Blame it on the coming Valentine's Day,but everybody(my sisters,their friends and me) decided to give in to something reportedly "romantic".....I have heard tons of reviews about the novel "Love in Time of Cholera"and when it was a recurring fixture in the movie "Serendipity", I just knew that in this lifetime I should at least do the thumb-twiddling for this book. But then,I never had the rush to buy it!It's just impractical to splurge on a three hundred peso something book especially when the last book you read from the same author was utterly boring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So when the movie marathon was scheduled,I had to make time.The setting was 18th Century Colombia and it was a treat to watch the fanfare as ladies walk in their gowns(they look heavy!) with their parasols in tow.Florentino felt madly in love with Fermina.He showed this through his letters and on his persistent,sometimes outrageous efforts just to be close to her. Even after she got married and after his strings of love affairs,he continued to to be devoted to her,sometimes stalking her in a creepy fashion.But first love is stubborn,and after the death of Fermina's husband,he wooed her again and they sailed on (just Fermina,Florentino,the Captain and his lover on board)in the pretense that cholera has struck their ship.
I think what my sisters and their friends can think of the film was about LOVE and tons of bedscenes which they NEVER bothered to be BOTHERED(no yanking their heads in the pillow and no closing their eyes with their hands).They just watched silently,gnashing the snack food between their teeth(thanks Tina for bringing it),subtly taking the shock and satisfying their curiousity.I did found myself laughing in some scenes.Florentino had been a sexually naive alpha male until one whore pulled him inside the cabin and gave him his initiation rites.When the initial ambivalence was taken away,he was filled with the desire,I say an "insatiable" one ,to keep coming back in that cabin and redo their "tryst". It had laugh-worthy moments but it pales with what I have expected.I felt the literary work was so old-school and with all the praises it had for some afficionados, I just can't be on the same page with them:-(
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