Canter Bridge

García Márquez did not win the Nobel Prize for Literature and become Colombia’s favorite son by accident. This book, among his best, anchors his reputation as one of Latin America’s greatest novelists.

Chronicle is vintage García Márquez from the programmatic opening sentence, ‘On the day that they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar rose at 5:30 in the morning to wait for the boat on which the bishop was to arrive.’ Doomed Santiago—who is probably innocent of the outrage that led to his murder by a bride’s twin brothers—collapses dead on his kitchen floor in the book’s closing line.

In between, the author treats us to the most unlikely turn of events, as everyone in the village except the dead man walking knows that his end is near but is too distracted by meaningless details, fascinated by the unfolding scenario, or rendered inert by fate to intervene. There may somewhere live a wittier and more ironic writer than García Márquez, but it would take a lifetime to find her. Time is better spent with this novel and one or two of the author’s other short works. Leave his competition outside in the rain. I recommend El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (The Coronel Has No One to Write to Him) as a companion to Crónica, for there one encounters the dignified wait that is the lot of the Latin American peasant, abandoned by the machinery of state in the distant capital but resilient against the desperation that would bring him low if his nobility gave pause.

Chronicle is García Márquez at his most absurd. His characters are what they are by destiny, incapable for the most part of imagining an alternative and immensely colorful—against all odds—as they recite their lines and stare inconstant and inert from the shadows of their shops as Nasar stumbles blithely towards his excruciating demise. Only the narrator and the twin assassins exert themselves as though capable of changing fate. For all his running after his friend Santiago, the former never catches up with him in time and nobody-try as they might-can be roused by the Vicario brothers to stop them consummating the nasty business that honor has thrust upon them.

We will never know why García Márquez’ narrator returns twenty years later to trace the steps of a village full of protagonists, nor why he publishes a chronicle of the fatal proceedings. But be glad he did. Read this book in Spanish if you can, in English if you must.

Rarely does a celebrated writer remain so utterly accessible to his reader, his sparkling prose so natural and receivable to eye and ear. Give this man two Nobel Prizes, or three. Four would be few.