The Second Time Around

Gabriel Garcia Márquez died a few days ago. I was not touched by his writings although his genius is obvious. Somehow I found his plots predictable, but his mastery of imagery was incontestable. I was driving when I heard about his passing, and turned the radio off to recall what of him had stayed in me.

It was not difficult -- "Love at the time of cholera" immediately came to mind. I had read it many years ago, in English. My Spanish is now better and I thought I should try to read the original version. But will I appreciate the nuances?

The solution became obvious. I was leaving in a week for the Arabian Peninsula which meant 14 hours of flight time. So, I was smiling walking out of the bookstore in Baltimore with a copy of the book in English and another one in Spanish! So, now I can open two books at the same time, put them on the unstable, uneven foldable airplane tablet, and read for 10 hours or so. I decided to start reading the original version, and when I get stuck, to use the translation as a dictionary…

…And the plane took off for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Of course the title is intriguing because he intended it to be so. The easy first reaction is that love has symptoms like a disease. That it is even deadly for some. Yet, that is too predictable. So, I did a bit of searching into the word cholera, and, at 10, 000 meters above water and cities, I discovered that the world cholera lived a double life, just like Florentino Ariza, the most lovesick character in the book. Indeed, depending how it is pronounced (hence used), colera in Spanish can be:

cólera = cholera (used as a masculine noun)

cólera = anger (used as a feminine noun)

Now that makes the title a real title! And anger or rage being a feminine noun perhaps says more about the Spanish language than the writings of Márquez. Maybe anger and rage made love impossible. Or even better, maybe love found itself in anger and rage. After all, what good is love when it is like a quite stream? One may enjoy casting for trout in that stream, but would always wonder about deep sea fishing.

I smiled as I wrote these lines. It was clear that at 10,000 meters above water and mountains Florentino was getting to me.

So I looked for interpretations of who these characters were according to Márquez. Through his characters, he reached a distillation of concepts. Re-reading the book made me appreciate the style while first time around I was keen on discovering the story. Hmm, maybe love is like that too?

This may be my favorite passage about love:

“It was as if they had leapt over the arduous cavalry of conjugal life and gone straight to the heart of love. They were together in silence like an old married couple wary of life, beyond the pitfalls of passion, beyond the brutal mockery of hope and the phantoms of disillusion: beyond anyplace, but it was more solid the closer it came to death.”

And Márquez remains an optimist about heart and love while going to the “heart of love”. I find the following lines of a singular beauty when read in Spanish:

“Todavia era demasiado joven para saber que la memoria del corazón elimina los malos recuerdos y magnifica los buenos, y que gracias a ese artifice logramos sobrellevar el pasado.”

… The little screen on the cabin wall showed that we would soon fly over London and that 7 more hours remained till Jeddah. Then another flight to Riyadh. I tried to forget these long hours by reading each word twice. It was a silly exercise, since I had already convinced myself that having read the book, a second read would be most boring (especially since I had found the plot predictable the first time around!) So, now I was reading for the joy of the language and ideas. That is why I was attempting to read in Spanish. This was now a sensual pleasure for me. It went beyond reading a novel. It became touching words through lecture. Before they touched me through interpretation!

And then, a line stops my jolly ride through epicurean fantasies. I read:

“Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies.”

I shut the book. No, both books. Almost midnight, although time has no meaning when on a 12 hours flight, at night. I looked over to my fellow passenger who has been reading his own books and hardly said a word for the past soon 4 hours. Now I could see what he was reading: “Dental Services Readiness”. Hmm, So I ended next to a dentist who has not opened his mouth while we crossed the entire Atlantic Ocean, from Washington to London!

…I also shut my eyes to see all those who died whom I knew well. Some even knew me quite well, too. With my eyes and the monotonous feel a plane flying above the clouds as background, I saw many of them as I had seen them for the last time. Did they die in a way which resembled the lives they lived? And, did they die in a way that followed who they were?

I forgot about the book, its characters, the trepidations of love and desire. I was in a different sphere of interest. I was , just as it is with a book, in a space where one joins the characters, tries to identify with the plot, the turmoil of love, the joys of loving and being loved. Then, one closes the book, gets interested in other books, other wonderings. Those I knew and who had died, dear ones, dearly loved ones; both gave me life and helped me learn how to navigate it. Did they die in a way that resembled the lives they lived?

I do not know.

… In Jeddah I had 2 hours of wait till the next flight. I randomly opened a page of the book to kill time. And read

“The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love.”

What would an Armenian like me do when he does not understand the meaning of regret? When he celebrates every event for what they were? With little additional expectation.

But that line made me think while flying over the seemingly non-ending Arabian Desert. That is the genius of Márquez, and I had missed it the first time around.

April 25, 2014

Over London and the Arabian Desert

© Vahé Kazandjian, 2014