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Aztec
Aztec is the extraordinary story of the last and greatest native civilization of North America. Told in the words of one of the most robust and memorable characters in modern fiction, Mixtli-Dark Cloud, Aztec reveals the very depths of Aztec civilization from the peak and feather-banner splendor of the Aztec Capital of Tenochtitlan to the arrival of Hernán Cortes and his conquistadores, and their destruction of the Aztec empire. The story of Mixtli is the story of the Aztecs themselves---a compelling, epic tale of heroic dignity and a colossal civilization's rise and fall.
754 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
1900 people are currently reading
23186 people want to read
About the author
Gary Jennings
139 books453 followersGary Jennings led a paradoxically picaresque life. On one hand, he was a man of acknowledged intellect and erudition. His novels were international best sellers, praised around the world for their stylish prose, lively wit and adventurously bawdy spirit. They were also massive - often topping 500,000 words - and widely acclaimed for the years of research he put into each one, both in libraries and in the field.
Jennings served in the Korean War, where he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal- a decoration rarely given to soldier-reporters- and a personal citation by South Korean President Syngman Rhee for his efforts on behalf of war orphans.
Where the erudition came from, however, was something of a mystery.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/garyje...
Jennings served in the Korean War, where he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal- a decoration rarely given to soldier-reporters- and a personal citation by South Korean President Syngman Rhee for his efforts on behalf of war orphans.
Where the erudition came from, however, was something of a mystery.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/garyje...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,304 reviews
May 28, 2012
if a guilty pleasure can elevate itself to the level of transformative epic, and then come plummeting back down to farce and depravity, and then up again, and then down again, and around and around and around... then this is that novel. there are many things to enjoy. some enjoyments are guilt-free: the sense of wonder, the lavish details, the description of native civilizations - so many aspects of so many cultures, all so clearly well-researched and engagingly depicted. some enjoyments inspire only guilt: the numerous, excitedly engorged accounts of atrocity and bloodshed, the overripe sex scenes that become almost ridiculous in their frequency and comically graphic, often grotesque detail. it is a jacobean soap opera writ large, candide placed in his trashiest adventure yet: the always-horny narrator moving constantly through varied scenes of destruction, despair, bawdy comedies of manner, periods of learning and excitement, times of cold anger and lingering resentment, from youth to infirmity. doom and good fortune are doled out plentifully.
reading this in the central plaza of Oaxaca during a sunny week preceding the Day of the Dead made the experience a vital one, and a really embarrassing one as well. i couldn't keep my eyes out of the book; "it's really well-researched" was my mantra whenever my friends would look at it with doubtful, critical eyes. it was impossible to earnestly defend such a spectacle of michael bay proportions. just being seen reading it made me feel like such a common tourist. it's an indefensible book, a combination of longest boy's adventure ever and a jack-off book of epic proportion. it is also lots and lots of guilty fun.
reading this in the central plaza of Oaxaca during a sunny week preceding the Day of the Dead made the experience a vital one, and a really embarrassing one as well. i couldn't keep my eyes out of the book; "it's really well-researched" was my mantra whenever my friends would look at it with doubtful, critical eyes. it was impossible to earnestly defend such a spectacle of michael bay proportions. just being seen reading it made me feel like such a common tourist. it's an indefensible book, a combination of longest boy's adventure ever and a jack-off book of epic proportion. it is also lots and lots of guilty fun.
September 27, 2021
Sifting Through the Wreckage
The 16th century Spanish Invasion of the Americas was a disaster that spread with the speed of a tsunami. Certainly so for the native populations which were killed en masse or enslaved. But also for the conquerors (and the rest of us) who lost the accumulated wisdom and beauty of highly sophisticated civilisations which only lacked the technology of violence and the viral antibodies of their opponents.
Having destroyed these civilisations, the Spanish immediately set to work trying to recover their characters and histories. Testimonies of survivors were recoded, languages documented, and cultural practices commented upon. Eventually these led to archaeological and sociobiological investigations. One hopes that at least some of these efforts were prompted by a growing guilt that the extinct cultures had been misunderstood and underestimated through the prevailing prejudices of the time.
But the problem the Spanish friars had persists: how does one reconstruct the existential reality of these defunct civilisations from the diverse fragments of evidence, residue really, that are available? What did the world look like to these ancient people? What were their presumptions about themselves and their societies? What made life worthwhile (or hellish) for them?
These are questions that go beyond the ability of social sciences or academic history to answer. Only fiction can bring together the myriad factual threads into some sort of coherent narrative. The art of creating this kind of narrative is tricky. It can easily degenerate into a completely artificial adventure with an essentially pre-historic hero as the object of projection of modern concerns and causes. Or it can become an essentially illiterate mask for the promotion of various theories about the lost worlds.
Gary Jennings was a master of historical narrative who could navigate his way through the Scylla of fantasy and the Charybdis of the bad science fiction. He is able to take the bits of theology, politics, law, social organisation, personal status, even diet, that have been gleaned through centuries of research and make them a comprehensible whole. He uses informed imagination to fill in the gaps. The literary device Jennings employs, the sworn testimony by an elderly survivor to the local bishop and his scribes at the command of the King, allows the development of numerous themes without the need to incorporate relevant background into a separate story-line.
The result is a kind of intimacy with the Aztec culture that is remarkable. The real value of the book, I suggest, is the exposure by contrast of one’s own moral, social and political presumptions. The Aztecs were a rather sophisticated and diverse people who developed an effective, interesting, often instructive, sometimes inspiring programme for coping in and with the world. Jenning’s books, therefore, seem to me essential for anyone interested in Mesoamerican history and sociology.
The 16th century Spanish Invasion of the Americas was a disaster that spread with the speed of a tsunami. Certainly so for the native populations which were killed en masse or enslaved. But also for the conquerors (and the rest of us) who lost the accumulated wisdom and beauty of highly sophisticated civilisations which only lacked the technology of violence and the viral antibodies of their opponents.
