Late ordering books for friends, relatives living in Mexico? Relax. Christmas in Mexico is a long-haul celebration – as all celebrations should be, despite those guests to the Estados Unidos Mexicanos who complain of “all those damned fireworks” – by which they usually mean cohetes, skyrockets.
And what is explosively being celebrated this way is Pascua de Navidad. Thus, rein in misunderstanding; also the impulse to greet Mexican friends with “Merry Christmas.” Try out “Felices Pascuas” or “Feliz Navidad.” You present yourself as not culturally thread-bare, but possessing an amiably bit of holiday Spanish.
As for the timeliness of presents, Navidad in Mexico, as in many other Catholic-influenced countries, consumes a unique “time-zone” termed Las Decembrinas. It’s traditionally kicked off December 8, and doesn’t conclude until February 2, with Candlemas. So you have plenty of time to have the appropriate books sent along. For instance, the traditional day for giving presents to children once was exclusively El Dia de los Tres Reyes, Three Kings Day, January 6. For many of us, the last day for giving presents has gradually migrated to that date.
Everyone has favorite novels and non-fiction texts that constitute a sumptuously elevating list of delight. When compared, there are some overlap between lists of many long-timers. But there also are some very distinct differences. Different intellectual and emotional strokes for different folks, even when it comes to literature regarding Mexico.
But one has to be “delicate” when urging one’s favorites onto others. We have a tendency to believe that because we don’t merely have favorites, but texts that find us at the right time, enlighten and change us for the rest of our lives. Thus we assume it can’t help but do the same for others. Unfortunately: Not true.
For instance I’m a fan of Hemingway’s early short stories, his novels “The Sun Also Rises,” “A Farewell to Arms,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “The Old Man and the Sea.” I assume everyone is familiar with Hemingway. So if I’m not paying attention I tend to intently urge on people such texts as the magnificent “Recognitions” by William Gaddis, and the dazzling “Alexandria Quartet” by Lawrence Durrell, both examples of novels that have very special many-leveled attractions, but not for everyone. And William Faulkner, whose works prompted the “Boom” (1950s-60s), and whose name recently has sent young writers in these precincts seeking the cover of limp-minded remarks about a writer they’ve never read.
But we speak here today of books concerning Mexico. We should begin of course at the beginning with reliable texts on the arrival of what today are called the Aztecs into the Valley of Mexico. Both before and after the destruction of the Aztec Empire, these people shaped the future of the area we now call Mexico. Nigel Davies is a Brit lauded for his scholarly texts, including “The Aztecs.” Davies, born in Eaton in 1920, was in the Grenadier Guards in World War II. From 1950-51 he was the Conservative member of parliament for Epping, where he succeeded to part of Sir Winston Churchill’s wartime constituency. He came to Mexico in 1962, studied at the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico, and lived the rest of his life here. “The Aztecs” is a well-researched text published in 1973. Davies is particularly good in detailing the arrival of the Spanish and the conquest of the Aztec Empire.
Next is the republished (1996) edition of “The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico” by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, one of Hernan Cortes‘ foot soldiers. In recent times “primary” sources (meaning first-hand experiences of the text material) are once again being prized. This text was written in the 1560s by Diaz del Castillo in Guatemala. The manuscript was sent to Spain in the 1570s, but the author kept tinkering with it until his death. Finally the book appeared in Spain in 1632. One of the enduring works of the 16th century, Castillo’s later revised manuscript was collated by Genaro Garcia from the only existing original manuscript, and published in Mexico in 1928. This eyewitness report of the Spanish invasion and nearly failed “conquest” of the Mejica capital, Tenochtitlan, is unique as is the only narrative by one of Cortes’ foot soldiers. Recalled by a private who endured the pain of wounds, fear and frenzy of personal combat along with hunger, thirst and sleeplessness; the physical and emotional weariness of campaigning in strange, ominous lands against a foe of tremendous numbers and heinous treatment of prisoners. At moments, it touches on the era’s taste for colorful distortion. Unlikely speeches given to some personages was the tradition of the time. But these are forgivable for they are accompanied by an honesty and a basic fairness in apportioning the merit of every participant, including Castillo’s enemies. Thus, wrote one analyst of literature regarding Mexico, one finds an account that is not about the “inevitable collapse of indigenous resistance before superior European arms that is still too often recounted by historians who have forgotten to look at original sources.” The author who writes the introduction to this edition is not one of those. His preface has been rightly called both “erudite and enthusiastic.” A. P. Maudsley’s translation deftly “preserves the simplicity and directness of the original.” It’s one of a kind.
Overall histories: In this area it’ll take more than one text to cover this nation’s extraordinarily crowded history with perception. “Fire and Blood” by T.R. Fehrenbach tackles this complex of several Mexicos from the outset with vigorous but calm ambition. And it’s good when dealing with the land’s major themes, flawed leaders and seemingly habitual self-destructive cultural twitches. It’s no small task to bring these alive with good prose. A serious reader may wish to team Fehrenbach with, say, a more conservative approach. That would be one of two histories by Ramon Eduardo Ruiz: 1)”Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People,” and/or 2) “The Course of Mexican History.” This pairing often prompts the question: “But why do I need two books covering the same stuff?”
The answer is: What single work gives a comprehensive, yet tightly knit survey of United States history? Silence, punctuated by a frustrated sigh.
Working hard at novelistic comprehensiveness is “The Years With Laura Diaz” by diplomat, Harvard professor and one of Mexico’s most famous authors, Carlos Fuentes. With the exception of “The Death of Artemio Cruz,” his most accessible novel, Fuentes, an aficionado of William Faulkner, often overestimates his reader’s diligence, curiosity and intellectual staying power. With “Artemio Cruz,” the story of the failure of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, Fuentes reins in his impulse to challenge his readers with saltos of high art and flawed characters. “Laura Diaz,” at 516 pages, is a bravura attempt to accordion in not only Mexico but much of the world from the Revolution to the 1970s. It’s an attractive attempt but an omnivorous reach can squander tantalizing ideas and characters.
Still mesmerizing readers and fans of whiskey priests is Graham Green’s masterpiece, “The Power and the Glory.” This is history, pursuit, the threat of death as constant as that of being betrayed, faith, sin, and self-doubt bound to bravery. In his introduction, John Updike calls this “Graham Greene’s masterpiece … The energy and grandeur of his finest novel derived from the … will toward compassion, an ideal communism (lower case ‘c’) even more Christian than Communism (upper case ‘C’).” Also consider “The Plain on Fire,” short stories by Jalisco’s great Juan Rulfo, the definitive examination of “Zapata, and the Mexican Revolution,” by John Womack, Enrique Krauze’s unparalleled “Mexico: Biography of Power,” and anything by Nobel Prize laureate Octavio Paz. Exquisite help for foreigners working on their Spanish: Volumes of dual-language fiction such as “Mexican Short Stories,” edited and translated by Stanley Applebaum.