A review by maises
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez

5.0

“‘There's no way out of this,’ he told him. ‘It’s as if it had already happened.’”

This is probably the most cinematic read I’ve had in ages, and has to be a new favorite of the year so far. Chronicle of a Death Foretold is not a whodunit, a howdunit, or a whydunit. It’s a story of stories, which examines “that life should make use of so many coincidences forbidden literature, so that there should be the untrammeled fulfillment of a death so clearly foretold.” The whole story is pieced together by many different sources, and not always reliable, but what rings true is that this was a completely preventable death. The build up that all of this led to was surely the most memorable and iconic novel endings of all time.

Fate, the universe, God—these outer, meddling elements are not waxed on in Chronicle, but go unsaid. This is a play. Everyone has their roles that they play to perfection: Angela Vicario accuses. The Vicario twins go on their hunt. Santiago Nasar dies. The townspeople themselves have their own role of disruption as judges, jury, and witnesses. It doesn’t matter that Angela Vicario may not have been telling the truth, or that the twins, at many points, lose heart in playing out their part. The outcome had already been set in stone, and Santiago Nasar would have always died, in every iteration of the day.

For years we couldn’t talk about anything else. Our daily conduct, dominated then by so many linear habits, had suddenly begun to spin around a single common anxiety. The cocks of dawn would catch us trying to give order to the chain of many chance events that had made absurdity possible, and it was obvious that we weren’t doing it from an urge to clear up mysteries but because none of us could go on living without an exact knowledge of the place and the mission assigned to us by fate.

Is the town culpable for this singular crime, even without physical involvement? This might be what Chronicle is telling us. Nasar’s death, or pre-death, becomes a collective involvement, a festival. In my Vintage International edition, translated by Gregory Rabassa, the starting epitaph is from Gil Vicente: “The pursuit of love is like falconry.” I’m not sure if that’s supposed to mean that taming a falcon is dangerous, like love, which I assume is too simple, or if the predation of prey by falcons itself mirrors love. But what love is it referring to? Bayardo San Román couldn’t have really loved Angela Vicario when he returned her to her family; their “love story” only happened after Nasar’s death. It’s heavily implied that Nasar was not the one Angela Vicario had no actual tryst, so there wasn’t love there either. Familial love and friendship seem closest, with Cristo Bedoya and Nasar’s mother trying to save him, among others. Whatever it is, love is the driving force, but love doesn’t save Santiago Nasar.

There are other things to say, specifically about Angela Vicario. If they simply didn’t live in the society that they lived with, if her brothers weren’t obliged to return her honor from the man who took her virginity, then none of this would have happened. She deals with the cards she’s been dealt and lives out the rest of her life, not happy, necessarily, but with the semblance of her own autonomy, which is the most a woman in her position could hope for.