Having destroyed these civilisations, the Spanish immediately set to work trying to recover their characters and histories. Testimonies of survivors were recoded, languages documented, and cultural practices commented upon. Eventually these led to archaeological and sociobiological investigations. One hopes that at least some of these efforts were prompted by a growing guilt that the extinct cultures had been misunderstood and underestimated through the prevailing prejudices of the time.
But the problem the Spanish friars had persists: how does one reconstruct the existential reality of these defunct civilisations from the diverse fragments of evidence, residue really, that are available? What did the world look like to these ancient people? What were their presumptions about themselves and their societies? What made life worthwhile (or hellish) for them?
These are questions that go beyond the ability of social sciences or academic history to answer. Only fiction can bring together the myriad factual threads into some sort of coherent narrative. The art of creating this kind of narrative is tricky. It can easily degenerate into a completely artificial adventure with an essentially pre-historic hero as the object of projection of modern concerns and causes. Or it can become an essentially illiterate mask for the promotion of various theories about the lost worlds.
Gary Jennings was a master of historical narrative who could navigate his way through the Scylla of fantasy and the Charybdis of the bad science fiction. He is able to take the bits of theology, politics, law, social organisation, personal status, even diet, that have been gleaned through centuries of research and make them a comprehensible whole. He uses informed imagination to fill in the gaps. The literary device Jennings employs, the sworn testimony by an elderly survivor to the local bishop and his scribes at the command of the King, allows the development of numerous themes without the need to incorporate relevant background into a separate story-line.
The result is a kind of intimacy with the Aztec culture that is remarkable. The real value of the book, I suggest, is the exposure by contrast of one’s own moral, social and political presumptions. The Aztecs were a rather sophisticated and diverse people who developed an effective, interesting, often instructive, sometimes inspiring programme for coping in and with the world. Jenning’s books, therefore, seem to me essential for anyone interested in Mesoamerican history and sociology.
April 12, 2010
Did you ever wish that Boogie Nights was a book set in the time of the fall of the Aztec empire? No? Well, don't tell Gary Jennings that because I'm pretty sure it would hurt his feelings. It's not really something I would have thought you'd need to be specific about, but kids are so "creative" these days. This story isn't about Marky Mark’s penis or Montezuma's penis, either, because you might find that too predictable. It's about the penis of this other dude who is able to "visit" with exotic tribes and still make it back in time for the major happenings of Spanish conquest. I find it apropos to quote the GR summary of the book to give you a basic outline of what you might expect to find "under the covers" of this novel. This was obviously written by someone who decided not to actually read the book, but wanted to guess what it was about (quotes added for emphasis):
Here is the "extraordinary" story of the last and "greatest" native civilization of North America, at the "height" of its "magnificent" (sic). It is a story told in the words of one of the most "robust" and memorable characters in modern fiction. His name is Mixtil--Dark Cloud. "Rising" above his lowly station, Mixtil distinguishes himself as a scribe and later a "warrior." He earns a fortune as a traveling merchant, "exploring" every part of what the Aztecs called The One World--the far lands of mountains, jungles, deserts, seacoasts.
(*wink, wink, nudge, nudge*) I like the extended euphemisms. I didn’t realize before that the Aztecs referred to the female anatomy as The One World. So much is lost in translation.
The best thing about this book was the woman who gave it to me. I was working in this law office with four lawyers (all male) and four assistants (all female). I had just moved into a new house, and a woman I knew decided to throw me this "house-warming shower," which was a pretty painful experience for me but well-meaning of her. The game she came up with (like ya do for a "shower") was that everyone had to give me a book I would hate. This stressed out all the attendees (those who were actually my friends) because many of them are friends with me only because of books, so they felt like they had to bring a book I would actually love. It turned into a situation where all these women (men aren't allowed to come to showers, don't you know?) were bringing me their favorite books in the entire world, leaving me obligated to read them.
So, I worked with this one woman, who in many ways was an average, comfortable mom type. In a lot of other ways, she reminded me of a character from the Addams Family, though. She had this white streak in her black hair, which was cut into a mullet. She also had this way of shuffling around the office that was pretty unique. You know how lego people walk by moving their whole bodies? It was kind of like that. Also, she had the Addams Family theme song as her ring tone. I never asked her about it, but I figured she made a lot of style choices based on that show. Also, she had a speech disorder where she replaced her the 'r' sound with the 'w' sound. When I first met her, I honestly thought she had an accent. At one point the other assistants and I were out to lunch, and I asked her, "So, where are you from?" She replied, "California." Anyway, she couldn’t attend the house-warming shower but gave me this book at work, saying, "This is my favorite book in the entire world, and I haven’t been able to find another copy, so I’m giving you my copy." No pressure, right?
It turns out that unfortunately this book is not out of print, though I did return her copy to her when I was finished reading it, just, you know, to make sure she didn’t miss it.
While I think Boogie Nights is a great movie, there are some other times and places to which I feel it might not translate well. So that we’re not relying on assumptions anymore, I’ll state explicitly the places that I can think of where it would, imao, be a drag: pioneer days, Middle Earth, the Vatican, jungles (too obvious), the Soviet Union, the suffrage movement or second-wave feminism, the Civil War, any journey by land (Oregon trail, Lewis & Clark, Marco Polo - come on, people, there are kids reading these books!), or a bio pic about a someone leading or ministering to the disenfranchised (Martin Luther King, Jr.; Gandhi; Mother Teresa – not appropriate). I’m leaving a lot of options open, still, if you’d like to re-make Boogie Nights. For example, space would totally work, as would reality TV and other entertainment genres (music, game shows, theater, etc.). Bill Clinton, likewise, has absolutely set us up for a political re-make. See? I’m not being stingy, just proactive.
On the other hand, if you’d like to hear a fictional Aztec talk for almost 800 pages about his penis, then this is the book for you.
