 Storytelling at its best, 2005-04-30
This book is a little gem that I can rank only alongside Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground. Its short length means nothing, because it is so unique and fascinating that you will remember it when all your 500-page novels have been forgotten.The account is based on a true event which took place in the Colombian town of Sucre during Gabriel García Márquez's earlier years, though the names have been changed in this account. This highlights the fact that this book was not written to be a journalistic reconstruction. First and foremost it is a story - a story of a vicious stabbing against a front door, a murder of revenge, foretold (or "announced" as it may also be translated) in advance all over the town. The book does not need to be long because it does not set out to provide the thrills and spills of a typical crime novel. It is as cool and evocative as The Godfather, but the gorgeous Latin American stylings serve a higher purpose. Márquez's theme is collective responsibility. Is the whole town responsible for allowing this "death foretold"? Is a whole culture responsible? To what extent is this murder justifiable as a crime of passion? Márquez puts these questions to the reader by dissecting the events, in the process shedding light upon all the relevant circumstances, motives, culprits, victims and consequences in his simple yet poetic manner. This is a master storyteller in his element, confronting difficult themes while presenting a plethora of believable characters. It is so concise you could read the book in the time it takes to watch a film, but Chronicle of a Death Foretold is well worth savouring and rereading.
A little gem, 2007-05-28
Revealing from the outset how the story is going to end is not your classic approach to story-telling, however in the case of Chronical of a Death Foretold, it is a master-stroke. Afterall, everyone in the book knows that a murder is going to happen in advance, so why shouldn't the reader?
The story is essentially about Fate and its unerring and at times illogical path. Despite the perpetrators broadcasting to the whole population their intention to commit the murder, so that as they can be apprehended and relieved of their duty to avenge their sister's honour, Fate conspires to force their hand.
This is the first Gacia Marquez novel that I have read, where I have been able to fully appreciate his lauded status as one of Latin America's greatest authors.
Masterful from start to finish.
great, 2008-03-22
This book is great i read it in spanish first then in english, it really improves your spanish if looking for extra resources for study, also great plot and cleverly written.
A tragedy beautifully rendered, 2006-11-17
In this faux journalistic tale, Nobel Prize winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes about the lives of ordinary people in a small town along a navigable river. A well to do man with matrimony on his mind arrives and picks out the young lady of his desire. Marquez focuses in on the values of the people and their traditions as the wedding approaches. The man buys her a house on a hill in anticipation presumably that she will bare him many children and he will be a leading citizen of the town.
Such is the dream of this relatively fancy man from a bigger town.
The dream of the young woman who is to be the bride is a bit different. We cannot know for sure, but like young women everywhere she would prefer to marry for love. But how can a woman from a poor family that makes its living slaughtering pigs turn down such an offer?
She can't and yet because she does not fake the virginity with a red-stained sheet that could be hung out to dry on a clothes line the next morning for all to see, she allows circumstance to dictate her future. Her shamed brothers in essence do the same. They act because no one will stop them from acting.
Marquez tells the story as a journalist narrating an event from the past. The suspense in this short novel comes not from what happens to the man who stole the girl's virginity: we know that from the very beginning, but from the aftermath and from the details of how the events transpire. What is easy to miss (and I missed it at first) is that brothers who believe they are duty-bound to perform the honor killing really wish to be stopped. In this we see the old ideas of the society being reluctantly continued by the people. They know there is a better way, but because they are small town traditionalists, they are powerless by themselves. Note that the bishop comes but doesn't stop. The Church itself does not help is perhaps the symbolic meaning.
And why doesn't the town act to stop the murder? Why were they all indifferent? Do we say that something like the disgrace of one family and what they do about that disgrace is something for them to decide alone, and that we should take no action in the affair, that we should let events run their course?
Marquez makes it clear that just about everybody knew what was going to take place. I see this as a passive acceptance of a way of life imposed upon a people by ancient custom and tradition. This is the way of human nature in a traditional society. This is a tragedy foretold but not forestalled. And note that the tragedy happens to both the man who is murdered and to his family and to the murderers and the family of the murderers.
Is an honor killing right? Clearly the law will punish the murderers, the town's people know; but perhaps there will be some leniency from a jury or a magistrate considering the nature of the crime. And no doubt the philandering man who took advantage of the young woman deserves at least in part what will happen to him. I wonder, however, if the man had been a popular person, a younger person, would everyone have stood by and let him be slaughtered?
Note that the young woman herself had the power to name a name and she did. She could have refused. She could have lied.
Still another thing to note, and this reveals an unavoidable artificiality to the story: some women lose their hymen not through the act of intercourse, but through some sort of mishap or even through the normal rough and tumble course of growing up. There are many women who have lost their hymens who are nonetheless virgins. She could have claimed that something like that was the case. She may not have been believed but at least the man who had stolen her virginity would not have died.
Note too that Marquez is careful from the very beginning of the story to show us that Santiago Nasar was a womanizer and a man who would take advantage of the maid or the cook's daughter. In this way we are predisposed not to like him. Undoubtedly the town in general felt the same way. Clearly the young woman had been hurt by this man.
What Marquez has done in this short novel is examine a tragic event and show the reader not just the consequences but the entanglement of perspectives and values that led to the tragedy.
how a town kills a man, 2008-08-25
'Chronicle' uses techniqies from detective fiction to unfold the story and it works so extremely well - it is a trluy remarkable achievement.
In fact it was through a reference in 'Detecting Texts' - a study on the analytical detective story - that I was introduced to this story.
As you follow the story Marquez peels back layer upon layer of meaning until you finally arrive at the end to witiness the murder itself. The accumulated weight of all you learn along the way deepens and saddens you but demands a re-reading.
What is also worth noting is: the victim is of Arab background (read: muslim) and nearly everyone in the small town know about his murder but do not act strongly enough to stop it. From this point of view it shows how even a 'non-action' supports the violence of the nurder. Even those characters who dismiss the very possibility of the murder thereby support it by ignoring it. Superb.
The narrator - a friend of the deceased - at one point casts doubt on the slur on Santiago's character (the victim) and makes us, the readers, feel that no one really challenged the accusation - why? Why should a whole town allow such a thing to happen? There is no simple answer. Each character of the story supplies a different context and answer and, I would suggest, makes it worthy of further critical comment.
This is what the best writing should be: briliantly told story, deep social and political significance and written beautifully - though I do agree with one comment that the translation is a bit clumsy in places.
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