” Love in the time of Cholera ” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of my all time favourite books. I really love the writing style of the book.
The very first line of the book is ” It was inevitable, the smell of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love “. Now the context is, Dr Urbino is visiting his friend who just committed suicide. This line is also printed on the back cover of the book, so it’s obviously important but I couldn’t figure out why. I read the entire book but I still couldn’t understand what it meant. Then I went on Google and realised that cyanide was extracted from bitter almonds, so cynanide has the smell of bitter almonds. Dr Urbino was smelling the cynanide his friend used to commit suicide with. Dr Urbino who has seen many cases of people committing suicide because of love, was reminded of the fate of unrequited love (death ) because of this smell.
But recently for some reason I was thinking about this line and I realised that the rest of the book is opposing this Idea. The story is about a guy named Florentino Ariza who falls in love with this women Fermina Daza who rejects him. Fermina later married Dr Urbino and starts a family with him. Florentino doesn’t lose hope and loves her from a distance. 61 years later when Dr Urbino dies, Florentino proposes the newly widowed women and they live together in old age. This is the story. So in the case of Florentino death was not the fate of unrequited love. He perservied and got life. When Dr Urbino died , his Idea died with him.
by shattered_nirvana