Gabriel García Márquez: Crónica de una muerte anunciada (Chronicle of a Death Foretold)

 

I read this book  in Spanish and I am glad I did — based on the translation of the title alone, I don’t know how many other subletlies I might have missed if I had gone for a translated version.  García Márquez’s novella deals with an honor killing, and beyond what is implied in the book’s English title, the resulting death is one that is both “foretold” (namely, in a dream) and blatantly announced by the would-be murderers, to all and sundry but to the victim himself. — At the beginning of the book, the murder has already happened, and the story is told circuitously in reverse, leading up to an almost surreal, slow-motion pacing in the minutes before the actual killing, when fate, circumstances, cowardice, lethargy and ill luck conspire to see opportunity after opportunity to save the intended victim being missed.

In just over 100 pages, García Márquez employs pacing, perspective and contrasts (of perspective, plot elements, personalities, potential and actual murder weapons and much, much more) to deconstruct the society where the murder occurs — a small coastal town in Columbia — and its prevailing attitudes that excuse and justify the murder, a justice system unable to adequately deal with the crime, and of course the honor code that causes the murder to be committed in the first place.  It’s a gut-punching book as far away from Love in the Time of Cholera as it could possibly be and it’s been sitting on my shelves unread for far too long — I’m glad I finally did something about that.

 

0 thoughts on “Gabriel García Márquez: Crónica de una muerte anunciada (Chronicle of a Death Foretold)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Literature Reviews Uncategorized

J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit – Performed by Andy Serkis

Like its magnificent sequel, The Hobbit is, I think, many things to many people: the first exposition of the universe that would become Middle-earth; prelude to The Lord of the Rings; a bite-sized visit to Middle-earth whenever you don’t feel up to the full blow of the War of the Ring(s); one of the most […]

Read More
Literature Reviews

Karen Wynn Fonstad: The Atlas of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth

Blurb: “Find your way through every part of J.R.R. Tolkien’s great creation, from the Middle-earth of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to the undying lands of the West … The Atlas of Tolkien’s Middle-earth is an essential guide to the geography of Middle-earth, from its founding in the Elder Days – as […]

Read More
Literature Reviews

J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings – Performed by Andy Serkis

In another online community, we recently talked about the new Andy Serkis Lord of the Rings recordings.  Well, it turns out that the pull of The Ring is still mighty strong, for however much it may have been destroyed in Mount Doom. I had barely gotten my hands on these audios and I found I […]

Read More