Here is the "extraordinary" story of the last and "greatest" native civilization of North America, at the "height" of its "magnificent" (sic). It is a story told in the words of one of the most "robust" and memorable characters in modern fiction. His name is Mixtil--Dark Cloud. "Rising" above his lowly station, Mixtil distinguishes himself as a scribe and later a "warrior." He earns a fortune as a traveling merchant, "exploring" every part of what the Aztecs called The One World--the far lands of mountains, jungles, deserts, seacoasts.
(*wink, wink, nudge, nudge*) I like the extended euphemisms. I didn’t realize before that the Aztecs referred to the female anatomy as The One World. So much is lost in translation.
The best thing about this book was the woman who gave it to me. I was working in this law office with four lawyers (all male) and four assistants (all female). I had just moved into a new house, and a woman I knew decided to throw me this "house-warming shower," which was a pretty painful experience for me but well-meaning of her. The game she came up with (like ya do for a "shower") was that everyone had to give me a book I would hate. This stressed out all the attendees (those who were actually my friends) because many of them are friends with me only because of books, so they felt like they had to bring a book I would actually love. It turned into a situation where all these women (men aren't allowed to come to showers, don't you know?) were bringing me their favorite books in the entire world, leaving me obligated to read them.
So, I worked with this one woman, who in many ways was an average, comfortable mom type. In a lot of other ways, she reminded me of a character from the Addams Family, though. She had this white streak in her black hair, which was cut into a mullet. She also had this way of shuffling around the office that was pretty unique. You know how lego people walk by moving their whole bodies? It was kind of like that. Also, she had the Addams Family theme song as her ring tone. I never asked her about it, but I figured she made a lot of style choices based on that show. Also, she had a speech disorder where she replaced her the 'r' sound with the 'w' sound. When I first met her, I honestly thought she had an accent. At one point the other assistants and I were out to lunch, and I asked her, "So, where are you from?" She replied, "California." Anyway, she couldn’t attend the house-warming shower but gave me this book at work, saying, "This is my favorite book in the entire world, and I haven’t been able to find another copy, so I’m giving you my copy." No pressure, right?
It turns out that unfortunately this book is not out of print, though I did return her copy to her when I was finished reading it, just, you know, to make sure she didn’t miss it.
While I think Boogie Nights is a great movie, there are some other times and places to which I feel it might not translate well. So that we’re not relying on assumptions anymore, I’ll state explicitly the places that I can think of where it would, imao, be a drag: pioneer days, Middle Earth, the Vatican, jungles (too obvious), the Soviet Union, the suffrage movement or second-wave feminism, the Civil War, any journey by land (Oregon trail, Lewis & Clark, Marco Polo - come on, people, there are kids reading these books!), or a bio pic about a someone leading or ministering to the disenfranchised (Martin Luther King, Jr.; Gandhi; Mother Teresa – not appropriate). I’m leaving a lot of options open, still, if you’d like to re-make Boogie Nights. For example, space would totally work, as would reality TV and other entertainment genres (music, game shows, theater, etc.). Bill Clinton, likewise, has absolutely set us up for a political re-make. See? I’m not being stingy, just proactive.
On the other hand, if you’d like to hear a fictional Aztec talk for almost 800 pages about his penis, then this is the book for you.
February 1, 2008
(this review from my website)
Whew! Man, it's been over two months since I've made any updates and this behemoth of a novel is to blame. As some of you may already be aware, I'm not all that keen on marathon reads.
Losing a month out of your life for something like Stephen King's Insomnia will do that to you.
It's for that reason that after buying Aztec it sat on my shelf for several months before deciding to venture into it.
Well, two months later I can look back on this as a time travel trip
well worth the effort. This review could easily be placed in any of my pages. Horror, for the multitudes of human sacrifices and torture; Mystery/Suspense, for assorted intrigue and adventures; even Sci-fi/Fantasy, for the total immersion into an alien culture.
Aztec is all of these, and I must warn you, that apart from being a wonderful history lesson (an Aztec recounts his life story to the conquering Spanish officials) , this novel is not for the squeamish or easily offended. There are graphic depictions of human sacrifice and torture, and explicit and illicit sex scenes.
So now you know what you're in for. Highly recommended, and best read during a heatwave.
Whew! Man, it's been over two months since I've made any updates and this behemoth of a novel is to blame. As some of you may already be aware, I'm not all that keen on marathon reads.
Losing a month out of your life for something like Stephen King's Insomnia will do that to you.
It's for that reason that after buying Aztec it sat on my shelf for several months before deciding to venture into it.
Well, two months later I can look back on this as a time travel trip
well worth the effort. This review could easily be placed in any of my pages. Horror, for the multitudes of human sacrifices and torture; Mystery/Suspense, for assorted intrigue and adventures; even Sci-fi/Fantasy, for the total immersion into an alien culture.
Aztec is all of these, and I must warn you, that apart from being a wonderful history lesson (an Aztec recounts his life story to the conquering Spanish officials) , this novel is not for the squeamish or easily offended. There are graphic depictions of human sacrifice and torture, and explicit and illicit sex scenes.
So now you know what you're in for. Highly recommended, and best read during a heatwave.
June 20, 2007
This book is not for the faint of heart, but it is simply the best single novel that I have ever read.
Nothing is superfluous.
There is human sacrifice galore as well as graphic (and I mean graphic) violence and sexuality. However, the drama is top notch and there are times when you must stop reading because you are overwhelmed by the spectacle of the story.
I gave this book as an impulse buy to my mother for Christmas one year. I had no idea what it was like, I simply went by some fabulous blurbs on the cover and that she liked fat historical novels. I figured she had read lots of stories about Mary Queen of Scots and probably hadn't read one about the history of Mexico before the Spanish Conquistadors.
I was right about that part, but had no idea what I was truly giving my mother.
She was astounded by the gift, as was my father.
