another love story

 I've moved on from "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" to bigger and better things. The book that I am currently reading is called "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and by the title of the book you can infer that yes it is a love story. Now I have not finished reading the book so I do not know if this tale ends in a happy ending but what I have read so far, the main character is far from getting the girl of his dreams. Halfway through the book, I have reached quite a controversial chapter and possible the most shocking yet of this book. Florentino Ariza the main character, has decided to leave Fermina after much heartbreak she has gave him. He takes a ship to reach a faraway city, Villa de Leyva. The story takes a complete turn when one night by the captain's request, he is ordered to give up his cabin and as he starts wandering off in the ship something unexplainable happens.
Ariza is dragged inside a dark cabin by an unidentified and (naked) woman who takes his virginity. He is bewildered with emotions he has never felt before and his dream of ever losing his virginity to fermina is now gone, as well as his desires for her. The chapter revolves around him trying to figure out who the woman was as well as her motives and as he has suspicions of one the women in the ship, he never actually goes up to her to ask her.
Even though this section got me a little mad by the fact that it proved how someone can easily cover up love for a woman using sexual encounters with strangers, I think that maybe it was all for the best. Ariza's whole mentality changed and Fermina was no longer part of him. The part were the naked woman takes his virginity is shocking and overly unexpected but at the same time it was good for it to change completely.
I believe the author's intent is to shock us and try to not get us bored basically. always talking about how much the main character missed Fermina was getting sickening so when Ariza finally lets his guard down, the author finally was a able to show another side of him. the patterns of organization I was able to tell were confusing. Order of importance is visible because the book starts with the present stating the most important event and then going on explaining the past.