| | |  Entertainment | Books | June 2009 
A Captivating Look at a Bizarre Reign in Mexico
 Rebecca Markovits - American-Statesman
go to original
| Historical characters leap off the pages of native Texan's first novel.
The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire
by C.M. Mayo
Unbridled Press, 430 Pages
Check it out on Amazon.com | |
"Once upon a time ?"
So begins the story of "The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire," as told by the writer, translator and economist C.M. Mayo. Those familiar four little words bring us directly to a wonderfully busy intersection, the intersection between fairy tale and history, and from that spot, Mayo leads us down a myriad of fascinating trails. For, as the book's frontispiece informs us, this fairy tale about princes and princesses is based on a true story. And the glorious thing about true stories is the way in which they extend endlessly in all directions.
"The Last Prince" is Mayo's first novel, and it is a real pleasure to see her sharply focused, academic intelligence stretch comfortably out into the expanses that the form offers. It is a hefty, sprawling work, more than 400 pages long, but at no point does it begin to sag under its own weight. Perhaps because its spread is solidly supported by facts, Mayo's intricate plot trips along at a natural, inexorable pace, easily traveling the sweeping map she has laid out for it, from Washington to Mexico City and all the way to the imperial halls of Europe.
The story begins modestly (with the air of having plenty of space in which to flourish), introducing us, once upon a time, to an American girl, Alice Green, with a vigorous imagination and an unapologetically ardent ambition. Alice will become the mother of the last prince of Mexico, but when we first meet her, she is still a provincial little girl, "yearning for her destiny, which she felt as a blind girl might, laying a hand upon an elephant's side: this huge, warm, breathing thing." The strength of Mayo's novel is that while she is well aware of the crushing threat of that destiny that her pulsing metaphor suggests, she never lets her little protagonists get rolled over by the massive histories into which she throws them. Emperors and paupers alike share that warm, breathing humanity.
Alice marries Angel de Iturbide, son of "Mexico's George Washington," Agustín de Iturbide, who, having led the struggle for independence from Spain, had briefly held the seat as the first emperor of Mexico before being chased from the throne and eventually executed. When things quiet down, Angel moves his wife to Mexico City, to which, bright thing that she is, she adapts with a charming felicity; they have a son and name him after his illustrious grandfather.
It is at this point that the scope of Mayo's novel shoots upwards and outwards, and where Alice's life converges with the grand historical events that will forever mark her adopted country. Louis Napoleon of France has designs on that mineral-rich land. At the urging of wealthy Mexican royalists, and the Catholic clergy, he invades and installs Maximilian von Habsburg, archduke of Austria, as the new emperor of Mexico. Maximilian, threatened by the proximity of his still-revered predecessor's heirs, and childless himself, takes the Iturbides' boy from his parents to raise as Prince Agustín, his own heir apparent and the last prince of Mexico.
Mayo handles the complex global and political conditions that lead to the formation and ultimate failure of Louis Napoleon's audacious plan with ease. She weaves imperial ambitions, the U.S. Civil War, the threat of Prussian aggression, the increasingly circumscribed influence of the Vatican, economic power-playing in the New World, and the new democratic liberalism that was spreading outward from Washington into a strong and intricate historical web.
Her background in economics and clearly formidable research skills surely helped her here, but the book never feels academic, perhaps because what she really is trying to catch in her web is not historical fact so much as character. "The Last Prince" is brimming with personalities.
Mayo skips lightly from one figure's perspective to another (by the end there are easily 15 different points of view), with an easy empathy that is surprisingly moving for being so fickly apportioned.
Her characterization of Maximilian, in particular, is touching: For all his apparent power and wealth, he is no bigger than any other cog in the wheels of history, and considerably less free to spin off on his own. He struggles mightily to let his etter instincts break through layers upon layers of personal weaknesses polished to a flashy Habsburg shine by centuries of entitlement, and the reader can't help but sympathize with the effort, and pity the repeated failures. Humor helps; the archduke's interior narrative is told in such pompous tones (ah, the regal third person) that we can't help but join Mayo in a good-natured laugh at him. For his part, Maximilian seems almost aware of our friendly mockery, but ever the proper royal, does not deign to show it: "One takes it coolly," he reminds himself daily.
Thankfully, however, this novel is anything but cool. It is, more than anything, a swashbuckling, riotous good time, befitting the fairy-tale promise of the opening sentence. There is intrigue, love, madness, fighting, dancing, all ornamented by many a sumptuous costume and lavish meal. But Mayo paints this vivid action with the delicate touch of a fine-haired brush. She is attuned, most of all, to visual subtleties, and this is where her writing excels:
• A sensible, aging American envoy lies in bed with his wife.
• She holds her cup of anise tea with both hands. Her round, double-chinned face, lit by the fire, reminds him of a Flemish madonna's.
• He reminds her of the Saint Paul by Michelangelo.
• She knows, in her secret heart, that she is not the paragon of moral virtue her husband believes her to be.
Mayo brings bookish, Old World subtlety to her sweeping, New World gestures.
The most rewarding aspect of this bookishness is that, like the travel writing and translation work that Mayo did before this novel, it helps to broaden our rather limited American horizons. A native Texan who married the current Mexican finance minister, Mayo is acutely aware of how shockingly ignorant we are about the history of our neighbor to the south. As the United States was being torn apart in a civil war, Mexico was going through a parallel struggle, another nation establishing its identity as a young republic. This is part of the charm of her many-voiced novel - it reminds us that the view is always different from the other bank of the river. As that wise Flemish madonna is fond of telling her husband, "No matter how you pour it, there are always two sides to a pancake."
Austin writer Rebecca Markovits is co-author of `The Fearless Critic: Austin Restaurant Guide, 2nd Edition.' |
|
| |
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us