The next year at Christmas she gave me the book back, but by that time it had gone through at least six pairs of hands.
I was shocked when I read it, but the story still is seared in my brain.
Nothing is superfluous.
There is human sacrifice galore as well as graphic (and I mean graphic) violence and sexuality. However, the drama is top notch and there are times when you must stop reading because you are overwhelmed by the spectacle of the story.
I gave this book as an impulse buy to my mother for Christmas one year. I had no idea what it was like, I simply went by some fabulous blurbs on the cover and that she liked fat historical novels. I figured she had read lots of stories about Mary Queen of Scots and probably hadn't read one about the history of Mexico before the Spanish Conquistadors.
I was right about that part, but had no idea what I was truly giving my mother.
She was astounded by the gift, as was my father.
The next year at Christmas she gave me the book back, but by that time it had gone through at least six pairs of hands.
I was shocked when I read it, but the story still is seared in my brain.
November 26, 2024
Comedy, drama, pathos, sex, violence, satire and political commentary!
In a word, Jennings' monumental work on the Aztec empire is outstanding. A simultaneous success on multiple fronts, AZTEC is a gut-wrenching drama, a romance, an epic family saga, a titillating R-rated tale that pulls absolutely no punches over blood, guts, gore and sex, a history of the downfall of one of the world's major historical cultures and, finally, a scathing political indictment of the Roman Catholic Church and the imperial policies of 15th century Spain! Wow!
Jennings discloses this tale through the first-person narration of Mixtli, an Aztec scribe and lord, held prisoner by the local bishop, Juan de Zumárraga, for the purpose of providing accurate information and history from the local point of view to King of Spain. The manner in which Mixtli reveals his story makes very clear Jennings' disgust over the rape, pillage, subjugation and ultimate destruction of the Aztec people, their culture and their religion by the Roman Catholic Church and the military forces of Hernando Cortés. But Jennings also allows Mixtli full rein when it comes to expressing his dismay over the Aztec's own responsibilities and failures - the division of Mexico into near feudal mini-nations that allowed Cortés to pick them off, one tiny piece at a time, and through political maneuvering to set one nation against another; the spying and machinations of Malintzin, Aztec Mexico's own Mata Hari; and the vague, ineffective leadership of a procrastinating, equivocating Montezuma who failed time and time again to grasp opportunities that would have repelled the Spanish invasion once and for all!
In the foreground of this magnificent, sprawling tapestry of Aztec history, Mixtli tells his own family story beginning with his birth as the son of a common warrior, his education as a scribe, his accumulation of magnificent wealth and, finally, his ascension to the position of Aztec lord and valued government councilor. And what a story it is - the sordid, tempestuous details of his incestuous love affair with his sister; the extraordinary manner in which he overcomes his extreme nearsightedness; his incredible mastery of dialect and language; the all-consuming love he held for his wife, Zyanya, and his daughter, Nochipa; his stupidity and utter blindness in failing to realize how deeply Zyanya's twin sister loved him as well; and, his exciting travels as an itinerant merchant and spy across Aztec Mexico and the Mayan empire in Central America. Mixtli's ongoing battle and gruesome revenge on Chimáli, his one time best friend and ultimately his darkest enemy, will leave you slack-jawed with amazement!
AZTEC is neither a short read nor a simple read! But you'll find it all here - comedy, drama, pathos, sex, violence, satire and political commentary. I guarantee you'll find that with every passing page, Jennings will pull you more and more deeply into Mixtli's magnificent but brutal Aztec world and, when you reach the final page, you'll be sorry it's over! Undoubtedly, a 5-star achievement!
Paul Weiss
In a word, Jennings' monumental work on the Aztec empire is outstanding. A simultaneous success on multiple fronts, AZTEC is a gut-wrenching drama, a romance, an epic family saga, a titillating R-rated tale that pulls absolutely no punches over blood, guts, gore and sex, a history of the downfall of one of the world's major historical cultures and, finally, a scathing political indictment of the Roman Catholic Church and the imperial policies of 15th century Spain! Wow!
Jennings discloses this tale through the first-person narration of Mixtli, an Aztec scribe and lord, held prisoner by the local bishop, Juan de Zumárraga, for the purpose of providing accurate information and history from the local point of view to King of Spain. The manner in which Mixtli reveals his story makes very clear Jennings' disgust over the rape, pillage, subjugation and ultimate destruction of the Aztec people, their culture and their religion by the Roman Catholic Church and the military forces of Hernando Cortés. But Jennings also allows Mixtli full rein when it comes to expressing his dismay over the Aztec's own responsibilities and failures - the division of Mexico into near feudal mini-nations that allowed Cortés to pick them off, one tiny piece at a time, and through political maneuvering to set one nation against another; the spying and machinations of Malintzin, Aztec Mexico's own Mata Hari; and the vague, ineffective leadership of a procrastinating, equivocating Montezuma who failed time and time again to grasp opportunities that would have repelled the Spanish invasion once and for all!
In the foreground of this magnificent, sprawling tapestry of Aztec history, Mixtli tells his own family story beginning with his birth as the son of a common warrior, his education as a scribe, his accumulation of magnificent wealth and, finally, his ascension to the position of Aztec lord and valued government councilor. And what a story it is - the sordid, tempestuous details of his incestuous love affair with his sister; the extraordinary manner in which he overcomes his extreme nearsightedness; his incredible mastery of dialect and language; the all-consuming love he held for his wife, Zyanya, and his daughter, Nochipa; his stupidity and utter blindness in failing to realize how deeply Zyanya's twin sister loved him as well; and, his exciting travels as an itinerant merchant and spy across Aztec Mexico and the Mayan empire in Central America. Mixtli's ongoing battle and gruesome revenge on Chimáli, his one time best friend and ultimately his darkest enemy, will leave you slack-jawed with amazement!
