Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel García Márquez

[Forester & Flower, 6th Feb 2020. Scores: AA 7; CB 6; CW 6; JH 7; MT 5; MW 8.5; RV 6; SC 5.5; WM 7.5. Mean score 6.5]

A short novel by Gabriel García Márquez, a Colombian novelist who is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century and one of the best in the Spanish language. The novel was published in 1981, and a year later Márquez was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The narrator returns to a small town in Colombia where a baffling murder took place twenty-seven years earlier. Just hours after marrying the beautiful Angela Vicario, everyone agrees, Bayardo San Roman returned his bride in disgrace to her parents. Her distraught family forced her to name her first lover; and her twin brothers announced their intention to murder Santiago Nasar for dishonouring their sister. Yet if everyone knew the murder was going to happen, why did no one intervene to try and stop it? The central question at the core of the novella is how the death of Santiago was foreseen, yet no one tried to stop it. Unlike the traditional detective novel this book does not investigate the murder. Instead the narrator explores the circumstances surrounding his death by asking the villagers who were present during his murder and exploring the seeming contradiction of a murder that was predicted in advance. The more that is learned, the less is understood.

John H who introduced the book appreciated the way the author explored the mistakes, misunderstandings and assumptions that lead to the murder and the way warnings were misinterpreted, ignored or as in the victim’s case just not believed. For example, Colonel Aponte assumed that by taking knives off the Vicario Brothers and sending them to sleep it off would be the end of the matter, or the way that Father Amador tried to ignore the warnings because he didn’t know how to handle the situation. The situation wasn’t helped in that most of those involved were recovering from the wedding revelries, exhausted from lack of sleep or had dreadful hangovers – as the narrator noted even “my sister the nun had an 80% proof hangover”. John H liked the way the penultimate chapter explored what happened to Angela Vicario and the way that her “husband”, the fat, sweaty Bayardo San Roman finally returned to her life carrying a suitcase full of the two thousand letters she had written to him over the years since she had gone into “exile” after he had rejected her.

John H saw the book rather like a miniature painting with its meticulous detail. Beautiful, even forensic, descriptions of the town, the context, the people and the events. Wonderfully economical prose much of which became more apparent on a second reading once you got behind the description of the context and events. Sentences and phrases that said so much. He raised the question of whether such a short novel allows for enough character development or whether it is merely what it is – a look back at shocking events that happened over twenty-five years earlier. He also recognised that many questions also remained unanswered - this may have been the authors intent or just a product of brevity. The range of views shared below reflects how some reader’s enjoyment of the book was undermined by its brevity, its structure and lack of character development, while others valued its economical prose and the detail inherent in such a short narrative.

William M: Really appreciated the novel and enjoyed reading it, in fact felt it was well worth reading twice. It was very originally written with a great turn of phrase – for example, the way the bishop was described as “without malice or inspiration”. The different stories of those involved highlights how everyone has a different perspective on the same events, even different views on what the weather was like at the time. While there was limited character development the central characters were strong. Although we never really heard the story from the perspective of Angela around who the story revolves, particularly as to what happened to her – both before and on her wedding night. She found “the name of her deflowerer among the shadows – one among many to be found there”. But it was the detail that gave the book its added flavour, for example the great descriptions and detail of the wedding and the partying afterwards. Although it did seem to end rather abruptly in such a way that just left the reader hanging.

Chris B enjoyed the book more when read the second time with all the detail and the way the story is structured - particularly the way the tension builds to the murder and its consequences as well as the way the shocking detail of the murder came in the last chapter. He also liked the description of time and place, the array of characters and the way that relationships in the community were described – the jealousies and the descriptions of being an outsider (like the Arabs) in such a small isolated community. BUT this novel, for all its strengths, didn’t really resonate with him. It was all very coolly observed. It didn’t get to him and he wanted more emotional engagement, and as a result he questioned why it is seen as such a great book.

Mark T did not really enjoy it –didn’t get into it. He was disappointed by it and found reading it a bit too much like homework. He did not like the way he did not get to know any of the characters well. He also thought there were too many unresolved issues and unanswered questions. For example, there was no evidence that Angela had lost her virginity prior to the wedding night.

