News from the Empire (Latin American Literature) [Paperback]

Fernando Del Paso (Author), Alfonso Gonzalez & Stella T. Clark (translators) (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 2009

One of the acknowledged masterpieces of Mexican literature, Fernando del Paso's News from the Empire is a powerful and encyclopedic novel of the tragic lives of Maximilian and his wife, Carlota, the short-lived Emperor and Empress of Mexico. Simultaneously intimate and panoramic, the narrative flows from Carlota's fevered memories of her husband's ill-fated empire to the multiple and conflicting accounts of a broad cast of characters who bore witness to the events that first placed the hapless couple on their puppet thrones, and then as swiftly removed them. Stretching from the troubled final years of Maximilian's life to the early days of the twentieth century, News from the Empire depicts a world of both political and narrative turbulence, and is as much a history of the advent of modernity as a eulogy for the corrupt royal houses of Europe. This startling and fevered work of "historiography" is a tour de force.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Operatic and beautiful, del Paso's lush cautionary tale of empire building chronicles the brief and disastrous reign of Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria and Marie Charlotte (Carlota) of Belgium, emperor and empress of Mexico from 1863 to 1867. Seeking to redefine herself, Carlota embraces her new role as empress while Max flounders. They are usurpers, and while Benito Juarez, rightful ruler of the republic, abandons the capital to them, the seat of power stays with him as he watches from the periphery and refuses to acknowledge European rule. Desperate, spiraling into madness and wary of impending disaster, Carlota sails to Europe and begs the European monarchies for help that will never arrive. Outliving everyone, Carlota, elderly and insane, still in love with both her lost husband and her lost empire, is left to lament of Mexico, I am mother to them all because, Maximilian, I am their history and I am mad. This moving and engaging epic about the twilight of European monarchy and the struggles of the people they imposed themselves on may be considered a Mexican War and Peace. (Apr.)
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Review

"Del Paso is a great and unorthodox writer." --Le Monde

"Embodies a totalizing ambition, reminiscent of Joyce, to investigate the conditions of culture and knowledge, to explore the relationship between myth and history, and to demonstrate the potential of literary language to revolutionize our ways of seeing the world." --Times Literary Supplement

"Del Paso's characterizations, often an accumulation of details that become sharply focused, are brilliant." --Publishers Weekly

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Product Details

• Paperback: 880 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Pr; First English Translation edition (April 7, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564785335
• ISBN-13: 978-1564785336
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #535,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars News from the Empire: Essential Reading for History Buffs, April 6, 2009

By 

Ted Olsen (TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: News from the Empire (Latin American Literature) (Paperback)

News from the Empire gives a detailed history of the failure of France's nation building project in Mexico, an account of Maximilian's death at the hands of Benito Juarez' soldiers and Carlotas' protracted madness. A history written by the man whom many of us believe to be Mexico's greatest writer, Fernando del Paso. Those who love his Palinuro will find many of del Paso's same qualities of style in News from the Empire. Missing is the Joycean humor and ruthless puns. Here one is reminded more of Faulkner's loaded paragraphs and densely populated narrative; or of Ford Madox Ford's use of the unreliable narrator in the mad empress who is equally frustrating and equally demanding of our close reading. In other words, this is very much a modern novel: it requires us to be careful readers, then tempts us back for a second reading in which we discover a work even more delightful than the one we had first considered. I love this type of writing, works that demand some effort on my part. I would also add that I have now read both the Spanish original and the new English translation and find the latter to be amazing in its ability to retain the voice and style of the original.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Immense, rich, satiating narrative, December 2, 2009

By 

Jack Epperson "Dzul" (Alabama) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: News from the Empire (Latin American Literature) (Paperback)

Just the best thing I've read since discovering Asturias or Garcia Marquez. As sensual as Terra Nova and as informative as an encyclopedia. Like all Balzac in a single volume. I'll re-read and re-read this again and again. Interior monologues worthy of Joyce or Faulkner intertwined with clinically precise historic reporting. As obscure as Eliot and as direct as a newspaper. I'm overwhelmed.