Customer Reviews

The Crystal Frontier: A Novel in Nine Stories

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Carlos Fuentes is without doubt one of Mexico's most prolific writers. The fact that his novels are filled with social- political commentary makes him controversial. Some people like their novels without the authors views, others love it as they like the added "realism". Fuentes makes no qualms about his views and his portrayl of Mexicans on both sides of the border and the huge differences in cultures which create conflicts. The concept of this book is interesting but falls a little short on substance. Nine chapters detailing different peoples lives on both sides of the border and how they are interelated. The loose interweaving of the characters lives on both sides of the border are accurate and hence disturbing to some readers. The story centers around one powerful Mexican, Leonardo Barroso and various other people on both sides of the border who are loosely connected. The beauty of this book is in the authors insight into the vast differences between Mexico and the U.S. and how this plays out on his characters. Fuentes is a master of language and his imagery is magnificent. His use of language creates a world that takes on a new life as he transports the reader into his world. An example is one of his characters missing life in Mexico " Not a single tile, not one adobe brick-only marble, cement, stone, plaster, and more wrought iron, gates behind gates, gates within gates, gates facing gates, a labyrinth of gates, and the inaudible buzz of garage doors that opened with a stench of old gasoline, involuntary urinated by the herds of Porsches, Mercedes, BMWs that reposed like mastodons within the caves of the garages". Fuentes is a master at drawing vivid paralels as he creates images of Woolworths contrasted with mercados, or his symbolism of the Vatican and Washinton DC or his tirade on American TV pop culture filled with references to Elvis and filled with such diverse topics as Pat Boone, Charles and Diana jewelry from the Home Shopping Channel, credit cards, CD's with greatest hits, and my favorite, diet milkshakes. For people who live along the border this book is a riot at times and at others reflective of a sad and tragic love story, the relationship between cultures in the US and Mexico. As a character in the book reveals on a tatoo on his lower lip, We Are Everywhere. An excellent book for all interested in what makes these two countries "so far from God so close to heaven".

If you want to understand the complex relationship between Americans and Mexicans this is an excellent read. You'll get more out of it than any dry textbook on Mexican identity and relations with the US. It's not his best work but it is very good.

Fuentes does not bridge the gap between two colossal cultures, he defines that gap. As a gringo in his own country Mexico, and a foreigner in the US, he is qualified and capable to draw a honest and sensitive picture of these two countries and its characters. He uses the physical divide to draw a picture of what really matters to him - the poverty and impasse existence of myriads of people in Mexico. Luckily, there is only a hint of his (far leftist) politics, and we are allowed to enjoy his cultural insight, deep understanding of characters, compassion for suffering, and sense of humor. A powerful author, but short of the genius of friend and peer Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Tedious novel in the form of nine linked stories shows Mexican life from multiple angles, none too flattering. The crystal frontier of the title is, of course, the U.S.-Mexican border; what matters here is less the border as geopolitical fact and more its impact on the Mexican psyche. The author aims his barbs at both sides of the border; there's little surprising here except perhaps for the portrayal of a disdainful Mexican upper class that couldn't care less about how the other half lives or whether it lives or starves. Book clubs will find this a useful tool for stirring up discussion on the illegal drug and immigration issues whether they read through to the end or not; those who do will be rewarded with a chapter written half in normal prose and half in surreal fragmentary lines of poetry, the effect of which is not unlike sitting through a Tarkovsky double-feature.

Some of Fuentes other books have been difficult for me to read. Too erudite perhaps or too much symbolism. This book is funny and sad and easy to read. I would like to hear from others who are reading or have read this book.

Carlos Fuentes is a major author in Mexican literature, with notable successes in history and fiction. In this book of 266 pages, he introduces us to the lives of a spectrum of persons living on both sides of the Mexican Border, particularly with Texas. He speaks with authority about the historical injustices involved in the American conquest of Texas, the War on Mexico, and our continuing hostile dependency on each other. The Americans need cheap labor and the Mexicans need jobs. In nine vignettes (chapters), he gives us a glimpse into the lives of various persons on both sides of the border. The Mexicans come North to go to school legally or to do menial work illegally or legally. The message in this book is quite clear. We want the Mexicans when we need them to do tasks cheaply that our own labor force will not do. We do not want the Mexicans when they become dependent on us and stress our social system for such things as health care or education. Carlos Fuentes points to the type of economic slavery that this creates, not much better than the era of slavery which Abraham Lincoln fought against. Fuentes achieves some balance in showing also the internal corruption of Mexico, and the many ways that they miss opportunities to improve themselves. The vignettes are funny, sad, passionate, and sometimes lacking in clear focus. Some characters fade into and out of various chapters creating a fabric of impressions about the life on the border. The reader has to relax and let the images flow past, with the poetic inserts by Fuentes about the various conflicts. This is clearly not his best book but in some ways it perhaps reveals more of his own most heartfelt conflicts which accumulated while he spent many years as a child and young adult in the USA. It is a particularly good book to read while you are traveling near the Mexican border and can get your own impressions of this SCENE.

