◆ Wang Weiwei
01,
Carlisle said that poets are the light of the world. I don't know if this is true or false, so if I had a poet friend, I might say to him, "Have you seen Love in the Time of Cholera? I think there's a good chance that Ariza in the novel is a liar. , but many people think he is a poet.”
My poet friend might answer me like this: “It is the nature of a poet in the morning and evening, but steadfastness is the soul of a poet.” In my imagination, this friend likes to travel around Be merciful, he himself seems to have just had cholera, so he has an almost perverted insistence on Ariza's love. "After all, in this world, what else can bring people such persistent beliefs like that in the past?" He turned the topic to himself while blowing smoke rings, "Besides, Ariza is very similar to me, Possesses the elegance and charm that many poets do not have..." The
afternoon sun shines through the curtains on my desk, and it is easy to fall asleep at such a time. Obviously this wasn't the best time to chat, so I said goodbye to my fictional poet friend while shoving that disc called "Love in the Time of Cholera" into "One Hundred Years of Solitude." Maybe one day I accidentally opened that book and thought not only of Macondo, but also of the content of the chat between my friends and me one afternoon, and once again posted a long silence.
I'm staring at my computer screen saver right now, it's a bunch of white camellias that will change into different states with the passage of time, it's bright at first, but it will wither in the end. The screen will dim until the computer goes to sleep. I looked at that screensaver many times, and each time I wondered what if it wasn't a camellia, maybe I should put on a bunch of red roses and play the same boring game.
02.
Marquez once told me such a story. He said that in Cartagena, Colombia, there was a young man named Ariza, who waited fifty-one years and nine months to be with his sweetheart. zero four days. And that young man named Ariza is a poet (even if you don't think he is, at least he should have the temperament of a poet), in order to confess to his sweetheart again, he has been waiting every day in these fifty-one years the death of her husband.
It's a really moving love story, in Márquez's words, an "old-fashioned happy love story." I don't quite understand the relationship between "moving" and "happiness", as I know Marquez, his text is calm and lonely, as if rusted time is slowly stretched and finally torn apart . The imagery that appears in his stories (such as poverty and disease, such as war and slavery) is like acid that eats people. When you look at it from a distance, it is like a decoration. When you get close to it, it will jump down on its own. , and kissed your skin.
"In 1982, Gabriel García Márquez, who wrote "One Hundred Years of Solitude", won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his outstanding contributions to literature, and in 1985 his new book "Love in the Time of Cholera" swept the Literary awards, big and small all over the world." Actually, "Love in the Time of Cholera" and "One Hundred Years of Solitude" are not at all similar, but people like to discuss them together. Everyone feels that since they are the works of masters, they should be treated as equals— - "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is great, so "Love in the Time of Cholera" must be flawless. I know it's not right to think that way, but for a novel like "Love in the Time of Cholera," which is full of twilight and sentimentality, there really isn't a better word for it than "moving."
When reading this story, I often have this image in my mind: an old man with gray hair and beard is sitting in a reclining chair, his lips are parted, and the teenager sitting next to him listens carefully, and then writes down with notes. The trivial old things that I have heard. A love story that took place from the end of the 19th century to the 20th century and spanned more than 50 years was like this through an old man's unhurried statement ("In a fearless tone, in a The calm attitude that will not change even when it falls down”) gradually spreads out.
Maybe the old man is like Urbino in Marquez's novel. At that time, Urbino was also very old. He was on crutches and read every day, but he forgot the logic of the plot and the relationship between characters. . The only thing he can remember is what the medical school teacher said: people who have lost their memory use paper to help. So before he has completely forgotten the past, he should write the story on paper and tell it to others.
03.
I haven't read "Four Weddings and a Funeral", I don't care what kind of works the director has made, and I have read very few books related to film and television. For movies with the label of Marquez, my impression is basically still in the original novel. So when I saw the movie "Love in the Time of Cholera", I suddenly recalled the story told by the old Colombian, a legend full of twilight and sentimental love.
