mastered by it, and even more dire- mastered by a woman. Only if we master our passions, can we hold our positions well in life, and be the best of men. (and then love women more ideally)

    Excellent observations here, Colin, and I cannot wait to experience the Colombianas. Even though they get burned for their efforts a lot, as women, the traitional, passionate latinas who understand a bit of value in a patriarchy… well, they are simply getting it right.

    Women who serve men well are very fucking hard to leave or discard.

    Its a miracle they are still so lovely like that even though so many of the guys there take it for granted.

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