Source of book: Audiobook from the library
This is another last-minute impulse selection - it was available and sounded interesting to finish out our trip. My kids are teens (except for the adult ones who weren’t on this trip) so adult level books are now a part of our regular rotation.
I have previously read Marquez’ best known novels, Love in the time of Cholera and 100 Years of Solitude. This book is a short novella, which, as it turns out, was loosely based on real events.
One of Marquez’ childhood friends was involved in a similar situation (although the details seem to be in dispute.) Once the book came out, there was actually a lawsuit by one of the murderers, claiming that the book had ruined his reputation, which is a rather interesting twist. In any case, Marquez wrote a story that was somewhat different from the real case, and sold it as fiction, not fact.
The narrative is told by a man (the author, essentially), who investigated the events - it is faux journalistic in tone, and very non-linear. We find out about the murder immediately, but the facts surrounding things are filled in gradually until the very end.
The real life story is this: a man married a young woman, discovered she wasn’t a virgin on her wedding night, and sent her back to her parents. The young woman’s brothers, furious at this, sought out her ex-boyfriend (who deflowered her), and brutally murdered him.
As will become apparent, the fictional story is different, and less mundane.
In the story, a mysterious and dashing man, Bayardo, shows up at the village, openly seeking a beautiful wife. He picks Angela, a working-class girl who doesn’t love him, but whose family can’t refuse an obviously rich man. (And, as it turns out, he is the son of a famous general who won glory in a fictional war alluded to in 100 Years of Solitude…) Angela, who apparently intended to remain single, is horrified, but she has no choice.
Just prior to the marriage, Angela confesses to her lack of virginity, although she refuses to give any further information. She is given the tools to fake things - an astringent to make her vagina dry and “tight,” mercury to fake a blood stain, and so on.
She decides, however, to eschew this fraud, and straight up tells her husband on their wedding night. He brings her back to her parents, and the drama begins.
After her mother beats her, she is forced to give up the name of the man who slept with her. She names Santiago Nassar, because he is the son of a wealthy Arab merchant, and she figures nobody would dare to harm such a wealthy and popular man.
Her brothers decide, however, that family honor demands it. But, they aren’t all that happy with this.
Much of the book examines, from multiple perspectives, what goes wrong and leads to the murder. Because we know from the first sentence that Santiago Nassar is a dead man.
And what goes wrong is this: everyone except Nassar knows that the Vicario brothers have said they will murder Nassar, but nobody warns him or stops the brothers.
There are various reasons for this. First, almost nobody believes the brothers are serious. And it is hard to blame people for this belief. The brothers go about things clearly hoping someone will stop them - they don’t want to kill him, but they need to be prevented from doing so in order to say that they tried. I mean, they are practically begging for people to stop them - telling anyone who will listen of their intentions, delaying the act and getting drunk, and so on.
The other reason is that everyone seems to think the murder threat is someone else’s problem, or even that someone else has already stopped the brothers. The most we get is the Colonel confiscates the knives. And, this almost works. For a hot minute, the brothers debate if this is enough to relive them of their duty, before deciding to go back and get other knives.
Really, it is just a woman, Clotilde the milk shop owner, who believes there is a risk, but she is stuck in the shop, and everyone she tries to get to warn Santiago fails to do so.
It is a total shit-show, where what needed to happen never happens, and we end up with a dead body.
There is so much of this book that is darkly humorous. And in fact, if the murder never happened, it would be a real gas. But, there is a brutal murder.
We get to hear in graphic detail about the murder twice. First, about halfway through with the autopsy report, and then at the end, when the murder is recounted. If you are prone to bad dreams, man, these scenes are rough. Reader beware.
There are a couple of crazy twists in the book - so, stop reading if you don’t want spoilers. I decided to discuss them because I think they are fascinating and do a lot to further Marquez’ vision for the book.
In real life, it was clearly the ex-boyfriend who had sex with the young woman. In this book, we never learn who did the deed. Angela never confesses.
All we get are strong hints that, whoever the man was, it wasn’t Nassar. There is no evidence the two knew each other particularly well (other than in the way a small town is), and Angela was kept pretty much at home. Which is why, when Nassar finds out (just before his death) that he accused of relations with Angela, he is so stunned and misses his opportunity to protect himself. The whole thing is a surprise to him.
This isn’t to say Santiago is truly innocent - he has seduced more than a few girls, and has a habit of sexually assaulting his servants, so he isn’t the most sympathetic guy. He’s definitely an entitled rich fuck. But he doesn’t deserve murder.
The second twist is that Angela, who disliked Bayardo at first, and didn’t want to marry him - and in fact essentially sabotaged the marriage - sees him at a distance later and falls in love.
For the next 17 years, she writes him love letters, with no response. Then, shockingly, he shows up - now old, pudgy, and balding, and carrying all the letters….unopened. A bit of a nod, perhaps, to Love in the Time of Cholera?
This is totally fiction, with no parallel in the real life story. But interesting as art. One wonders if Bayardo had ignored the sexual history, and done a Taming of the Shrew thing, if the marriage might have ended up happy.
Given the premise of the book, it is difficult to know exactly what Marquez’ opinion of the culture he describes actually is, but I would say it is not particularly positive. Honor culture - and honor killings - accomplish nothing other than death and destruction.
Three families are essentially ruined by the events of this book. Nassar is the only child, so the family line dies out. The Vicarios are forced to leave town. The brothers spend three years in prison, before being acquitted at trial (under an antiquated law) - but they have to start over in new places where they are not known. Bayardo never married or had children, and seems broken by the events, and traumatized by the murder. Angela spends her life in a fantasy world.
For that matter, the town itself is irrevocably damaged. Everyone is left with guilt that they failed to prevent a tragedy, failed to make things right, and lost their chance at gaining a famous and rich resident.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold is an interesting and unique book. It is a bit gratuitously bloody, but also a fascinating look at honor culture, and the harmful effects of passivity in the face of threatened violence.
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