I too am having trouble grasping and dealing with everything in Santiago’s novel, but what stood out for me was the beginning with Omar reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel La Cronica de una Muerte Anunciada / The Chronicle of a Death Foretold. This detail in the introduction of the novel seems to lend to many themes/styles that Santiago may be trying to weave into his narrative. Garcia Marquez is famous for his use of magical realism across his stories, which focuses/challenges opposites. I can see Santiago taking the themes of magical realism – presenting the conflicting perspectives of rational Omar vs. manic/depressed Omar, past vs. present, life vs. death, etc. We do not see any instances of the supernatural in Santiago’s work, which is often a component for magical realism, but I think it could be argued that Omar’s various mental states (depression, mania, drunkenness, sex, memories, etc.) sets up reality/normal world against another space.
Second, I think that the inclusion of Garcia Marquez’s novel, title alone, and the story itself frame Santiago’s novel. A death foretold, I think, characterizes Omar’s depression and the dark themes of the book. Death is foretold for everyone, we are all going to die, but we must trudge through life or as Santiago proposes like pigs through the slaughterhouse. People raised the question of the chronology of the narrative, and I question the end of the novel. The final frame is all black — does Omar go to sleep? Or is it his final sleep? We have the sense that his life is more steady, but we have no evidence of positive turns in Omar’s life from the rest of the novel, so does Santiago’s introduction with Garcia Marquez’s novel foreshadow or maybe is it meant to influence our conclusion of the text?
Is Santiago making a modern graphic novel of Garcia Marquez’s text?