Carlos Fuentes
Paperback | Pages: 280 pages Rating: 3.83 | 1114 Users | 90 Reviews
Point Books To The Crystal Frontier
| Original Title: | La frontera de cristal |
| ISBN: | 0156006200 (ISBN13: 9780156006200) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Relation Supposing Books The Crystal Frontier
From Mexico’s preeminent man of letters, “a Balzacian novel in nine masterly stories” (Vanity Fair) that explores the “uneven and painful meshing of two North american cultures” (Washington Post Book World). A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. Translated by Alfred Mac Adam.Specify Containing Books The Crystal Frontier
| Title | : | The Crystal Frontier |
| Author | : | Carlos Fuentes |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 280 pages |
| Published | : | October 15th 1998 by Mariner Books (first published 1995) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Short Stories. European Literature. Spanish Literature. Academic. School |
Rating Containing Books The Crystal Frontier
Ratings: 3.83 From 1114 Users | 90 ReviewsEvaluate Containing Books The Crystal Frontier
The subtitle to THE CRYSTAL FRONTIER defines the book as a "Novel in Nine Stories". Is it a novel at all? Not really, I find. The connections between the stories themselves are tenuous or indirect at best. However, seen as a whole, they present a critical perspective on Mexican society and its complex relations to its northern neighbour. The "crystal frontier" is both real and in the minds of the protagonists. Indeed, it may be useful for the reader to take Fuentes' book as a collection of shortIt was a sad trip, and to think that all this stories are true, and that new stories like this arise everyday.
They don't call Fuentes a genius for nothin'. This is one of my favorite books ever. If I could give it ten stars I would! It's written as multiple short stories with a central thread of which each story exploits a different aspect. Highly recommend.
Just for starters, imagine a man who conjures a different woman to devour for each course of his meal, a racist border patrol officer, a man whose lover is his daughter-in-law, and a woman thwarted in her determination to prove her theory that Mexicans are lazy. Now, add vivid and compelling prose. Now add the discomfort of absorbing a lambasting of the ethics, hypocrisy, power, and destructiveness of your home nation. This is a must read novel, published in 1995 and very relevant today.
It was the late dictator Porfirio Diaz who once enunciated the great theme of 20th Century Mexican literature: "Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States!" To an extent That few Norteamericanos realize, the interpenetration of Mexico and the United States in a strange kind of yin-yang embrace is also becoming a major fact of life on both sides of the border. Living as I do in Los Angeles, a city that is soon to become one of the major Hispanic cities of the world, I see it
4.5*This book is an exploration of the relations between the two neighbor countries, The United States of America and Mexico, from Carlos Fuentes perspective, that is to say a Mexican perspective. Of course he is subjective and taking sides with his fellow Mexicans, but that was to be expected. The Crystal Frontier is about things that both unite and separate these two countries ideologically, gastronomically, behaviorally, historically and so on. Under the hat name of a novel, Fuentes
More a collection of stories than a novel, the book achieves in fiction what The Late, Great Mexican Border does with non-fiction. Fuentes account is more thoughtful, and his style ranges from outrageously comic to bitterly shameful. A Mexican food critic visits 'The American Grill': "...de la botella de salsa de chile no salio la salsa misma, sino un pequeno hombrecito, diminuto pero distinguible por su traje de charro, su sombrero de mariachi y sus bigotes zapatistas: --Paron -- dijo
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