Review: "Crónica de una muerte anunciada"

First of all, a couple of clarifications. I read "Chronicle of a death foretold" in Spanish, so in all justice I should have written this review in Spanish (in fact, I have written a review in Spanish, which I may publish here at some point soon if I have the time and energy to type it up). Secondly, I must insist that the translation of the title is a disservice to the novel, and explain why.

The problem with the translation is that 'anunciada' and "foretold" are not the same thing. Words are, of course, open to interpretation, and it is possible that my interpretation is wrong, of course, but I suspect whoever translated the title chose to have a better sounding title at the expense of having a better translated title. Here's the problem: the death of Santiago Nasar is never foretold. In fact, his mother, the only one who could have foretold it in his dreams, fails to do this. The death is therefore never "foretold". What it is is heralded, announced, made public, made known. "Chronicle of a death made known". That would have been a better title for me, although "Chronicle of a death heralded" may be my favourite of all the alternatives I've come up with. Because that is what it is. The death of Santiago Nasar is broadcast, known by the whole village before it happens, and for this same reason it should have been preventible but wasn't. But it happened.

This is one of those books that stays in my mind, that I find applies to so many things every day, and also one of those books that is so well written that makes me wonder if there is any point in anyone else even attempting to write something worthwhile. García Márquez is one of those authors who seems to write effortlessly, whose pages don't feel worked over but works of pure inspiration. And yet, I suspect this is perhaps one of his most studied novels in that it is almost as perfect as his short stories. It has an almost circular structure. It manages to tell, through the events of a couple of hours, the story of a village. It conveys the character of each of the players and their part in the story, and how they could have all intervened.

As in any García Márquez book, it doesn't avoid the supernatural, but rather it feeds from it: the reason the story is worth telling is because the death is inevitable despite that it should have been so evitable. It's almost an ode to the universal need for Ángela Vicario's honor to be avenged, but of course, by the end of the novel we feel that it was never avenged, and that the inevitability of Santiago Nasar's death was absolutely futile.

First and foremost, "Chronicle of a death foretold" is a story of love (not a love story). There are more couples in the book than I care to list here, but more than that, it is a story of the love of mothers for their children, and of friends for friends, and brothers for their sisters, and in a way, the love that comes from the familiarity of all the people in a village, and the pain and held back feelings and hate as well.

It is also, obviously, a story about death and about honor. I suspect that Europeans of my generation don't understand this book completely (myself included) because we don't just view murder as an atrocity, but also the possibility of murder. The fact that a person would consider murder as a way to defend someone's honor is unthinkable, partly because "honor" is not really a concept anymore (not in the way it is expressed in the book, where honor for a woman is maintaining her virginity and honor for a man is refusing a wife who hasn't) but also because murder is almost inconceivable in the modern "daily life". Murder is something that happens to others far away from us, and it is a tragedy. It is most definitely not a decision taken by normal people to defend their good names or the good names of their loved ones.

"Chronicle of a death foretold" is a perfect book, as an object of writing. It has a satisfying structure, and it is written in a way that feels real. It does not shy away from violence but also does not rejoice in it. In a way, "Chronicle of a death foretold" is a joyful story: the joy of the wedding party and the joy of everyone except Santiago Nasar surviving and getting on with their lives. In a way this is also something that nowadays is difficult to understand. Nowadays we seem to see death as a tragedy and its effects as disruptive and life-breaking, whereas in "Chronicle of a death foretold" death is specific. It happens in a moment in time, it makes someone who was alive dead, and because it does this it changes the lives of those around him slightly, but not really that much. In fact, most of the things that happen to the people after would have happened very similarly had Santiago Nasar not died.

As a final note I should make a small exploration of one of the themes in the book, which is the honor of Ángela Vicario. Now, in Spanish, there are two words with very similar meaning: "honra" and "honor". This is problematic, because as far as I've been able to find out, these two words don't exist in English, and they are both commonly translated as honor. Now, the difference between "honor" and "honra" is an important one: "honor" is "the moral quality of a person who acts according to established rules", whereas "honra" is "the good reputation of someone who acts according to the moral rules". So "honra" is the good reputation that you earn by having "honor". What this means however, is that you can lose your "honor" and conserve your "honra" (if people think that you have acted according to moral rules but you know you haven't) and you can lose your "honra" and conserve you "honor" (if you've acted according to moral rules but people think you haven't). This distinction seems of little importance in this story, except for one reason: Pedro and Pablo Vicario are avenging their sister's honor. But the only reason they care about it was because she was returned. If her husband had accepted the dishonor of having a wife who was dishonorable they would have both conserved their honra. By returning the wife, Bayardo San Román saves his honor and his honra, but his wife loses her honra. Now, his wife cannot recover her honra (not really, because her reputation is tarnished) but by killing the man who was responsible (or who is thought to be responsible) for making her lose her honor, her brothers recover her honor for her. It is a strange concept and might seem insignificant but in a book so entrenched in the Spanish literature such as this I think it is important to understand this.