Reviews - Chronicle of a Death Foretold -- Translated from the Spanish By Gregory Rabassa

Cuando leí "Cien años de soledad" no pensé que volvería a leer nada de Márquez. Sí, lo sé, quizás lo que estoy diciendo es un sacrilegio, pero no me gustó absolutamente nada la que se considera su obra maestra, ese clásico que todo "buen lector" debe leer. Me pareció absolutamente tediosa. Poco después me vi forzada a leer "Crónica de una muerte anunciada" que no solo disfruté de principio a fin, es que lo devoré en pocos días (y hubieran sido horas si no hubiera sido por el trabajo). La forma en la que está estructurada la novela, la manera en la que narra los hechos desde diferentes perspectivas, el simbolismo, los temas del honor, el machismo, la muerte, las costumbres en pueblos pequeños, están absolutamente bien tratados y el lector se queda con la sensación de haber leído una verdadera crónica de hechos que pudieron o no haber pasado. El lenguaje es sencillo y directo, nada de florituras lo que hace que la lectura sea más fácil y adictiva. Una verdadera maravilla que ha hecho que me reconciliara con este autor.

sims26's review against another edition

4.0

dark mysterious medium-paced

sammysam2000's review against another edition

4.25

dark funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: N/A

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: N/A

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

valeryflame's review against another edition

1.0

medium-paced

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

mynameisnemo's review against another edition

2.0

I've been meaning to read Gabriel García Márquez for a long time but kept hoping that my Spanish would be good enough to allow me to read in the original language. Unfortunately I don't keep up with my studies enough to do that so I finally gave up and read in English.

This is kind of an odd book, not what I was expecting although I don't know what I was expecting. It is exactly what the title says it is but at the same time it's a window into a small town in Colombia and the culture of it. In some ways it reminded me a lot of Steinbeck's The Pearl, in the kind of almost inevitable feel of the events unfolding, as though there is no other way for them to unfold.

I generally don't like anything written from first person perspective, and while this book wasn't as annoying as I usually find such works, it did kind of bother me that we don't find out more about the narrator. Where was he when the events were unfolding? What was he doing? We know about everyone else in the town but not him.

Beyond that, it was an easy read, and obviously very short, but not exactly gripping and even more, I don't really feel like I learned anything from it, either in terms of actual knowledge like history or science or culture, or even anything about how to craft a story. Maybe something gets lost in the translation or perhaps it's not the best of Máquez's stories to start with. Hopefully not all of his works are as uninspiring as this one.