A fascinating look from numerous perspectives at the increasingly intermingled Mexican and U.S. frontier. The short stories range from life in the oppressive border factories pumping out goods for America to the lives of those who control this commerce, to workers entering the U.S. for menial jobs, both with a visa in relative comfort and with nothing to lose in the deserts along the Rio Grande. This book is ten times more informative, realistic, and well-written than most of the works shoved down a student's throat in any type of ethnic literature or sociology course concerning these issues. Highly recommended book by Latin America's most overlooked great author, Carlos Fuentes.

I read this book a while back in a Spanish Literature class. I absolutely loved it, it made me think about so many imigration issues that I had not even known existed before. This book is written as a novel, and a novel with a purpose at that. If you are against immigration of the Latin Americans into the USA, then this book may be the one to get you to understand that they are real people and not just percentages and numbers leading to American job loss.

Carlos Fuentes has a point in writing this book, it seems many reviewers haven't understood that, or they don't agree with him. That is fine, it is fine to disagree. But the way this book is written it does deserve a full 5 star rating. Give it a try.

I never understood the implications of living in Los Angeles before. Fuentes captures the perspective I needed to hear.

Whenever I travel to a country, I like to take along some fiction written by someone from that country to read while I'm there. So, for my first trip to Mexico, Fuentes seemed like the logical choice, and since I tend to enjoy short stories, this "novel in nine stories" seemed to fit the bill. However, for the most part, I found it both thematically and stylistically underwhelming, rather tedious, and it didn't give me any new insights into the dynamic and complex relationship between the U.S. and Mexico. The nine pieces are very tangentially connected to Don Leonardo, a rather generic shady, wealthy Mexican businessman who exists at one end of the socioeconomic spectrum. He's able to move easily across the "crystal frontier" between Mexico and the U.S. -- whether by flying first class to New York or being chauffeured to El Paso in his Mercedes.

In "A Capital Girl", a beautiful girl from Mexico City with few prospects finds security with her godfather Don Leonardo, and although she marries his son, she becomes the old man's mistress. Surely this is allegorical, although I'm not quite sure what to make of it. In "Spoils", Juan Zamora is able to attend Cornell Medical School through the machinations of Don Leonardo. While there, he explores his homosexuality and unable to reconcile his identity, flees back home. "Spoils" is in some ways the most fantastical and enjoyable of the stories, as an eminent Mexican food critic sits discovers a Mexican genie in a bottle of salsa. However, it's simultaneously a tediously diatribe against American food (which I'm not particularly a fan of either) which gets all too shrill.

"The Line of Oblivion" is an ineffective rambling stream of consciousness monologue from a wheelchair-bound old man at a border protest. "Malintzin of the Maquilas" is probably my favorite segment of the whole book, as it is the most direct and apparently "realistic" of the lot. It follows a young woman who works in a border factory assembling television sets, and her relationships with several coworkers and a feckless boyfriend. It's more compelling than the others because the socioeconomic themes feel more at home in this particular setting, with these characters. Unfortunately, it's also marred somewhat by a predictable (and unnecessary) bit of melodrama at the end.

"Las Amigas" is simply a terrible story about the relationship between a very wealthy and a very racist elderly Chicago woman and her Mexican maid. It's really, really bad, but not quite as ridiculous as the title story, "The Crystal Frontier". This is about a hardworking, solid Mexican man forced to take a job as a contract window washer in New York in order to earn a living. There, he experiences an incredibly cheezy moment of "connection" with a typical American businesswoman who's working over the weekend. They kiss through the glass -- it's so awful it beggars belief. "The Bet" stands a little removed from the rest of the book, as it chronicles the relationship between a Mexican tour guide and a Spanish woman he meets and falls for, while also telling of a time from the past when he and his friends used to pick on the town's simpleton. The final story, "Rio Grande, Rio Bravo" attempts to bring together the book's themes (and some of the characters) in a climactic nighttime border crossing but collapses in ridiculous bloodbath involving neo-Nazi skinhead bikers!

My main disappointment with this book is that I didn't feel like I learned anything or gained any perspective. The storytelling is pretty awkward for the most part, and the translated prose felt affected and pretentiously overwritten. There are some interesting characters who are brought to life (at least on the Mexican side, every single Anglo in the book is either an out and out racist or subconsciously prejudicial), but the situations there are put in are often too artificial. The next time I look for a book my a Mexican writer, I think I'll try and find something by someone much younger and closer to the ground -- despite the evident good intentions there's an air about Fuentes' writing which makes him seem utterly removed from the plight of people he's trying to write about in most of these stories.