AZTEC is neither a short read nor a simple read! But you'll find it all here - comedy, drama, pathos, sex, violence, satire and political commentary. I guarantee you'll find that with every passing page, Jennings will pull you more and more deeply into Mixtli's magnificent but brutal Aztec world and, when you reach the final page, you'll be sorry it's over! Undoubtedly, a 5-star achievement!
Paul Weiss
August 1, 2013
*CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS*
Ok, here is why the book isn't good and why you shouldn't read it.
Do not read it if you're actually interested in the Aztecs or if you know about the Aztec culture, because the "so well researched" historical facts are wrong. Just the way the sacrifices are depicted is wrong! How can you get that wrong!? The Aztecs didn't break and split the ribcage open to get to the heart, they went through the STOMACH to tear the heart out! If I had the book here with me I would quote it, but it says something like :
The Tlatoani (king) was like "yeah I can totally tear his heart out like a pro", so he starts stabbing the dude in the chest and break the ribs, then slides the obsidian blade in an angle to make a bigger gap, then he tears the heart out.
WRONG!
Moving on... What the hell is wrong with the author? There's a sex scene every 20 pages! And it's not shy and romantic sex. We have to deal with incest between the main character and his sister (15 and 13 years old), then a princess raping men, then raping a woman. I could deal with that ok, even though I was getting fed up with it, but what actually got me wild is the pedophile sex scene between the main character and his very very young slave boy! I cannot read through a passage that graphically talks about how a kid was moving his ass to pleasure a guy. This is WRONG, way too far Jennings! And I don't understand why people don't comment on it more in their reviews. And by the way the Aztecs weren't the ancient Greeks or Romans!
Seriously, can you imagine if in the year 2400 an author wrote a book about nowadays western world, and what if it took 12 years of "research" to write it, and what if the only thing they came up with was "westerners were all doing cocaine and having sex in clubs"? Well that's what he did with the Aztec culture. An amazing culture reduced to sex with prostitutes and little boys having their genitals cut off for no reason.
Another point that actually annoyed me. The book is about the old main character telling his story to Spanish priests years after the conquest. Every single time there's a sex scene, the main character finishes it by saying "oh sorry mister priest, is it too much for you? can you not handle a bit of Tepuli(Aztec word for "ding-dong" apparently)?". The first time it happens, I thought it was funny, the second time was ok... but after the 10th time it gets really old and annoying. And it goes on and on... Plus the Aztecs were very pious and strict with their morals. For example being drunk on the street meant death by stoning. I really don't think anyone would actually brag about having an erection whislt they were drawing a woman who was being raped by another woman right in front of their face.
To conclude on this review I would say that 12 years of writing and researching to come up with something inaccurate is laughable, I would even dare say, 12 years of writing to come up with a very poorly plotted porn novel is outrageous!
To whoever says this in an amazing historical novel, and to all of you who are paid to review books... Seriously? 5 stars? Really? Setting a porn novel in the Aztec times doesn't make it historical.
If you ever wondered what it would be like to read a completely inaccurate historical porn novel, well there you go, you have it ;-) Enjoy!
Ok, here is why the book isn't good and why you shouldn't read it.
Do not read it if you're actually interested in the Aztecs or if you know about the Aztec culture, because the "so well researched" historical facts are wrong. Just the way the sacrifices are depicted is wrong! How can you get that wrong!? The Aztecs didn't break and split the ribcage open to get to the heart, they went through the STOMACH to tear the heart out! If I had the book here with me I would quote it, but it says something like :
The Tlatoani (king) was like "yeah I can totally tear his heart out like a pro", so he starts stabbing the dude in the chest and break the ribs, then slides the obsidian blade in an angle to make a bigger gap, then he tears the heart out.
WRONG!
Moving on... What the hell is wrong with the author? There's a sex scene every 20 pages! And it's not shy and romantic sex. We have to deal with incest between the main character and his sister (15 and 13 years old), then a princess raping men, then raping a woman. I could deal with that ok, even though I was getting fed up with it, but what actually got me wild is the pedophile sex scene between the main character and his very very young slave boy! I cannot read through a passage that graphically talks about how a kid was moving his ass to pleasure a guy. This is WRONG, way too far Jennings! And I don't understand why people don't comment on it more in their reviews. And by the way the Aztecs weren't the ancient Greeks or Romans!
Seriously, can you imagine if in the year 2400 an author wrote a book about nowadays western world, and what if it took 12 years of "research" to write it, and what if the only thing they came up with was "westerners were all doing cocaine and having sex in clubs"? Well that's what he did with the Aztec culture. An amazing culture reduced to sex with prostitutes and little boys having their genitals cut off for no reason.
Another point that actually annoyed me. The book is about the old main character telling his story to Spanish priests years after the conquest. Every single time there's a sex scene, the main character finishes it by saying "oh sorry mister priest, is it too much for you? can you not handle a bit of Tepuli(Aztec word for "ding-dong" apparently)?". The first time it happens, I thought it was funny, the second time was ok... but after the 10th time it gets really old and annoying. And it goes on and on... Plus the Aztecs were very pious and strict with their morals. For example being drunk on the street meant death by stoning. I really don't think anyone would actually brag about having an erection whislt they were drawing a woman who was being raped by another woman right in front of their face.
To conclude on this review I would say that 12 years of writing and researching to come up with something inaccurate is laughable, I would even dare say, 12 years of writing to come up with a very poorly plotted porn novel is outrageous!
To whoever says this in an amazing historical novel, and to all of you who are paid to review books... Seriously? 5 stars? Really? Setting a porn novel in the Aztec times doesn't make it historical.
If you ever wondered what it would be like to read a completely inaccurate historical porn novel, well there you go, you have it ;-) Enjoy!
