35. Gabriel García Márquez - Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Gabriel García Márquez has finally done it. He has finally managed to thoroughly impress me! Even though Chronicle of a Death Foretold is not a long book, it is a very powerful one. I read it in two days and now it wasn't only for the lack of time, but also because I couldn't put it down. 

This book is written by a nameless person, who is a good friend of the man who gets killed in a small town. The book chronicles the events leading up towards Santiago Nasar's death. The event that sets is all off is the marriage between Angela Vicario and Bayardo San Roman. When Bayardo finds out his wife isn't a virgin he abandons her and she tells her two brothers it was Santiago who was her first. Bear in mind that it never becomes clear in the novel if it was actually him. What does become clear is that everyone of the small town in the space of a few hours finds out about the brothers' plan to murder him, but him. The entire book is leading up to that horrible event through the eyes of his good friend who recounts the story through the eyes of the crowd, years after the tragedy. 

This is the first book by Márquez where I found quotations that thoroughly moved me:

"But most of those who could have done something to prevent the crime and still didn't do it consoled themselves with the pretext that affairs of honor are sacred monopolies with access only for those who are part of the drama" (Márquez 98)

And the fact that in Santiago's case the phrase "Fatality makes us invisible" (Márquez 114) is very suitable, because he walks through the city without hiding and everyone ignores him, even though they know of his predicament. But the most impressive quote of all is the one at the end of the novel, where the crowd has become aware of the fact that the Vicario brothers aren't actually the only ones that killed Santiago:

"They didn't hear the shouts of the whole town, frightened by its own crime." (Márquez 120)