Where the Air Is Clear, Carlos Fuentes's first novel, is an unsparing portrayal of Mexico City's upper class. Departing from a traditional linear narrative, Fuentes constructs his novel around a series of encounters with members of this world, including Federico Robles, an ambitious self-made millionaire; Rodrigo Pola, a writer whose father was executed in the Mexican Revolution; and Norma Larragoiti, a social climber striving to erase her humble past. At the center of these events is Ixca Cienfuegos, an enigmatic figure who views the dramas enacted around him with unusual clarity, and who, with the aid of an Indian priestess, plots the destruction of the group. Overlaying Mexican myths onto contemporary settings, Fuentes shows that even the rich and powerful must succumb to the indomitable spirit of Mexico, which undermines all institutions and shapes all destinies.
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"Carlos Fuentes is perhaps the only living Latin American writer who has it in him to do for his country what Euclides da Cunha did for Brazil in Os Sertoes, and to make the passion of the land's rebirth and repossession comprehensible to the outsider."
About the Author
The author of more than a dozen novels and story collections, Carlos Fuentes is Mexico's most celebrated novelist and critic. He has received numerous honors and awards throughout his lifetime, including the Miguel de Cervantes Prize and the Latin Literary Prize.
Included among his books are Terra Nostra, Where the Air Is Clear, and Distant Relations, all of which are available from Dalkey Archive Press.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Considered by many to be Fuentes' all-time masterpiece, Where the Air is Clear (1958), his first novel, takes you on a roller-coaster tour of post-revolutionary Mexican urban history. It's all there, from roughneck taxi drivers and prostitues trying to make their daily bread, to bored members of a fading aristocracy, of which only the double-barreled names remain. The novel's diverse characters meet and unmeet in a bizarre range of social situations, ever-observed by the Spanish-Indigenous hybrid Ixca Cienfuegos. Cienfuegos, a type of Greek Chorus character who watches the ups and downs of the novel's cast like a mad-scientist doing an experiment, doesn't hesitate to drop in for a chat to the characters, provoking them to pour out their hearts in sometimes tedious monologues. If you have a basic grasp of Mexico's history you'll understand this novel better, although if you don't know the history, a stack of not too subtle symbols will help you out. (A young member of a once aristocratic family looks at herself in a mirror, while Vivaldi plays on a scratched record in the background. That kind of thing.) Don't take this novel to the beach, it ain't a beach novel. Argentine writer Julio Cortazar, in a letter to Fuentes after reading the book, summed it up: ``You've given in to the magnificent sin committed by so many first-time novel writers..you've put a whole world into 500 pages.'' A rare Latin American urban epic, this book is certainly worth reading for anyone with an interest in the Mexican psyche. If you want to see how the thinking behind Octavio Paz's Labyrinth of Solitude would work, applied to a TV mini-series, and have a few days to spare, give it a go.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Mexico is the major character in this first novel by Carlos Fuentes. It helps to be enamored of Mexico or interested in the history and politics of Central and Latin America. It's a hard read; I found it a rewarding, often entertaining and above all enlightening one. By the way, the original Spanish title is "La Region Mas Transparente," quite different from the English translation.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The book was sturdy, spine good shape but there were more markings than I thought there would be. Because I am reading it for a book club, this wasn't a problem but if I were doing this for a class, the markings might be a distraction. How can I complain at all since the price was great and delivery was quick. Now if only reading the book was a quick job!
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