Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Collected Novellas [more specifically, Chronicle of a Death Foretold]

It takes a master craftsman to create suspense out of inevitability. In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez does just that. Thanks to the Citizen Kane-like reportage, you know all the while that the protagonist, Santiago Nasar, is going to die; you even know who will kill him--or, more accurately, who has killed him. And yet you are still breathless when he is murdered gruesomely, shockingly, humorously. It's like being punched in the gut while laughing.

...and yet they thought that Santiago Nasar would never fall.... Trying to finish it once and for all, Pedro Vicario sought his heart, but he looked for it almost in the armpit, where pigs have it. Actually, Santiago Nasar wasn't falling because they themselves were holding him up with stabs against the door.

Up next: A Doll's House.

[originally posted July 13, 2004]