Customer Reviews

The Reader's Companion to Mexico

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

 

 

A truly fascinating book. This is not a travel book one would get to learn about hotel rooms and restaurants and tourist sites, but what a wonderful insight into the fascinating culture of Mexico. And by really good writers! The material dates from 1888 to 1978, but time is not so much the issue as insight and perspective. Top notch armchair travel book, and a good book to read before going there for background on a different culture.

Finding an up-to-date travel guide is the never-ending search. So why bother?

The selections in this collection are VERY dated (from 1888 to 1987) commentaries by VERY dated but, in their time, VERY famous artists, musicians, scientists and writers. The editor's introductions to each piece do a great job of connecting the authors and times and setting the scenes.

From D H Lawrence and Katherine Anne Porter to Langston Hughes and Graham Greene to Paul Theroux and John Steinbeck, these portraits of their times in Mexico are valuable comments on the way things were. If you're going beyond the casual visits to Mexican resorts (been there ...) and are interested in the character of the country, this book is well worth reading AND owning.

Ryan did his homework before putting this book together. Although the stories aren't current, they open a door to the real Mexico. And you have to appreciate the authors. Most of them are good travelers,inquisitive and patient. They soak up all the culture they can, and turn episodes of inconvience into fascinating cultural exchanges. I've read a few of the books used in this compilation and after reading this book am going to order more. A wonderful read.

Travelers to Mexico often take with them a guide book to tell them where they can stay, where they might eat, what they can see, and how to get around. These might be necessary to become oriented in what is, to them, a strange land, especially for first-time visitors. While these compilations of hotels, eateries, etc. are useful, they do not provide the reader with the essence of the country they are about to meet.

The Reader's Companion to Mexico , on the other hand, brings the reader about as close to Mexico as s/he can get without actually stepping foot across the border. Its writers seem to have been chosen for their ability to illustrate vividly the sights, the sounds, even the moods of the country. Only the smells, it seems, go beyond the writers' scope.

The Editor, Ann Ryan, has not just compiled various readings for our enjoyment. She has written for us a separate introduction for each of the 26 selections she has chosen. Her description of the first selection, "Paseo de La Reforma" by F. Hopkinson Smith, could be equally true for many of the others: "[Smith] is interested in the things that immediately strike the sensibilities of the visitor in `the most marvelously picturesque country under the sun'". She puts her words into the context of the day, a context that most readers are unaware of. Adding sometimes, biographical sketches of individual writers, Ryan gives us a greater appreciation and understanding of what we are about to read. The time period for the selections Ms. Ryan chose is also interesting. Nearly half of them take place in the 1920's and 1930's. This was a time when Mexico City was an intimate, sleepy national capital, still waiting to become a sprawling, cosmopolitan complex. It was a time when American influence and culture had not yet punctured itself so deep into Mexico's psyche. A steady stream of airplanes from abroad was not then disgorging passengers throughout the day and night from New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities. This then, sets the stage for experiencing, albeit vicariously, a Mexico that is more Mexico, by being purer and freer from the outside - a culture that was far less contaminated than in the late 20th and 21st centuries.

Those selections chosen by Rand tell us vividly about the older days of Paseo de la Reforma, when privileged citizens rode their luxury carriages up and down Mexico City's Champs Elysées mostly for their own vanity.

No less dramatic were the bull fights fought with symbolism as much as danger. ". . . [T]he death-dealer, thrust the espada half to its hilt in the vulnerable spot exposed between lowered shoulder blades. . . The bull stood stock still, seemed to be wondering how these pains could have reached him. . ."

For many of the episodes, the reader may find enjoyment as much from a clash of cultures often with opposite ways of getting something done. Such distinctions seem most glaring at the border, where the U.S. and Mexico are separated only by a bridge. Perhaps everyone crossing the bridge from Laredo Texas into Nuevo Laredo, Mexico for the first time felt somewhat like Paul Theroux sensed in 1978, one of the most recent of Rand's selections. "The urchins, the old ladies, the cripples, the sellers of lottery tickets, the frantic dirty youths, the men selling trays of switchblades, the tequila bars and incessant racketing music, the hotels reeking of bedbugs - the frenzy threatened to overwhelm me." The differences are remarkably noticeable. But this may not so much due to the differences themselves, but because of the abrupt suddenness of change one finds at border crossings. Laredo is quiet, orderly serene; Nuevo Laredo rowdy, dirty, and unkempt. It may be that one finds more disparity going into Mexico from the U.S., than at border crossings between any other countries in the world.

One of my favorite selections is "Market Day in Oaxaca, 1924, by D.H. Lawrence. Perhaps it is my favorite because I've lived in Oaxaca for about four years. But Lawrence has a knack for squeezing out every meaning there might be in the simplest of events.

[The purpose of the market is to] "buy and to sell, but above all, to commingle. . . Market and religion. These alone bring men, unarmed, together since time began. A little load of firewood, a woven blanket, a few eggs and tomatoes are excuse enough of men, women and children to cross the foot-weary miles of valley and mountain. To buy, to sell, to barter, to exchange. To exchange, above all things, human contact."

There are many more selections in the Reader's Companion. And not all of them are pro-Mexico. But they are all of interest, especially for those whose travels take them south of the border.

Bruce Stores is author of THE ISTHMUS, Stories of Mexico's Past, 1495 - 1995, iUniverse, 2009.

Save your money. I could barely stay awake while reading any of the stories.