Chronicle of a Death Foretold

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O livro conta a história do último dia de vida de Santiago Nasar com base em relatos de amigos e vizinhos, sendo que o narrador era um dos seus mel... (show more)

O livro conta a história do último dia de vida de Santiago Nasar com base em relatos de amigos e vizinhos, sendo que o narrador era um dos seus melhores amigos que, ao fim de vários anos, tenta perceber o que precipitou a morte de Santiago. A acção passa-se numa aldeia da América do Sul, uma aldeia com uma forte presença árabe. Um local tão pacato que os seus habitantes não acreditam que 2 irmãos completamente bêbados, armados com facas para matar e desmanchar porcos, e que dizem a quem os quiser ouvir que vão matar Santiago, sejam realmente capazes de o fazer. E a pobre vítima é a última a saber o que o espera, quando todos na aldeia já sabem. Em 5 minutos, Santiago passa de um rapaz bem disposto a um cadáver no chão da sua cozinha. E tudo por causa de uma mentira que nunca será explicada.

São 100 páginas com uma escrita fabulosa. Deste autor também li o “Cem anos de solidão” e, embora este último seja o melhor, o “Crónica de uma morte anunciada” é delicioso. Conseguimos imaginar a aldeia e os seus habitantes; há situações tão ridículas e, ao mesmo tempo, tão banais que nos deixam com um sorriso na boca. As personagens são vívidas, são pessoas que encontramos no nosso bairro. (show less)

 

 

by Anonymous User

No, it's a flop!

ok I read this twice because I wasn't paying attention the first time. It was okay.. I think my favorite part was when Bayarndo or whoever came bac... (show more)

ok I read this twice because I wasn't paying attention the first time. It was okay.. I think my favorite part was when Bayarndo or whoever came back to Angelica after 27 years with all the letters she sent... unopened. I guess they hooked up after all! (show less)

 

 

by Brent Michael Hellickson

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  This particular work by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez is told in an incredibly nonlinear journalistic style centered around the death of a young Arab man who is accused of having (prematurely) "devirginized" a recently married socialite. The author bases his narrative on an actual case in which the bride's brothers murdered such a man.

  Gabo's journalistic style creates a cocoon of images, testimonies, facts, mishaps, misunderstandings, and dialogue culminating in the young man's murder... (show more)

  This particular work by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez is told in an incredibly nonlinear journalistic style centered around the death of a young Arab man who is accused of having (prematurely) "devirginized" a recently married socialite. The author bases his narrative on an actual case in which the bride's brothers murdered such a man.

  Gabo's journalistic style creates a cocoon of images, testimonies, facts, mishaps, misunderstandings, and dialogue culminating in the young man's murder. Again, instead of "straight" journalistic reporting, the story is told in a nonlinear style that tells the story from multiple perspectives and goes back and forth within the sequence of events. The voices of the actors in the events constantly opine and give testimony to the narrating journalist- who sometimes includes himself in the story.

  Concepts such as "honor" are among the themes lingering over the events. Another important theme is that of "communal guilt," as everyone is aware of the impending murder yet some individuals disregard the "talk" going around while others accidentally act in ways facilitating the murder. One instance of the latter occurs when the victim's mother accidentally locks the front door of the family home seconds before her son attempts to enter the home for protection, cornered and stabbed repeatedly on his own front doorstep.

  This book is a fast read, different in style than Gabo's other well-known works. In capturing the essence of the writing style and its process, it is well-worth reading this book again: a work of cyclonic clusters of impressions and images around the unbecoming event of murder. (show less)

   

  by Facebook-användare on Aug 23, 2009 at 09:18AM

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  What I found remarkable about Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold is its style. The novella does not follow the formula present in Garcia Marquez’s other more magical realist books and stories. The flights from reality and the all too dense and flowery sentences that extend to several paragraphs that one finds in Autumn of the Patriarch or sometimes in One Hundred Years of Solitude, the two long novels he wrote before Chronicle of a Death Foretold, are missing. Instead, wha... (show more)

  What I found remarkable about Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold is its style. The novella does not follow the formula present in Garcia Marquez’s other more magical realist books and stories. The flights from reality and the all too dense and flowery sentences that extend to several paragraphs that one finds in Autumn of the Patriarch or sometimes in One Hundred Years of Solitude, the two long novels he wrote before Chronicle of a Death Foretold, are missing. Instead, what we have are short, precise sentences. The prose is written in a clear manner which I found more powerful than the florid prose of his two earlier works (I haven’t read any of Garcia Marquez’s later works yet apart from his short stories in Strange Pilgrims).

  The whole plot is encapsulated in the opening sentence

  "On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on."

  as in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

  "When Grigory Samsa awoke from troubled dreams one morning, he found that he had been transformed in his bed into an enormous vermin."

  or his longer The Trial:

  "Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K, for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning."

  However, the narrative is arranged in such a manner that one is kept in suspense all throughout the book in spite of knowing what happened from the very beginning.

  Chronicle of a Death Foretold is told in a fragmented, non-chronological, and repetitive manner which looks at the death from one vantage point at a time. It works like an inverted detective story where the standard unmasking of who did the crime and why they did it, unraveling the events that led to the crime along the way, is missing.

  In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, we already know who did it and know their reasons from the start. Instead, the narrative focuses on unraveling the circumstances surrounding the killing and its aftereffects on the inhabitants of the unnamed Colombian town in which it is set. Why, for example, was the murder allowed to happen in spite of the fact that everyone in town already knew about the Vicario brothers’ plan to kill Nasar beforehand?

  I found Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the story of Santiago Nasar’s murder by the two Vicario brothers to protect their sister’s honor, a pleasure to read. At the same time it was devastating. Like every good piece of literature, it forced me to rethink certain things. In this case, I had to rethink the elements of something which I’ve been trying to do for some months already.

  http://karlomongaya.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/marquezs-chronicle-of-a-death-foretold/ (show less)

   

   

  by Karlo Mikhail Mongaya on Aug 01, 2009 at 08:04PM

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