The Savage Detectives

The Savage Detectives: A Novel by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

This long novel covers a group of bohemian pseudo-intellectuals that refer to themselves as "visceral realists". There is a character that has a name very similar to the author that is mostly him in real life. We hear about this character, but not much from him directly. We go into detail about the other characters. At first it is a fairly straightforward narrative about the visceral realists in Mexico. Then it turns in to a few first-person vignettes by individual people from periods spanning most of the 20th century across much of the world from Latin America and the United States to Europe, Israel and Africa. The stories somewhat tie together, but are not much of narrative. The end returns to a narrative and a journey to escape a pimp and find a long lost poet, with an ending of them finally finding her, but losing her as she dies in a shootout. The characters are generally artsy miscreants. They do what they want regardless of how it fits in the world. Sex and drugs abound. They dislike the literature "establishment". I don't feel a whole lot of sympathy towards them.

Malinche: Una Novela

Malinche: Una Novela by Laura Esquivel

Since this was in Spanish, I found I had to listen to at 1.5 speed instead of my usual 3x. The book is ostensibly historical realism. It focuses on Malinche, a native Mexican who served as a guide and spouse of conquistador Hernan Cortes. She was part of a neighboring group that had no love for the Aztec leaders. However, in this story, she feels she is brought along for the ride. She is concerned that Cortes has took things too far as he has conquered Mexico for the Spaniards. This is primarily a vehicle for a tapestry of magical realism. There is plenty of great imagery, but not a lot of historically accurate details.

Collision of Worlds: A Deep History of the Fall of Aztec Mexico and the Forging of New Spain

Collision of Worlds: A Deep History of the Fall of Aztec Mexico and the Forging of New Spain by David M. Carballo

This academic book explores the histories of Spain and Mexico before and immediately after Cortes conquered the Aztecs. The language is dense, though the primary sources are meager. Both areas had rich cultures that were well developed before they met. The Aztecs had recently come to dominate and tenuously held a domination over other peoples in the area. The Spaniards were able to exploit these rivalries with alliances. The warfare culture was also different. The Aztecs fighters were focussed primarily on their own achievements and preferred prisoners, while the Spaniards would kill. Culturally, the Spaniards were fine killing unbelievers, but were repulsed by the Aztec human sacrifices. Mexicans had sports and ball games as well as language and worship that were interesting to Spaniards while at the same time seen as somewhat heretical. The Spaniards worked on the conversion with the conquering, with Christianity and churches placed over former Mexican pyramids and worship sites. It is also interesting that the Spaniards focussed on areas familiar to them. The Yucatan was a bit too hard for them to manage. Diseases also worked in the Spaniards favor as the Mexicans had little animal culture and the exposure to disease. Could things have turned out differently?

The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story

The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story by Aaron Bobrow-Strain

The communities along the Mexico-USA border are caught in the crosshairs of immigration policy created far away. The borders were once quite porous, with families spanning both sides. People would freely cross the borders. There were no quotas on Mexican immigrants, and various iterations of guest worker programs. However, changes to increase "fairness" of immigration policy opened up immigration from other countries, but ended up reducing Mexican quotas. Then the country clamped down on the border. Soon organized crime became involved in getting people (and drugs) illegally across the border. This lead to more border security. The US has now spent a huge amount on securing the border, yet there are still huge numbers of illegal immigrants. There are also many industries that rely on the immigrants. 

This book focuses on one of those immigrants, Aida Hernandez. She was born in Mexico and had family on both sides of the border. There was a history of domestic violence in her family. (Undocumented immigrants are reluctant to report violence for fear of being reported - especially if he perpetrator is a citizen.) She had a boyfriend she met at school in Douglas, Arizona. As a teenager, she had a son in the US, however, she still liked to party and went with friends to Mexico. She got caught on the border trying to return and was stuck in Mexico. Since she grew up mostly in the US, she did not have a Mexican ID and had difficulty getting a job. She worked a bar job that would get her some money. However, after work, somebody tried to rape her and ended up stabbing her. She was treated in a Mexican hospital, then rushed to a US hospital under a special treatment program. She was given special time to stay in the US to get better. She overstayed it and then was caught by immigration after trying to steal a lego set at Walmart. She was then in detention for about a year before finally getting resident status under an "abused spouse" provision. She was not an "upstanding citizen". However, she does have some positive attributes.

The book is not sure what it want to be. At times it is a history of the Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Mexico. At other times it is a Mexican immigration history. While the "title track" is the history of Aida Hernandez and her family. It also has a digression to the life of a woman that Aida would meet in the detention center and with whom she would enter and leave a relationship. The book could be more concisely written to bring out its main points.