Steve C felt it well captured the town and the individuals. Good descriptions of a small town isolated on a riverbank somewhere in South America. But found it too short and was unable to “wallow” in the descriptions of the characters or communities involved. But recognised the quality of the writing – often quite terse and spare. Marquez uses language well and there is a great turn of phrase – particularly in the description of the wedding and the party afterwards. BUT he found the book too short, and as a result had not engaged with it in the same way as he might with a longer book

Andrew A did not see the length of this short novel as a problem. He saw it as perfectly formed and as satisfying as a much longer book. He loved the intricate structure – rather like a jigsaw, and the use of different people’s perspectives – rather like putting the shards of broken mirror together. The characters all remembered the day very clearly but what happened very differently. We learn so much about what happened but really don’t know what did happen – many questions were left unanswered particularly around Angela’s virginity or what happened on her wedding night. He also liked the themes that ran through the story – themes of honour and justice, religion and values. He thought it had a great opening chapter and a great ending – the way it started with disembowelling (rabbits) and ended with disembowelling (Santiago Nasar). He was not gripped by the plot, which was tightly woven, but found it a pleasure to read. He appreciated the sparse prose which he thought was beautifully crafted but recognised that there were possibly too many characters which became quite confusing after a while. The characters were well-drawn, but he didn’t really care for them or what happened to them.

Mark W saw this a brilliant little book, original, suspenseful, (even though you knew right from the first sentence what was going to happen) with a narrator who is like a ghost, having no real role or impact on the story other than collecting the memories of others. The build up to the final scene was masterful as he wasn’t expecting the two twists at the end, firstly that no one really believed it had been Santiago Nasar, and then the way that Angela got together with Bayardo in the end. The final scene was horrific in its build up and its detail. His only irritation (not the fault of this the book itself) was the abrupt ending when he was pacing himself for another 30 pages. He felt this book deserves all the accolades it has received.

Richard V started off liking the book. He thought that the first two sentences were wonderful! “On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on. He’d dreamed he was going through a grove of timber trees where a gentle drizzle was falling , and for an instant he was happy in his dream, but when he awoke he felt completely spattered with bird shit.” There were several elements that he continued to like – it was short and extremely readable, and the author has a lovely smooth style and an excellent vocabulary. He also has great descriptive power – one can visualise much of what he writes, and many of the things he writes about resonated – “The fact is that Santiago Nasar went in through the main door, in full view of everyone, and without doing anything not to be seen” and yet no-one recalled seeing him. His description of the files in the Palace of Justice is an exact description of how files are ‘stored’ in India – in the law courts, in the police station, in fact, in everywhere that I have been to! “There was no classification of files whatever and more than a century of cases were piled up on the floor of the decrepit colonial building that had been Sir Francis Drake’s headquarters for two days.”

BUT – and it is a big but – he felt that something tremendously important was missing – there was no emotional contact with any of this host of characters. The book, the events, the culture, the descriptions, were all very interesting, and described in quite forensic detail, but the writer seemed to be (and as the reader Richard certainly was) completely removed from caring about any of these people. He concluded that that overall, this was a disappointing book despite all the positives. It reminded me a bit of the Truman Capote book ‘In Cold Blood’ which some of us read many years ago (May 2006), where again the idea and the execution of the idea were excellent, but where he managed to invest quite a lot more emotional depth into what was happening. Chris W felt he should have noted down characters as he went along because for a large part of the book he didn’t keep up with the names and roles of the numerous locals who turned up in the story and their different perspectives. He also felt it’s a story that he should have read in one sitting rather than over many evenings because the different nuances of the storyline told from different characters can only be appreciated when you were following the story through in detail. As a result that having read three-quarters of the book, rather than being attracted to get to the end and read the last pages, he begun to get bored of the same story being told over and over again (even though I knew that the whole point of the book was to have the story recounted from the perspective of different observers with all their minor differences. He recognised that the book conveyed a lot about religion, racism, collective responsibility, collective ignorance and the many other traits of the characters in the small Colombian town, and that it was beautifully written and very clear and readable prose. However, he began to become bored and had the feeling rather that it was a story that had been written for an A-level exam to be pulled apart page by page rather than to entertain the reader. So, in conclusion he thought perhaps he should read it again BUT unfortunately for him it was not an enjoyable read and more of a chore despite interesting themes it covered.