Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of one of my favorite books, turns 85 today. The book is so beloved, I have refused to watch the screen adaptation out of some odd feeling of sacrilege.
But in honor of his 85th, here are three of my underlined quotes on dog-eared pages from Love in the Time of Cholera:
"He was still too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past" (106)
"Life in the world, which had caused her so much uncertainty before she was familiar with it, was nothing more than a system of atavistic contracts, banal ceremonies, preordained words, with which people entertained each other in society in order not to commit murder" (211) [Oh, Fermina Daza, what a woman you are.]
And this moment, which bears an extended quote:
Before he knelt down to pray before the altar in the bedroom, he ended the recital of his misery with a sigh as mournful as it was sincere: "I think I am going to die." She did not even blink when she replied.
"That would be best," she said. "Then we could both have some peace."
Years before, during the crisis of a dangerous illness, he had spoken the possibility of dying and she had made the same brutal reply. Dr. Urbino attributed it to the natural hardheartedness of women, which allows the earth to continue revolving around the sun, because that at time he did not know that she always erected a barrier of wrath to hider her fear. In in this case it was the most terrible one of all, the fear of losing him.
That night, on the other hand, she wished him dead with all her heart, and this certainly alarmed him. Then he heard her sobbing in the darkness as she bit the pillow so he would not hear her. He was puzzled, because he knew that she did not cry easily for any affliction of body or soul. She cried only in rage, above all if it had its origins in her terror of culpability, and then the more she cried the more enraged she became, because she could never forgive her weakness in crying. He did not dare to console her, knowing that it would have been like consoling a tiger run through by a spear. [Emphasis, and delight, mine.] (249).
and please finish your next novel!
But in honor of his 85th, here are three of my underlined quotes on dog-eared pages from Love in the Time of Cholera:
"He was still too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past" (106)
"Life in the world, which had caused her so much uncertainty before she was familiar with it, was nothing more than a system of atavistic contracts, banal ceremonies, preordained words, with which people entertained each other in society in order not to commit murder" (211) [Oh, Fermina Daza, what a woman you are.]
And this moment, which bears an extended quote:
Before he knelt down to pray before the altar in the bedroom, he ended the recital of his misery with a sigh as mournful as it was sincere: "I think I am going to die." She did not even blink when she replied.
"That would be best," she said. "Then we could both have some peace."
Years before, during the crisis of a dangerous illness, he had spoken the possibility of dying and she had made the same brutal reply. Dr. Urbino attributed it to the natural hardheartedness of women, which allows the earth to continue revolving around the sun, because that at time he did not know that she always erected a barrier of wrath to hider her fear. In in this case it was the most terrible one of all, the fear of losing him.
That night, on the other hand, she wished him dead with all her heart, and this certainly alarmed him. Then he heard her sobbing in the darkness as she bit the pillow so he would not hear her. He was puzzled, because he knew that she did not cry easily for any affliction of body or soul. She cried only in rage, above all if it had its origins in her terror of culpability, and then the more she cried the more enraged she became, because she could never forgive her weakness in crying. He did not dare to console her, knowing that it would have been like consoling a tiger run through by a spear. [Emphasis, and delight, mine.] (249).
¡feliz cumpleaños!
and please finish your next novel!
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