β Scribed by James A. Michener
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Schematic plotting, tortilla-thin characterizations and lengthy digressions on bullfighting mar this lumbering multigenerational saga about Mexico's resilient spirit, which Michener began in 1961 and returned to 30 years later. Norman Clay, earnest American journalist born and raised in Mexico, is sent to his native city in 1961 to cover a potentially deadly showdown between two famous matadors who represent "the two faces of Mexico, the Spaniard versus the Indian." This bullfight festival, the book's centerpiece, is interwoven with more interesting historical interludes in which Clay grapples with his own mixed heritage. His diverse ancestors include a 16th-century Mexican Indian queen who leads a women's revolt against human sacrifice, a Spanish scholar burned at the stake during the Inquisition, a Franciscan soldier-priest who accompanies Hernan Cortes to Mexico, a Virginia plantation proprietor who loses his wife and sons in the Civil War, and Clay's father, a silver-mine owner who participates in the Mexican Revolution. The colorful novel cuts a wide swath through history but doesn't catch fire as a personal story. BOMC main selection.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Michener began this novel 30 years ago, put it aside, and until recently left it unfinished. Perhaps that is why it is less formulaic than most of his mammoth excursions into the history of particular localities. Mexican-born Norman Clay, a journalist for a New York publication, returns to his natal city to report on the bullfights that highlight its annual festival. This year two matadors are joined in a rivalry that could end in death. Michener dramatizes the contradictions of contemporary Mexico not only in the conflicting styles and backgrounds of the matadors but also through the many duplicities inherent in bullfighting itself. The contradictions of 1961 Mexico are the result of its history, which is personified by Norman Clay, with his heritage of Pre-Columbian Amerindians, Spanish clerics and conquistadors, rancheros and mestizos, and even an unreconstructed Virginia rebel who found sanctuary in Mexico following our Civil War. Not the usual dutiful slog through the generations but a more carefully constructed interweaving of present and past, and one of Michener's finest efforts. Previewed in Prepub Alert, 8/92.
- Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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