The telegraph clerk Ariza, or the poet Ariza, saw the beautiful girl Fermina through a window. It was this encounter that created the love epic that Ariza had been waiting for for fifty-one years. Ariza wrote a love letter to her sweetheart, the first time she wrote seventy pieces of paper. He was restless in his room, like he had an incurable cholera. In his eyes, Fermina is like a white and blooming camellia, a "fairy with a crown". And what about Dr. Urbino? He touched Fermina's body the first time he saw her. "You're like a rose in bloom," he said. The difference between Urbino and Ariza is that he believes that the most important thing in marriage is not happiness, but stability. Ariza deified his imaginary love to the extreme, and regarded Fermina as the ultimate goal of his life. However, no matter from which point of view, after all, it is still the doctor who has the greater advantage - Ariza is only suitable for a lover, and Urbino is suitable for a husband. A few years ago, Zhou Guoping said that the relationship between husband and wife was a mutual economic aid group. The people who listened to his lecture were in an uproar, but after thinking about it, it was not unreasonable. If you were given a choice, what would you do? Your choice is probably not love, but life.
Ariza's father said something like this: My only regret is that I didn't die for love. The young poet obviously inherited his father's "behaviour", and spent half his life waiting for Fermina for his love. Also not shown in the movie is the doctor's friend Amour, who said "I will always be young" when he was young. No one knows his courage when he said this, because if time does not choose you If so, you can choose the time, Amoul is such a person, he committed suicide, when he is about to get old. He turned the passive fact into an active choice as a love oath. But whether it's Ariza or Amor, their choice Dr. Urbino may never understand, and many of us may never understand.
My friends have told me before that it is the nature of a poet to be in the middle of the night, but steadfastness is the soul of a poet. Although Ariza had many women during her fifty-one-year wait, she could never forget Fermina. He waited all his life just to start anew with her.
The father died, the husband died, and the years passed like water. In front of Fermina in her twilight years, an aging man was telling her his feelings: I waited for this opportunity for fifty-one years, nine months and four days, and this is how long I have loved you, since my first As soon as I saw you until now, I once again confessed to you, my unswerving oath and eternal love.
I could clearly see the gaze between the two elderly people who had reached their old age. At that time, Fermina was not like a camellia or a red rose. Her face was covered with wrinkles and, in Duras's words, her face was "devastated". However, in Ariza's view, this flower is full of tears, but it is even more charming and moving.
04.
Although the camellia is romantic, it seems to be just a fantasy; although the red rose is worldly, it is the closest to life. Ariza, who met Fermina for the first time, showed his passion for love. Ariza used camellias to symbolize the love between them, but what they got was fifty-one years of long waiting and endless longing. Dr. Urbino, who met Fermina for the first time, came across a rose with thorns, but picked it off with ease.
This is also the expression of "Love in the Time of Cholera" infinitely approaching life. Although the movie does not show as many details as the novel, we can still find that the embarrassment and helplessness in life are fully displayed in those light and shadows. Find a good man to marry. A good standard is that the other party has money, social status, and education. Just like the doctor Urbino in the story, he is respected and willing to live a stable life, even if he has an affair. Don't lie to your wife.
Fermina spent half a century with the doctor, listening to him say "marriage is not about happiness, but stability", she tried to forget Ariza, calling him "a shadow". Who is Ariza? A bastard, a liar, a lunatic with a camellia; and Urbino? A gentleman, a respected doctor, an indispensable and important person. It's obviously more sensible to marry Dr. Urbino, not just Fermina's choice, but the choice of most people today. For Ariza, his love is like cholera, like a ship he encountered on a long voyage, and there was only one person left on the ship. Although he waved a black flag to the outside world for help, there was no one. can save him. Ariza, like that man, had cholera, and everyone shunned him.
05.
The camellia on the screen withered again. I suddenly wondered what would happen if I replaced it with a rose. Will it also wither? After the death of Dr. Urbino, the old Ariza stopped looking for fun. He learned to write love letters with a typewriter to confess to his sweetheart. He is like a ship that has been lost in the ocean for half a century. After getting Fermina, he finally raised the black cholera flag and sailed into the distance.
The old man in his old age said "forever" at the end of the story. Can it really last forever? In the face of sickness and death that could come at any moment, Ariza's commitment to Fermina is unbelievable, and their love boat is still moving forward, but there is no end in sight. But we also saw that the old man still gave his sweetheart a gift, but it was no longer a camellia, but a white rose.
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