Pedro Páramo

Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo, translated by Douglas J. Weatherford, forward by Gabriel García Márquez

A man promises his mother on her deathbed that he will go back to visit his father, Pedro. He goes back to the town and runs into somebody else that claims to have Pedro as his father. Then it gets weirder. It is not clear which characters are alive or dead. Some will even mention their own death. Bits of history are interspersed. There was involvement in a revolution. There are marriages, vast fortunes and estates and poverty. It is somewhat a novel of discovery of life and family in a disjointed fashion. The translation is short and easy to read. It includes an introduction and a translator's afterword. Looks like there are a lot of bits in the Spanish that would be interesting to read.

The House of Broken Angels

The House of Broken Angels is a rapid-fire view of the life of a Mexican-American extended family. Most of the family lives in exurban San Diego, still close to Mexico. There are various anecdotes of the family members, tracing their family history and relationships. We learn of all their quirks and get a feel for their relationships. One person is near death. He decides to have a big party. Things travel back and forth through the history as we learn of this event as well as various events in family members lives. The party ends up having some much more dramatic events than people expected, but everyone just goes about their business. They roll with the punches. A drunk bird that wakes up at just the wrong time when going through immigration? Oh well, it flew away. It seems that nothing can phase this family.

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

Julia's older sister Olga gets killed by a truck after getting off the bus. This is one more stressor in Julia's life. She wants to go to college and write. She doesn't want to be the perfect Mexican daughter. However, her parents are very controlling. She regularly gets grounded for infractions. They don't know of the secret rich boyfriend she has. She tries to find out more about her sister. She also attempts to take her own life. Her parents send her to Mexico where she finds out more about her parents and their past struggles. She does discover some of her sister's deep secrets. She is later excited to find out she got a full ride to NYU and will be able to fulfill her dreams.

It seems an odd choice to teach in middle school with a small Hispanic population. The book is filled with profanity, sex and violence and the main character is nearly finished with high school and getting ready to attend college.  Maybe the school thinks it is doing kids a favor exposing them to things at a younger age?

The House of the Scorpion

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

It took me a little while to figure out what was going on in The House of the Scorpion. The protagonist, Matt, gradually finds out more about his existence. He lives in the world of opium fields between the United States and Mexico. The inhabitants here are a motley bunch, including "eejits" who are laborers that have their intelligence removed (and are treated like as less than human) and a security patrol consisting mostly of men wanted for crimes in other countries. This land of Opium is ruled as an independent country by the ancient "El Patron", who is many decades past his 100th birthday. He likes to consider himself a near diety, similar to ancient Egyptian Pharaohs. We discover that Matt is actually a clone of "El Patron". We later learn that the purpose of these clones is to harvest organs for El Patron. (This is how he has lived to be so old.)

Matt hits puberty as El Patron has heart issues. As he is about to become an unwilling donor, one of his caretakers mentions that she has been feeding him just enough arsenic to make his heart useless for El Patron. This is too much for El Patron, and he dies. In the commotion, some of Matt's friends help him to escape. Matt sneaks across the border and then joins up with a group of other orphans forced to live in a pseudo-Marxist work camp of "the Keapers". He helps expose some hypocrisy of the organization and gets out. He is able to reach the convent where his "girlfriend" is staying. They are able to bust the keepers and then he is sent back to help find out what is wrong with his homeland. He discovers that El Patron had plotted to have the leadership die when he died. The land is in chaos, leaving things set up for a sequel.

There is an elaborate world created in the novel. Alas, the pieces we see don't give us a clear picture. What is the purpose of the "keepers"? Why do people let them exist, while despising them? And why are they busted for drug use, while at the same time El Patron's drug empire is allowed to thrive? What do regular people do? If people can have their intelligence removed to become "dumb laborers", why would regular jobs remain? Could a clone really be made to have the same fingerprints and other identifying markings? (If a clone is such an accurate identical copy, shouldn't we be concerned that Matt will be a megalomaniac dictator like El Patron?)

Death Comes for the Archbishop

Death Comes to the Archbishop details the life of a French priest who is assigned "missionary duty" in the American Southwest. The territory is newly annexed by the United States, but still has a large "Indian" and Mexican population. The priest eventually becomes the archbishop over the region. He is tasked with overseeing many local Catholic priests who have taken advantage of the remoteness of the territory. There also many people that need help in different ways. Near the end, he is even tasked with bringing in mining prospectors into his fold. He has a companion for many years that also helps him out. He interacts with many scoundrels and well meaning people. There are a few protestants in the area, as well as some natives that have become marginally Christian, while still maintaining a lot of their old ways. He also befriends Kit Carson. In the process, he gains a greater appreciation for the new world, and eventually decides that will be his final place of retirement. The book itself is easily accessible and provides a good view into early America. There are a mix of people that are actively trying to do good and those that are merely trying to enrich themselves. Everyone has their flaws. Even the good actions may at times result in less than ideal outcomes. However, those that can keep their baseline values strong while adapting and adjusting to the circumstances can have a positive impact.