Since I'm leaving for almost a week on Monday, and the weekends of September and October promise to be busy ones, Matt and I thought it appropriate to take some time for ourselves and have one of our private wine and cheese parties. Having recently been gifted with a Trader Joe's gift card, we promptly blew that and more stocking up on bread, cheese, the ingredients for pesto (since we haven't had room in the grocery budget lately for large quantities of walnuts, pine nuts, fresh basil, parmesan, and olive oil), fresh tomatoes and strawberries, and--in homage to the waning days of summer--the makings of deluxe s'mores: dark chocolate, cinnamon graham crackers, and Trader Joe's giant, pillowy handmade marshmallows. We also picked up a bottle of Polka Dot Reisling (affordable but yummy) for me and some beer for Matt. Here are some scenes from the evening:
Earlier in the day, Matt had perused the Redbox selections and reserved Love in the Time of Cholera, so for $1 and a trip to the grocery store we had our entertainment all set. When you consider that the mondo batch of pesto we made will last us awhile, and we'll be snacking and dining on bread and cheese throughout the weekend, our outlay was still probably less than we'd have spent on dinner and a movie out, and will last us considerably longer.
From Love in the Time of CholeraWe both really enjoyed the movie--the acting, the music, the costumes, and the storyline were all very captivating. While the plot had a few hollow moments, for the most part we were very entertained. Basically, the story (based on the book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez) is set in Columbia and is that of the young Florentino Ariza, who falls in love with the beautiful Fermina Daza the first time he sees her. The two exchange secret letters until he comes to her window one night and proposes marriage. While she is initially hesitant, her unmarried aunt pulls her aside and insists that she accept--"Or else you will always regret it. I know about such things!" Fermina does, but their happiness is short-lived because her cruel (and disturbing) father plans for Fermina to wait for a more advantageous marriage offer. He takes her away to live with relatives, including a cousin who is the accomplice to her continued contacts with Florentino.
The characters age and times change, and eventually Fermina comes back to town and Florentino approaches her in the marketplace. At that point, she tells him she has realized that what they had was an illusion. This is a little puzzling and no explanation is ever really given, so we are left to assume that perhaps she means what she says and was simply struck with this realization once she saw him again. (By this point, the charming actor who plays young Florentino has been replaced with a bizarrely dopey-looking middle-aged Florentino, but somehow I doubt that's why she does it.) She ends up marrying a wealthy doctor, of whom her father approves, and with whom it is difficult to tell whether she is ultimately happy or unhappy. Throughout their long marriage, Florentino finds consolation in two places: in the commiseration of his elderly mother (who appears to have been left pregnant and alone by Florentino's philandering father, leaving his brother--Florentino's uncle, a funeral singer--to provide for the boy and his mother), and, strangely, in sexual dalliances with over 600 other women.
This detail of promiscuous sexual encounters isn't overly lingered upon in the movie, and it seems sort of peculiar, but it's one I've found is not uncommon in South American writing: The style of Marquez (who has a more recent novella out called Memories of My Melancholy Whores), often referred to as magical realism, contains many hyperbolic and larger-than-life elements, including sexual ones. It remind me of the writing of Isabelle Allende, of Peru, whose writing is considered part of the same genre.
Marquez said of the couple that they were inspired by the love story of his own parents:
The characters age and times change, and eventually Fermina comes back to town and Florentino approaches her in the marketplace. At that point, she tells him she has realized that what they had was an illusion. This is a little puzzling and no explanation is ever really given, so we are left to assume that perhaps she means what she says and was simply struck with this realization once she saw him again. (By this point, the charming actor who plays young Florentino has been replaced with a bizarrely dopey-looking middle-aged Florentino, but somehow I doubt that's why she does it.) She ends up marrying a wealthy doctor, of whom her father approves, and with whom it is difficult to tell whether she is ultimately happy or unhappy. Throughout their long marriage, Florentino finds consolation in two places: in the commiseration of his elderly mother (who appears to have been left pregnant and alone by Florentino's philandering father, leaving his brother--Florentino's uncle, a funeral singer--to provide for the boy and his mother), and, strangely, in sexual dalliances with over 600 other women.
This detail of promiscuous sexual encounters isn't overly lingered upon in the movie, and it seems sort of peculiar, but it's one I've found is not uncommon in South American writing: The style of Marquez (who has a more recent novella out called Memories of My Melancholy Whores), often referred to as magical realism, contains many hyperbolic and larger-than-life elements, including sexual ones. It remind me of the writing of Isabelle Allende, of Peru, whose writing is considered part of the same genre.
Marquez said of the couple that they were inspired by the love story of his own parents:
"The only difference is [my parents] married. And as soon as they were married, they were no longer interesting as literary figures."However, Florentino is always waiting for his chance with Fermina to come again, and it occurs when her husband dies, when they are all in their seventies. While she is initially offended by his opportunistic approach, eventually she is won over by his love.
The love of old people is based on a newspaper story about the death of two Americans, who were almost 80 years old, who met every year in Acapulco. They were out in a boat one day and were murdered by the boatman with his oars. García Márquez notes, “Through their death, the story of their secret romance became known. I was fascinated by them. They were each married to other people." [Wikipedia]
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