Going back to the novel itself, Santiago Nassar is what I perceive is the main character but it remains a mystery what exactly the connection is between the narrator and Santiago. The narrator always formally refers to him as Santiago Nassar, perhaps portraying the formality of Journalism. There are also precise descriptions of the rooms and different areas and where exactly they're located in relations with each other. Numbers and precise time is included in the first chapter which is what Marquez describes as a literary trick in making the text more realistic and causing us as the readers to believe in fiction literature. The first chapter is definitely believable and it is easy to follow along with the plot because one event smoothly leads to the other.
However, the introduction of numerous minor characters along with their surname made it really hard for me to absorb all the names and their roles in relation to the main character. I was forced to re-read each minor character and it also forced me to try to put together the puzzle pieces in order to gain a better understanding of the whole picture. I think Marquez intended for us to become investigators ourselves and try to figure out the bigger picture of the crime and why it holds a greater significance. The event of the crime itself isn't explicitly revealed to us yet but instead the author has went into great detail on the wedding, the arrival of the bishop, and the mixed opinions from the minor characters on what they perceived of Santiago Nassar and whether they cared for his murder.
I agree, the novel seems very much like a journalistic account of a murder. There's lots of facts and characters that seem realistic enough to be considered true. The characters especially, aren't described as they would be in a normal fiction book. Instead of being told about their background and their direct relation to the story, we are just shown snippets of their comments on the incident. It's quite suspicious actually, because how does the narrator choose who's thoughts to present in the book? As he demonstrates a couple of times, the people had many different opinions on the murder and how it came to be. Even though it seems like the narrator is not biased at all, as he recounts things in a detached and factual manner, we know that he belonged to that community and had relations to both the Vicarios and Nasar. How much of his word can we take to be true?
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