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Title: The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes, Sam Hileman ISBN: 0-374-50540-3 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: May, 1991 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.44 (9 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Headed for oblivion
Comment: When a writer starts a story in the first person, switches to the second person and finally to the third person, I usually get annoyed and stop reading. But when it's on a list of books you have to read and are going to be tested on, you keep going, more and more convinced of the stupidity of those professors in Spanish departments all over the USA who keep it on their reading lists and thus save it from the oblivion it so richly deserves and will soon attain.
I give "Artemio Cruz" two stars only because reading it proved to me that my taste is better than that of my professors.
And for those who think that the fault may lie in the translation, I can assure you that the original is just as bad, if not worse.
Rating: 5
Summary: Just shoot me in the head already (but not literally...)!
Comment: In Death of Artemio Cruz Fuentes shows the painful torturous death of a man named Artemio Cruz who lies on his deathbed; his family scurrying around him; looking for the lastest edition of his will; while bitterly recounting different episodes of his and their lives. His wife was literally given to him by her father who Cruz swindles out of his old hacienda fortune; his daughter squirms at the literally decomposing body of her father who's dying of an instestinal blockage (among other things) while she plans her wedding to an insipid dandy lawyer; his doctor tries to treat him by his symptoms and disects him figuratively describing him in purely biological and medical terms but like most doctors in most situations there's pretty much nothing he can; do the prognosis is pretty much hopeless; the man is literally dying. Cruz himself is a power-wielding totalitarianist who rules his little fiefdom with an iron fist; he's an opportunist; if given the chance he'll kick a man when he's down; he has very little sympathy for idealism or love; he's lost that bit by bit; most of it's been torn away from him during the war when he lost his true love. One is left with a deep set feeling of pity for this man who's suffered so much and tortured so many people (including the reader) because he can never truly come to terms with getting his heart ripped out of him; you're almost glad when the book ends and he's remembering his early childhood and the narrator starts to recount his birth; he's uncorrupted at this point; naked; crying and in pain; his little body literally being thrust unto this earth and at the same time the doctors tear into him; his body's shutting down; the surgeons are cussing; cursing this decrepit old man's body which is turning into a mushy corpse...
This is not an easy book to read; not because it's disgusting or the words are too difficult; it's just that this man is so repulsive it's very difficult to continue reading this book; it's literally torture to read this book; but finishing it and getting to the end; putting this man to death and putting him in perspective at the same time; because this was a difficult read; you will come away satisfied that all that suffering Fuentes put you through was worth it.
Some books it brings to mind are Absalom, Absalom! by Faulkner and even maybe Wurthering Heights by Emily Bronte; if you're looking for a comparable parable. Read it; ...if you dare!
Rating: 4
Summary: The long winding road
Comment: In what is agruably one of Carlos Fuentes's best books(not my particular fave) he creates a story that is put together in such a fashion that it demands the readers full attention . At times it is difficult to follow the time period jumping by the narrator, Artemio , as he reflects on his long life and the twists and turns the events of his times have had on his own life. The narration allows Fuentes to give his jaded view of a corrupt Mexico and the power that it yields individuals. The author is never one to sugar coat his own personal views on Mexico, its culture, traditions and ultimately history. Fuentes focuses in and out of different time periods, at times in rapid freeze frames, like a camera run amok capturing the highlights of a journey, Artemio Cruz is forced to examine his own mortality and the terms of his own integrity. The book is a brillinat piece of literature that deserves more than one read. Like the character in the book , whose life has changed through the years, I decided to read this again and see if it was as powerful as the first time I read it some twenty years ago. For me the book is even better now, the translation is excellent and the book resonates with brilliant imagery and the importance of time and it's overall effect. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the literature of Mexico and would be an excellent choice for secondary educators teaching a course at the advanced literature level. This is a book that can be examined closely for it's allegorical substance as well as literally for it's historical commentary.
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Title: Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo, Margaret Sayers Peden, Margaret S. Paden ISBN: 0802133908 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: May, 1994 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution by Mariano Azuela, E. Munguia, Ana Castillo ISBN: 0451526252 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: May, 1996 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: The Labyrinth of Solitude: The Other Mexico, Return to the Labyrinth of Solitude, Mexico and the United States, the Philanthropic Ogre by Octavio Paz, Lysander Kemp ISBN: 080215042X Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: June, 1985 List Price(USD): $14.50 |
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Title: The Hour of the Star (New Directions Paperbook, 733) by Clarice Lispector, Giovanni Pontiero ISBN: 0811211908 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Pub. Date: February, 1992 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: Aura : Bilingual Edition by Carlos Fuentes, Lysander Kemp ISBN: 0374511713 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1986 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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