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mlhays 's review for:
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
by Gabriel García Márquez
In the novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold the author, Gabriel García Márquez, is investigating a gruesome murder that took place in Colombia twenty-seven years prior in order to determine how the crime took place. García-Márquez interviews the people of the town and reviews documents effectively chronicling the days and hours leading up to the murder of Santiago Nasar. After piecing together information, García-Márquez is only sure that most everyone knew the murder would take place but were ineffective in stopping it.
I found this novel very easy to follow, but that is not the only reason I gave it five stars. Each event flowed well to the next, which made the book difficult to put down and the novel introduced cultural elements with which I was not familiar. García-Márquez is well known for his storytelling and use of magical realism in his novels. Since magical realism is a genre where the extraordinary is accepted into everyday life, it shows itself in the form of women who can predict the future, the deceased taking the form of birds, and superstition at its highest levels. For example, in the first few pages, readers are introduced to Plácida Linero who "had a well-earned reputation as an accurate interpreter of other people's dreams, provided they were told her before eating"(García-Márquez, 4). The glimpse into the importance of honor and superstition in another culture makes the novel a worthwhile read.
I found this novel very easy to follow, but that is not the only reason I gave it five stars. Each event flowed well to the next, which made the book difficult to put down and the novel introduced cultural elements with which I was not familiar. García-Márquez is well known for his storytelling and use of magical realism in his novels. Since magical realism is a genre where the extraordinary is accepted into everyday life, it shows itself in the form of women who can predict the future, the deceased taking the form of birds, and superstition at its highest levels. For example, in the first few pages, readers are introduced to Plácida Linero who "had a well-earned reputation as an accurate interpreter of other people's dreams, provided they were told her before eating"(García-Márquez, 4). The glimpse into the importance of honor and superstition in another culture makes the novel a worthwhile read.