| | |  Entertainment | Books | November 2008 
November Reading Recommendations - Five Books That Will Inform, Inspire, or Entertain You
 Ed Hutmacher - MexicoBookClub.com
| | For more information on these or other books with Mexico-related themes, please visit MexicoBookClub.com. | | |
November 20 is Revolution Day in Mexico, the Día de la Revolución, an appropriate opportunity to revisit a couple of timeless works of Mexican fiction by two celebrated Mexican authors: Carlos Fuentes' The Old Gringo and Mariano Azuela's The Underdogs. Both novels are considered exemplars of Mexican literature, a good reason in itself to give them a read. They also use Mexico's 1910 Revolution as backdrops in their stories, another reason why we think readers will enjoy them.
Joining these two classics on our recommended reading list for November are: Women With Big Eyes by best-selling Mexican author Angeles Mastretta; God's Middle Finger by British expatriate Richard Grant; and Mexican Enough by up-and-coming Mexican-American writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest.
The Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes (2008 edition; Fiction) - Ever wonder what happened to the acerbic, 71-year-old American writer Ambrose Bierce (The Devil's Dictionary) who in 1914 traveled to Mexico during the midst of the Revolution and promptly disappeared? Renowned Mexican author Carlos Fuentes offers his take on Bierce's fate in The Old Gringo. Published in 1985, the book became an international best seller (and quickly made into a star-studded movie) that told the tale of an old gringo’s last mysterious days in Mexico. Bierce, the old gringo, joins a regiment in Poncho Villa's army headed by General Tomas Arroyo. In turn, they meet up with an American schoolteacher, Harriet Winslow, who was supposed to tutor the children of the wealthy landowner who illegally holds Arroyo’s family property. The three become enmeshed in a romantic triangle, which necessarily ends in tragedy—the characters’ incompatibility, or paradoxically, their intimacy, claims both men. The novel is, most of all, an allegory about the tragic history of two cultures in conflict.
Editor's Note: "The Old Gringo" will be the subject for a 4-week book study and discussion group, beginning November 12.
The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela (2005 edition translated by E. Munguia, Jr.; Fiction) - Still considered the greatest novel of the Mexican Revolution and a must read for anyone interested in Mexican history, Azuela's The Underdogs depicts the staggering effects of the 1910 Revolution on Mexico and its people. It is a brutal account of the misguided, factionalized actions on the part of rebels who trundle their way through the revolution disorganized and unfocused, eventually behaving like the hated Federalists they initially were fighting. In terse prose, Azuela writes about peasants and peasant life, the people who joined the revolution and their various motives, the plight of the women left behind and those who joined the fight as soldaderas. In the rebel ranks, there is so much treachery, betrayal, cynicism, assassination and lack of moral leadership that when the rebels win some form of victory they aren't a whole lot better than the people they replace. The poor are still poor.
Women With Wide Eyes by Angeles Mastretta (2005 bi-lingual edition; Fiction) - Although this is not Mastretta's best book, it does serve as an excellent introduction to one of Mexico's preeminent women authors. Readers will enjoy this collection of 37 short stories, in a Chicken Soup for the Soul kind of way, about the births and deaths and loves and tragedies and strangeness of 39 women in Puebla, Mexico. Individually, they are smart, energetic, independent, and rebellious. Taken as a whole, they form a collective protagonist that embodies Mastretta's feminist ideals. Each of the women's strengths resides in their ability to carry on in the face of adversity, to accept and forgive others' failings, to protect those they love, to maintain their sense of self, and to see beauty and value in the ordinary.
God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre by Richard Grant (2008; Non-fiction) - A wickedly funny, eye-popping memoir by a British expatriate who recounts his hell-bent escapade to rediscover Mexico via the rugged, brutal, narco-infested environs of the Sierra Madre. While some travel narratives make you wish you were trekking alongside the author, Grant's journey through steep, narrow, rocky terrain inhabited by oddball characters and self-described killers will make you glad you're traveling with Grant from the comfort and security of your living room Lazy Boy recliner. The operating phrase in this lawless region seems to be, Tengo derecho, which loosely translates to, 'I've got rights and I'll do whatever I damn well please.'
Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines by Stephanie Elizondo Griest (2008; Non-fiction) - In this book about self-discovery, Griest travels through Mexico, from Nuevo Laredo to Chiapas, searching for meaning to her biethnic Mexican-American heritage—she wants to know if she is 'Mexican enough' to merit the Latina label. Along the way she meets 'real' Mexicans struggling with their own identity problems—battered and abandoned women who worry about their reputations; luchadores (wrestlers) who feel they are selling out if they fight the American way; gay men who worry if they're Mexican enough since they aren't macho; disenfranchised Zapatista rebels and second-class indigenous Indians who don't see themselves as Mexicans at all, at least in the sense of belonging to a country they can call their own. This is a timely, interesting, and gutsy book by an up-and-coming writer who is obviously sure about herself, regardless the color of her skin.
Ed Hutmacher is Editor in Chief of Mexico Book Club. For more information and in-depth reviews on these five books or other books with Mexico-related themes, please go to MexicoBookClub.com. |
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