Of Love And Other Demons-Love, desperation and conflicts

‘Of Love And Other Demons’ by Nobel laureate Gabriel GarciaMarquez is a beautiful portrait of conflict between love and, believing and not believing in religion.

Marquez depicts the violence and abuse meted out to 12-year old rabid girl Sivera Maria for exorcising her. On the other hand Marquez has penned down the subtle love of a priest for that girl.

Maria has been raised by the slaves. The slaves of her parents have inculcated some of their tribal religious practices in her. Like for much alike tribals for Maria drinking the blood of roosters before breakfast is a normal thing. She is bitten by a rabid dog. On bitten by the dog she develops rabies, and she is taken to numerous doctors and healers who attempt to cure her of the rabies.  Later the Bishop of church convinces her father that in order to save her soul she must be confined to a convent.

Church in due course of time declares that she is possessed by demons and starts the exorcising. But one of the priests, Delura who is close to Bishop and is given the task of exorcising, falls in love with her.

Marquez as he is known, has beautifully pcitured all the conflicts, emotions, tussles on both the subjects be it love, desperation or the conflict of a rational mind debating between existence and non-existence of god.

Marquez says, ‘“Disbelief is more resistant than faith because it is sustained by the senses”—here lies the subtle sarcasm, if disbelief is sustained by senses, then what sustains faith? He leaves the readers to ponder and answer this.

Again, he says, “One never quite stops believing, some doubt remains forever", here what is doubt, it is faith (religion) or did Marquez wanted to say that religion is just a doubt? He again leaves this to the readers to decide the exact meaning of his words.

There are several lines where Marquez delivers highest levels of philosophy in one liners, like, ‘Crazy people are not crazy if one understands their reasoning’.

Marquez also beautifully narrates the desperation of Delura’s love, in one context he says, “Do not allow me to forget you”—this line with all its simplicity can touch anyone’s heart. In another lines, Delura says, “No medicine cures what happiness cannot”, how much true the line is given to the fact of today’s fast paced life.

In all ‘Of Love And Other Demons’ – is a masterpiece by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and is a must read.

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