Word: fermina
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1988-1988
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...novel centers on an emotional triangle involving an immigrant's daughter, Fermina Daza, a brilliant young doctor, Juvenal Urbino, with, as Thomas Pynchon has written, Florentino Ariza serving "as the hypotenuse." Florentino becomes obsessed with Fermina, who is about 13, and he writes her passionate, though unsuccessful, love letters. In typical Latin American fashion, the young woman is chaperoned and kept at a safe distance from suitors. Fermina's aunt agrees to serve as a courier, however, and soon the two fall hoplessly in love, exchanging piles and piles of stamps, envelopes and surreptitious locks of braided hair...
When Fermiana's father finds out about the illicit yet innocent relationship, he sends his daughter to the countryside on a "journey of forgetting," and he warns Florentino not to write, much less speak, to his daughter again. Florentino resolves to love Fermina forever, but when he approaches her after her return from the countryside, her sentiment has obviously changed. "Instead of the commotion of love she felt the abyss of disenchantment," and Fermina cries out to him, "No please! Forget it!" His hopes dashed for love in the present, Florentino contents himself with faith in the eternal...
...Fermina meanwhile marries Juvenal Urbino, a famous doctor who, having studied medicine in Paris, tries to reform the health standards of the city, which is presumed to be Cartagena or Barranquilla--on the Colombian Caribbean coast. Their match, while longlasting, is hardly ideal, and Marquez writes that "the problem with public life is overcoming terror; the problem with marriage is overcoming boredom...
...Fermina and Juvenal grow to care for each other, but to escape their boredom, they each seeks adventure. Juvenal has a risky affair with a Black woman from Jamaica--a relationship considered to be taboo at that time in Colombia. Fermina locks herself in rooms and smokes cigars, thinking about love and adventure...
...broken triangle repairs itself upon the death of Urbino, who comes to his demise while chasing his parrot from a tropical tree. At the funeral, Florentino arrives to declare his undying love for the widow, and he and Fermina resume their relationship of a half century before, celebrating their union with a riverboat journey. The president of the riverboat company, Florentino has the boat's captain take advantage of the ever-present cholera epidemic to hoist the yellow flag of quarantine so that the lovers never have to disembark and can celebrate their love "forever...