Customer Reviews

Mexico in Mind

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Maria Finn's richly rewarding anthology, "Mexico in Mind," was the prescribed book for a class in literature about Mexico, which I took in Puerto Vallarta.

It is a relatively brief collection of short prose pieces, poems, excerpts from longer prose pieces, and the opening scene from the Tennessee Williams play, Night of the Iguana. In her introduction, Finn explains that the book "offers a sampling of travelers' impressions of Mexico over the span of two centuries."

The book is divided thematically into six sections, the first called "Love in Mexico" or "Bésame Mucho." Pieces in this section range from Katherine Anne Porter's short story, "The Martyr," written in 1923, delightfully satirizing the relationship between Diego Rivera and Lupe Marin, to the touching Luis Rodriguez poem, "The Old Woman of Mérida," written in 2005, in which an old woman sits by a window looking out at the sea and longing for her sailor-husband, "swallowed" by the sea. An excerpt from "The Pearl" by John Steinbeck has a familiar sense of foreboding, and Ray Bradbury's short story "Calling Mexico" is a poignant tale of an old man dying in Illinois, longing to hear once more the sounds of the city he knew in his younger years. Another three selections complete the section.

The next section, "Sights, Sounds, and Tastes" or "Fiesta del Pueblo," opens with an excerpt from Frances Calderón de la Barca's 1843 book, "Life in Mexico," describing the floating gardens of Mexico City. Another six pieces complete the section and include an excerpt from D. H. Lawrence's 1927 "Mornings in Mexico," richly describing the spectacle of a Mexican market day, and an entertaining essay "Searching for the Heart of La Bamba," written by Tom Miller in 2000, in which he traces the origins of the song "La Bamba" from its sixteenth-century roots to the popular rock-and-roll version in the United States. By now, the reader is enjoying his cultural immersion.

In the section called "Revolutionary Encounters" or "¡Que Viva Mexico!," Finn introduces the reader to some of Mexico's more notorious historical figures. John Reed takes us along with him as he rides with Pancho Villa in 1914 in an excerpt from his collection "Insurgent Mexico." And closer to the present, we meet the anonymous leader of the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas, who calls himself Subcomandante Marcos, in Ann Louise Bardach's 1994 piece for Vanity Fair, "Mexico's Poet Rebel."

It is in an interesting section called "Down and Out in Mexico" or "Desperados" that Finn opens with the opening scene from "Night of the Iguana." This is followed by an alcoholic rant excerpted from Malcolm Lowry's 1947 "Under the Volcano," a snippet of Jack Kerouac's 1960 essay, "Mexico Fellaheen," taking us along on a dusty outback bus ride replete with opium-laced marijuana cigarettes "the size of a cigar," and a few pages from William S. Burroughs' 1953 novel "Junky," recounting in fiction his drug-addict days in Mexico City, scoring heroin and morphine.

But it seems as if Finn has saved the best pieces for the final two sections of the book. In "Icons and Identity" or "Patria and Pilgrims," the writers are all American Latinos reflecting on the mother country of their forbearers. Ana Castillo's 1994 essay, "My Mother's Mexico," is especially touching. Although she was raised in an essentially Mexican ghetto in Chicago, she discovered on a trip to the Mexican barrio of her mother's youth, that the poverty she experienced was nothing like the hard-luck poverty her mother fled when she came north to Chicago. Richard Rodriguez, Rubén Martínez, and Sandra Cisneros complete this penultimate section with equally moving reflections on their Mexican heritage.

The anthology concludes with a section called "Ritual and Myth" or "Dia de los Muertos and Beyond." The pieces in this section range from a short piece from Erna Fergusson's book, "Fiesta in Mexico," describing the annual celebration of the Day of the Dead on November 2nd to a 1940 description of a bullfight by Langston Hughes from his autobiography, "The Big Sea." There is a wonderful account of the Indian fliers descending from a tall tree tied by a rope on one leg, circling the tree with arms outstretched like birds flying. Set in the time of the Aztec Empire from Gary Jennings' 1980 historical novel, Aztec, the piece describes the origins of the incredible show that takes place several times a day by daring Indians on the Malecon here in Puerto Vallarta. The last piece in the book is an excerpt from Salman Rushdee's 1999 novel, "The Ground Beneath Her Feet." Set in the town of Tequila in the state of Guadalajara, bringing together a rock star, an earthquake, and tequila in a fitting conclusion to this potpourri of Mexican culture and history.

This book is a collection of essays and stories, each by a different author. As a group, they capture a real feel for the country, its culture, and the people.

A must read for anyone from Mexico - or anyone who just loves the place.

I enjoyed the short stories in this collection. I read them on a trip to the Yucatan. It is interesting to see the country from different perspectives.

A friend lent me her copy of this book. I liked it so much I had to own it!

I love this little anthology. If "variety is the spice of life," this one is full of spices! Short pieces -- stories, poetry, essays -- divided by theme ("Love in Mexico," "Sights, Sounds, and Tastes," "Revolutionary Encounters," "Down and Out in Mexico," "Icons and Identity," and "Ritual and Myth." From classic to current -- John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac, and D.H. Lawrence to Anita Desai, Richard Rodriguez, and Sandra Cisneros...a very good variety of pieces and a wide range of writers and interests. After reading Diana Kennedy's great excerpt from MY MEXICO about the foods of the Yucatan, I had to start cooking! And I thoroughly enjoyed reading John Reed's account of being "embedded" with Pancho Villa & troops during the Mexican Revolution. If you're traveling to Mexico, this is a great companion read to take along, or, if you just want to travel vicariously, brew a cup of tea or coffee, toss a log on the fire, and enjoy!

I enjoyed this book for its historical content, such as Burroughs, Greene and other gringos living there. Like Tony Cohan and his wife, they came, they experienced and then wrote about their experiences, but like Cohan, I was left with the impression that the gringos were still not really there. A cloud floating above the country and not of it. Observing, viewing and not really seeing what Mexico and Mexicans are really like. Good plane reading, nothing more.