July 24, 2011
Jennings was one hell of a storyteller:
Raptor
was a thrilling and transgressive post-Roman romp, and
The Journeyer
fleshed out the eastward travels and adventures of Marco Polo with an exotic embellishment, a sexy and spicy pomp; but Aztec was my introduction to his colorful and hot-blooded novels, and remains a fond favorite. Sure, this overlong confession given by a captured Aztec aristocrat to his monastic interlocutors in the aftermath of Great Montezuma's empire being flushed down the toilet is soaked in violence, depravity, hyperbole and blasphemy; sure, there's an obsession with incest and fluid-filled sex, between all, for all, in the most wickedly imaginable variations; sure, the violence is visceral, including nasty flesh-melting-for-sculpting tortures that curdle the contents of the stomach; sure, the calmly launched barbs by the interogatee that either etiolate or inflame the shocked visages of his Catholic captors, driving them to cross themselves and cross their legs*, occur with a routine frequency that eventually elbows tiresome in the ribs; in the end, Aztec is a long, thick page-turner detailing a marvelously exotic, rich, and colourful Aztec society that sucks the reader in like a turbo-charged Hoover and inveigles a marrow-melting rage at the Conquistadores for so cruelly extinguishing such a zany, ziggurat-dominated Pre-Columbian soap opera.
*My mom gave me this book just post-puberty, without a clue as to its content. Good grief, what a overload to the adolescent system this puppy turned out to be. Mesoamerican historical fiction porn at its absolute peak entertainment value. (Simulates Obelix tapping at his forehead) Those Aztecs were crazy!
*My mom gave me this book just post-puberty, without a clue as to its content. Good grief, what a overload to the adolescent system this puppy turned out to be. Mesoamerican historical fiction porn at its absolute peak entertainment value. (Simulates Obelix tapping at his forehead) Those Aztecs were crazy!
July 19, 2015
This book was...quite a book. It's the story of the titularly Aztec guy named Mixtli (I guess they were actually called Mexica but somewhere along the way they picked up the name Aztec which derives from their mythological ancestral origin place Aztlan, I picked up like a thousand facts like this from this book and it hurt my brain) from his weird childhood to weird adulthood to weird old age. Along the way he extensively travels Mexico and gets involved in dozens of adventures and tragedies, most of which culminate with pretty intense and bizarre violence and or/sex. Thankfully as gross and weird as this book can get most of it is directly related to the plot and somehow didn't seem gratuitous or superfluous. I think. Maybe. At the very least it added to the pervasive sense of being in this old, dead world that didn't know or care that Judeo-Christian based value systems even existed.
All of that good clean stuff really didn't impress on me as much as all the incredibly thorough and vivid detail of this destroyed world. Mixtli travels to dozens of settlements ranging from a handful of decrepit huts deep in the jungle to the shining limestone of Tenochtitlan and the people in them are just as varied as the places they inhabit. One people I particularly liked I think were named the Raramuri, they were people that lived in caves, were constantly running everywhere and hunted with their bare hands, and would nominate the new village shaman/leader/doctor/whatever by just eating a bunch of drugs and then whoever woke up first from the stupor and said they saw the spirits would be the new leader. Best of all, this person could be male or female. And these people took up like 5 pages of this book. It's so full of this stuff that you can just get lost in it.
This book also boasted a protagonist that's pretty different from the usual fare. He's not a hero or even really an anti-hero...he's just kind of a particularly smart and adventurous guy that likes to travel and do it with people a lot. He's capable of very touching emotion, but he can also be a jerk. And he also has a severe visual impairment. So again, not really your typical main character guy, but I ended up really liking Mixtli Dark-Cloud, and not just because he had an awesome name. Also the rest of the characters in this book are plenty colorful in and of themselves. Just looking back I have to remember Jadestone Doll, Cozcatl, Blood Glutton, Always and of course the worst guy ever Hernan Cortes.
Seriously, what a horrible person, both in life and this book. Seeing him as a person brought to life in fiction just really made clear what a greedy, mean, xenophobic, violent, sociopathic douche Cortes was. He had an insane grip on the dream of exploiting these people and he managed to pull it off through a combination of weaselly manipulation, intimidation, and outright violence. Despite the fixation most people have on the human sacrifices (which, I mean, is obviously understandable) these people had a beauty and nobility to their culture as well as a complicated and long-developed tradition in law, custom, warfare, religion and all that stuff. Even when they were ripping people's hearts out they were just doing it because they thought it would keep one of their many mercurial gods from getting pissy enough to wipe them out. Even the people that were killed were seen as being given an honorable death and position in the afterlife. All of this Cortes pretty much single-handedly destroyed, whether it was through the spread of disease, conquest, or colonization.
I guess the point that I'm trying to make here is that a great function this book performed for me was helping me eliminate more of my own xenophobia for the Aztec people. I mean, it might sound absurd when you're talking about a civilization that's been gone for hundreds of years that no one will ever have to interact with but it was nice to see them as human faces instead of these weird sadistic people that pretty much got rightfully exterminated (this is just what I gleaned from my outdated American textbooks in school.) It's not easy to bring this kind of alien world to life in such a potent, extensive way that's also accessible to people from our time, and do it in a way that forces me to warn all of my nice older lady coworkers away from this book.
All of that good clean stuff really didn't impress on me as much as all the incredibly thorough and vivid detail of this destroyed world. Mixtli travels to dozens of settlements ranging from a handful of decrepit huts deep in the jungle to the shining limestone of Tenochtitlan and the people in them are just as varied as the places they inhabit. One people I particularly liked I think were named the Raramuri, they were people that lived in caves, were constantly running everywhere and hunted with their bare hands, and would nominate the new village shaman/leader/doctor/whatever by just eating a bunch of drugs and then whoever woke up first from the stupor and said they saw the spirits would be the new leader. Best of all, this person could be male or female. And these people took up like 5 pages of this book. It's so full of this stuff that you can just get lost in it.
