La Muerte de Artemio Cruz (Spanish Edition) [Paperback]

Carlos Fuentes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1996

After collapsing from an illness while attending a business meeting, a dying Artemio Cruz, a rich and powerful land owner in modern Mexico, is driven by conscience to recall his corrupt life.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: Spanish --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Carlos Fuentes (Panamá, 1928) is considered the father of modern Latin American literature. Besides writing, he has held a number of diplomatic positions in the United States, Latin America and Europe. His works have received numerous awards such as PREMIO CERVANTES, PREMIO RÓMULO GALLEGOS, and PREMIO BIBLIOTECA BREVE. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Reprint edition (February 1, 1996)
• Language: Spanish
• ISBN-10: 0140255826
• ISBN-13: 978-0140255829
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #396,191 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars zurc oimetra ed etreum al, September 1, 2000

By 

Luis Méndez (Republica Dominicana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: La Muerte de Artemio Cruz (Spanish Edition) (Paperback)

Personajes : artemio cruz, catalina, Lorenzo, Teresa, Gloria, Gerardo, Gamaliel, padre Paez, Lilia, Laura, Lunero, Gonzalo , Regina, Locacion: México Año: diferentes fechas

La historia de Artemio es la historia de la ambición por sobre todas las cosas, el deseo desmedido de poder, la corrupción, la degeneración moral, dejar de creer en el amor y en las personas para empezar a creer en lo que se puede comprar y tener, en lo que se puede manejar, dominar, subyugar..... Esta obra esta escrita de diferentes maneras, en primera persona, en segunda persona, y narrador omnisciente, estados de conciencia y semiconciencia caracterizan la trama y los diálogos se sitúan como la vida misma dentro de la cabeza de Artemio, donde las fechas y los recuerdos van tomando su curso, para hacernos entender esa maraña de cosas que se tejen y destejen en su cabeza, para empezar a poner orden a esos pensamientos desordenados, que giran y giran y buscan tal vez el perdón y la comprensión de las mujeres, Catalina que nunca lo amo, Regina que lo amo con el alma, Lilia y Laura que solo querían su dinero, El destino, que lo hace verse viejo y sin herederos, su hijo completando su vida, muriendo la muerte que le tocaba morir a el en la guerra y que tuvo que ser muerta por su hijo en otra guerra al otro lado del mar que sabe a cerveza y huele a melón, que hay detrás del mar? Islas , ... Artemio, muere Artemio, no quiero verme viejo,. Por eso los controlo, por eso las uso, por eso me burlo de ellas, que me odian........ Es también una obra sobre el poder en México y la forma en que se maneja..... Excelente. LUIS MENDEZ

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Student Overview of The Death of Artemio Cruz, February 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: La Muerte de Artemio Cruz (Spanish Edition) (Paperback)

Artemio Cruz, on his deathbead, passes through the events of his life in this Fuentes masterpiece. The novel is narrated in the first, second and third person, symbolic of the character's ego, id and superego. Cruz explores the deaths that spared him. His lack of courage and personal sacrafice, ironically, bring Cruz to fortune and fame. He leaves battle only to be heralded as a war hero. He escapes execution. Through deception, Artemio Curz earns permission to marry the sister of the man killed in his place. The language of the novel is rich and varied. The reader enters into the morphine-induced train of consciousness of Cruz, finds deathbed observations laced with old memories and jumps through the life of Cruz. La Muerte de Artemio Cruz is a novel of self--judgement. Before dying, Cruz examines the value of his existance.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece to remember, May 12, 2001

By 

Maria A. Silva (Rio de Janeiro, RJ Brazil) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: LA Muerte De Artemio Cruz (Spanish) (Spanish Edition) (Paperback)

As an intersection of two major themes - the illusion of independence pictured in a faint bourgeois environment (Las Buenas Conciencias, 1959) and the nightmare of transculturation in contemporary life (La Región Más Transparente, 1958), La Muerte De Artemio Cruz (1962) rebuilds mexican history on the ruins of individual and social consciousness. The protagonist (the "yo" instance) is led to seek the truth in his own past, while the voice of memory ("tú") recalls the origins of a betrayed revolution ("él", the stream of historical action) and gives the dying man the last chance to imagine how things might have been from another point of view: the wish of community, a future raised by plural needs and dreams - "nosotros". From the epigraphs to the end of the novel, death and memory join forces to restore that manifold identity, stifled by Artemio's overwhelming projects. The physical death of Artemio corresponds to the rebirth of mexican history as a social body made of facts but also of feelings and emotions, concealed under the rough mask of authority. Throughout the text the feminine figures accomplish this mission as well, reflecting, like mirrors (so often mentioned in this book), the reality Artemio wants to deny. Four women - Regina, Catalina, Lilia y Laura - symbolize different periods of Artemio's life strongly attached to main revolutionary commotions (from the beginnings to their later political and economic metamorphose). In each one of them, financial ascent and physical/moral degradation are but one painful and irreversible process. All these symbolic elements converge to the final scenes: the fulfillment of collective destiny in the death of his son Lorenzo; the recognition of social fountainhead through the analogous images of Artemio's mother, Isabel Cruz, and the mythical representation of La Chingada. At the end, the two most important moments of Artemio's life stick together: his birth and his death. All the lapse between these extremes is a synesthetic confluence of multiple perceptions, where past and future switch sides, creating what Jacques le Goff called "the ontological rule of historicity": the rescue of memory as freedom.