Customer Reviews

This I Believe: An A to Z of a Life

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I first discovered Carlos Fuentes in college with The Death of Artemio Cruz and Where The Air is Clear and he has been a touchstone ever since. Although many of his subsequent novels have fallen short of my expectations, this autobiographical collection of essays on a variety of subjects is intellectually engaging and insightful into the development of Fuentes the man and the author. A thousand stars!

I have read both the English and original Spanish versions of this tour de force and have found the book totally captivating. When Mr. Fuentes addresses a subject he expands the dinmensions and your perceptions of said subject to the point where you become enlightened beyond your initial understanding. His literary skills are beyond measurement. Mr.Fuentes begins with a simple enough concept of using the alphabet to share with the reader about his personal memories but along the way ventures into political musings, literary forays and comments on contemporary society and global perspectives on a variety of subjects. It is not a "preachy" book but rather one of insights into a brilliant mind and his beliefs. It is a very personal book that exhausts the reader intellectually. However the book is simply a delight in it's eloquence and commanding structure to the point where you feel you have been on a literary and cultural journey and Mr. Fuentes has been your tour guide. He treats his chosen subjects with that rare ability to capture your imagination where you become lost(or found) in his use of language to convey his prowess and understanding of a wide variety of topics. Mr. Fuentes begins with Amor(love) and usually gives each letter several subjects, for example, the letter C has Christ , Children, Cinema and Civil Society as topics. He ends with Zebra and Zurich. One might wonder what could Carlos Fuentes have to say about zebras? He uses his subject as a launching pad for his poetic explorations. What begins as an exploration of the zebra and his stripes and what differentiates him from a horse suddenly begins to explore zoology and all it's marvelous manifestations. Suddenly the animals found in the sea by the early explorers are being discussed. From here Mr. Fuentes takes twists and turns on a variety of subjects including Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," with stops along the way into other diverse writers and their works like Ray Bradbury, Issac Isimov, Voltaire and Beckford. Dracula, Edgar Allan Poe, Kafka and Mexico-Tenochitlan are all fair game within the letter Z and what began as an exploration of the zebra. He ties all the subjects together by weaving a brilliant narrative that leaves you spellbound. I would highly recommend this book along with many of his other books that is written by the best writer Mexico has produced. As Mr.Fuentes states, " We think we know the world. Now, we must imagine it."