“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.”
Once again Marquez’s opening explores the inexorable fatedness and ‘pattern’ of life . In fact this is life as destiny as Thomas Hardy less than optimistically avowed in his Mayor of Casterbridge. Here we encounter the seemingly arbitrary detail with the resonantly signficant. But then how can we know what is significant without an outside view, without a detachment whose price may be very high! And perversely the thought of a pattern, even a ‘negative’ pattern which promises slaughter, still suggests that life has meaning as it has shape, it has direction. How comforting and yet how chilling.
So do we read on in the hope that Santiago will somehow slip out of destiny’s trap? Will he defy the constraints of a narrative promise? Or do we read on for a more brutal reason? We are fascinated to see how Nasar will meet his end. We want our expectations satisfied. We want him killed by the narrative contract!
And if you have never read this dazzling short novel, be assured that the ending is as brilliant and as disturbing as the beginning.
A novel without a blemish !!