This book also boasted a protagonist that's pretty different from the usual fare. He's not a hero or even really an anti-hero...he's just kind of a particularly smart and adventurous guy that likes to travel and do it with people a lot. He's capable of very touching emotion, but he can also be a jerk. And he also has a severe visual impairment. So again, not really your typical main character guy, but I ended up really liking Mixtli Dark-Cloud, and not just because he had an awesome name. Also the rest of the characters in this book are plenty colorful in and of themselves. Just looking back I have to remember Jadestone Doll, Cozcatl, Blood Glutton, Always and of course the worst guy ever Hernan Cortes.
Seriously, what a horrible person, both in life and this book. Seeing him as a person brought to life in fiction just really made clear what a greedy, mean, xenophobic, violent, sociopathic douche Cortes was. He had an insane grip on the dream of exploiting these people and he managed to pull it off through a combination of weaselly manipulation, intimidation, and outright violence. Despite the fixation most people have on the human sacrifices (which, I mean, is obviously understandable) these people had a beauty and nobility to their culture as well as a complicated and long-developed tradition in law, custom, warfare, religion and all that stuff. Even when they were ripping people's hearts out they were just doing it because they thought it would keep one of their many mercurial gods from getting pissy enough to wipe them out. Even the people that were killed were seen as being given an honorable death and position in the afterlife. All of this Cortes pretty much single-handedly destroyed, whether it was through the spread of disease, conquest, or colonization.
I guess the point that I'm trying to make here is that a great function this book performed for me was helping me eliminate more of my own xenophobia for the Aztec people. I mean, it might sound absurd when you're talking about a civilization that's been gone for hundreds of years that no one will ever have to interact with but it was nice to see them as human faces instead of these weird sadistic people that pretty much got rightfully exterminated (this is just what I gleaned from my outdated American textbooks in school.) It's not easy to bring this kind of alien world to life in such a potent, extensive way that's also accessible to people from our time, and do it in a way that forces me to warn all of my nice older lady coworkers away from this book.
August 6, 2019
This was the first Gary Jennings book I ever read--and I was hooked forever! Jennings is one of my favorite authors and Aztec remains one of my top 5 all time great books.
Aztec is a compelling story, unusual in that it is told from the point of view of one of the vanquished, rather than by the conquerors. Mixtli is one of the most memorable characters in fiction. He's noble, he's honest, he sees his own faults and those of the society he's part of. Through his eyes we see not only the grandeur of the Aztec civilization but also its corruption and shocking practices. We witness nobility and depravity, and finally the brutal destruction of a culture, as seen by one who lived it.
When you read a Gary Jennings book, you are transported to the world he writes about. He was so masterful with his settings and characters, and so knowledgeable of his subjects that for the duration of the book, the reader feels out of place in his own world. When you finish this book, you'll feel you've lived in the Aztec world, and experienced its heartbreaking downfall. A world in which the Spanish are the savages and the society they destroyed, the true nobility.
An unforgettable book.
One caveat: Gary Jennings did not write for the squeamish. His books contain graphic and sometimes bizarre violence, and graphic and sometimes bizarre sex.If you can't deal with such realities of life, better stick to Jane Austen. But you'll be missing out on some truly great reading.
Aztec is a compelling story, unusual in that it is told from the point of view of one of the vanquished, rather than by the conquerors. Mixtli is one of the most memorable characters in fiction. He's noble, he's honest, he sees his own faults and those of the society he's part of. Through his eyes we see not only the grandeur of the Aztec civilization but also its corruption and shocking practices. We witness nobility and depravity, and finally the brutal destruction of a culture, as seen by one who lived it.
When you read a Gary Jennings book, you are transported to the world he writes about. He was so masterful with his settings and characters, and so knowledgeable of his subjects that for the duration of the book, the reader feels out of place in his own world. When you finish this book, you'll feel you've lived in the Aztec world, and experienced its heartbreaking downfall. A world in which the Spanish are the savages and the society they destroyed, the true nobility.
An unforgettable book.
One caveat: Gary Jennings did not write for the squeamish. His books contain graphic and sometimes bizarre violence, and graphic and sometimes bizarre sex.If you can't deal with such realities of life, better stick to Jane Austen. But you'll be missing out on some truly great reading.
January 11, 2021
Cuando vi que los españoles salieron ya en la recta final del libro, comencé a temer que el libro fuera a terminar en un tremendo CONTINUARÁ, pero afortunadamente no fue así.
Estas son las cosas que más me gustaron del libro:
-Lo políticamente incorrecto que es,
-La violencia gráfica e hiperrealista que vemos en él, aunque en algunas pocas partes resulta exagerada, también hay momentos en que nos hace sentir que realmente estamos allí con el protagonista viendo lo que le sucede con nuestros propios ojos y sintiendo el peligro que representaba ser una persona (hombre o mujer) que viviera en esa época, una época en donde la vida humana realmente no valía nada,
-Siguiendo el punto anterior, este libro nos demuestra lo privilegiados que somos TODOS los que vivimos en esta época en sociedades occidentales, y creo que su lectura sería una buena enseñanza para esas generaciones de cristal que se victimizan por todo y creen que son oprimidos por enemigos invisibles y que están rodeados de personas con privilegios. Así que repito, en pleno siglo 21 todos somos privilegiados, y más esas generaciones que pueden quejarse por todo sin temor a ser reprimidos mediante la fuerza,
-Que es un libro autoconclusivo. Esto quiere decir que tiene un principio y un final. Esto me alegró de sobremanera, ya que al existir "continuaciones," yo me llegué a temer que el libro no fuera a tener final y que este llegara hasta leer las continuaciones. Afortunadamente no fue así
-Es increíble cómo el autor se las arregla para meter al protagonista en situaciones que página a página nos sorprenden como lectores, y cuando creías que ya no le podía pasar algo peor, nos recuerda la clásica frase que dice: "Las cosas siempre se pueden poner peor."
