Myself with Others: Selected Essays [Hardcover]

Carlos Fuentes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1988

In Myself with Others, Fuentes has assembled essays reflecting three of the great elements of his work: autobiography, love of literature, and politics. They include his reflections on his beginning as a writer, his celebrated Harvard University commencement address, and his trenchant examinations of Cervantes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Borges.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Here is Fuentes describing Prague: "There is no city more beautiful in Europe . . . its opulence and its sadness consume themselves in a wedding of stone and river." This Mexican novelist (Terra Nostra, A Change of Skin) turns out beautifully written essays in a musical, ever-shifting voice that registers his forays as "a wanderer in search of perspective." Dense pieces analyze Luis Bunuel's cinema of desire, Cervantes's Don Quixote, the "space-time continuum" of Diderot's novels, the sense of absence in Gogol and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's dark vision of Latin American history as cruel epic. In two revealing autobiographical essays, Fuentes hops from Washington, D.C., to Chile to Paris in quest of his literary mission. A meeting with novelist Milan Kundera, "the other K of Czechoslovakia" (a reference to Kafka), sparks Fuentes's thoughts on how to fight injustice without creating further injustice.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This is a feast of ideas on a wide variety of subjects that include Gogol, Kundera, and Diderot as well as the Hispanic authors one might expectCervantes, Borges, and Garcia Marquez among them. Fuentes ranges from the cinema of his friend Bunuel, which he characterizes as one vast metaphor on the triumphs and defeats of people being with people, to his experiences as a diplomat's son in Washington, D.C. He recalls marveling at our boundless energy and innocence of military defeat. On Nicaragua, he pointedly asks why America is so impatient with a few years of Sandinismo when it was so tolerant of 45 years of Somocismo. Indeed, the wisdom that Fuentes proffers on the current political situation in Latin America is alone worth the price of the book. Jack Shreve, Allegany Community Coll., Cumberland, Md.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (April 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374217505
• ISBN-13: 978-0374217501
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,685,853 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars His brilliant mind revealed, February 1, 2007

By 

Enrique Torres "Rico" (San Diegotitlan, Califas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Myself with Others: Selected Essays (Paperback)

I believe Carlos Fuentes to be the most brilliant Latin American writer of this century; hands down over his closest literary rivals Borges and Garcia Marquez. That in itself is no easy feat and that said, you must understand, reveals my impartial praise for his work(s).This book was published in the eighties so the themes that are often political are now oudated. This is a revealing book that is compromised of different essays Mr. Fuentes wrote, at different times, including the concluding essay at a Harvard Commencement. One of his favorite topics is included,Cervantes's "Don Quixote." This in itself is worth the price of the book alone as Mr. Fuentes tells the reader how to read the novel, that is not a novel to be read only once. He explains the story within the story and how it relates to modern literature. With the insights I learned from reading his assessment I will once again read "Don Quixote" and probably understand it much better. He goes on to discuss Diderot, Gogol, Garcia Marquez and Bunuel(will I ever look at his films in the same light?)and their relationship to literature.It is nothing short of fanatastic the way he weaves stories in and out without losing track of his original thought; he brings everything full circle. There are times when he leads you in his thought process to areas of esoteric darkness, where if you don't have the literary background to follow you will be lost. Have no fear though because before long Mr. Fuentes comes back to the original premise and continues on his masterful storytelling. Carlos Fuentes writes like some painters paint, he uses words or color to bring out his subject and points to the place where they almost walk off the pages or canvas. I can hardly believe that this book has never been reviewed as of this writing. Check it out if you like literature and brilliant writing; there is a reason why he has won the Cervantes Prize. Highly recommended.