Aunque en las primeras páginas las descripciones puedan parecer abrumadoras o excesivas, al cabo del tiempo te acostumbras, y llegas a un punto en que la lectura comienza a fluir de manera muy rápida y muy natural.
Es por todas estas razones por las cuales yo le puse 5 de 5 estrellitas de calificación.
Dejo link a la mini-reseña que hice del libro cuando llevaba 100 páginas leídas.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Bnb...]
Y aquí un video donde hablo más a detalle sobre este libro después de terminarlo:
[https://youtu.be/8ZWG457XzfA]
Estas son las cosas que más me gustaron del libro:
-Lo políticamente incorrecto que es,
-La violencia gráfica e hiperrealista que vemos en él, aunque en algunas pocas partes resulta exagerada, también hay momentos en que nos hace sentir que realmente estamos allí con el protagonista viendo lo que le sucede con nuestros propios ojos y sintiendo el peligro que representaba ser una persona (hombre o mujer) que viviera en esa época, una época en donde la vida humana realmente no valía nada,
-Siguiendo el punto anterior, este libro nos demuestra lo privilegiados que somos TODOS los que vivimos en esta época en sociedades occidentales, y creo que su lectura sería una buena enseñanza para esas generaciones de cristal que se victimizan por todo y creen que son oprimidos por enemigos invisibles y que están rodeados de personas con privilegios. Así que repito, en pleno siglo 21 todos somos privilegiados, y más esas generaciones que pueden quejarse por todo sin temor a ser reprimidos mediante la fuerza,
-Que es un libro autoconclusivo. Esto quiere decir que tiene un principio y un final. Esto me alegró de sobremanera, ya que al existir "continuaciones," yo me llegué a temer que el libro no fuera a tener final y que este llegara hasta leer las continuaciones. Afortunadamente no fue así
-Es increíble cómo el autor se las arregla para meter al protagonista en situaciones que página a página nos sorprenden como lectores, y cuando creías que ya no le podía pasar algo peor, nos recuerda la clásica frase que dice: "Las cosas siempre se pueden poner peor."
Aunque en las primeras páginas las descripciones puedan parecer abrumadoras o excesivas, al cabo del tiempo te acostumbras, y llegas a un punto en que la lectura comienza a fluir de manera muy rápida y muy natural.
Es por todas estas razones por las cuales yo le puse 5 de 5 estrellitas de calificación.
Dejo link a la mini-reseña que hice del libro cuando llevaba 100 páginas leídas.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Bnb...]
Y aquí un video donde hablo más a detalle sobre este libro después de terminarlo:
[https://youtu.be/8ZWG457XzfA]
July 26, 2025
Il tempo dell’amore
La mia fascinazione per il Messico nacque qui
Dietro di noi si stendeva tutta l’America e tutto quello che io e Dean sapevamo della vita, e della vita sulla strada. Avevamo finalmente trovato la terra magica in fondo alla strada e non ce l’eravamo nemmeno immaginata, la portata di quella magia. «Pensa a questa gente che sta su tutta la notte» sussurrò Dean. «E pensa a questo grande continente che abbiamo davanti con le enormi montagne della Sierra Madre che abbiamo visto al cinema, e le giungle giù fino in fondo e un intero altopiano deserto grande quanto i nostri che scende dritto fino al Guatemala e Dio sa dove, uuu! Cosa facciamo?
…Un breve passo di montagna ci portò all’improvviso a una cima dalla quale si vedeva tutta Città del Messico adagiata nel suo cratere vulcanico. Vomitava fumi e vapori nelle prime luci del crepuscolo. Filammo giù e imboccammo l’Insurgentes Boulevard, dritti verso il cuore della città, il Reforma Boulevard. (*1)
E raggiunse l’apice quando dalla stazione di Indios Verdes prendemmo la corriera che ci portò fino a
Teotihuacan.
Fu lì che comprai una piccola terracotta e arrivato a casa la corredai delle parole che tanto mi avevano colpito. (*2)
Trenta anni più tardi, con un entusiasmo non certo paragonabile a quello di allora, ho deciso di leggere l’Azteco, un Guerra e Pace mesoamericano che racconta delle civiltà precolombiane fino alla sciagurata invasione spagnola. Le parole che avevo riportato sotto la terracotta, nel libro di Jennings non ci sono. Il nome Montezuma si scopre essere una storpiatura.
Motecuzoma, [gli spagnoli] lo tramutarono in Montezuma, e ritennero sinceramente, credo, di non essere scortesi in quanto, siccome il nuovo nome includeva il loro termine per "montagna", se ne poteva ugualmente dedurre che esso implicasse grandezza e importanza. Il nome del dio della guerra, Huitzilopochtli, li sconfiggeva ancor più, e poiché essi odiavano, del resto, quel dio, lo chiamarono Huichilobos, includendovi il nome spagnolo delle bestie chiamate "lupi".
Quanto a Cortes invece si rimane allibiti a leggere che non era il Dio biondo venuto dal mare, ma bensì
era alquanto basso di statura, con le gambe arcuate e uno sporgente petto da tacchino, simile alla prua di una canoa. Aveva la pelle molto chiara, sebbene i capelli e la barba fossero neri. Gli occhi erano incolori e gelidi e remoti come un cielo invernale con grigie nubi. Questo individuo poco imponente era, ci disse egli stesso in tono pomposo, il Capitano Don Hernan Cortes di Medellin, nell'Extremadura, più recentemente di Santiago de Cuba, e si trovava nell'Unico Mondo quale rappresentante di Sua Maestà Don Carlos, Imperatore del Sacro Romano Impero e Re di Spagna
Succede questo quando si va a scomodare la leggenda, bisogna esser pronti ad accettarlo e bisogna essere anche disposti a leggere mille pagine di usi e costumi lontani dai nostri quanto lo è l’ombelico della luna. (*3)
Jennings ha fatto un lavoro immane per declinare la vita di quest’uomo, dall’infanzia alla morte. Un uomo appunto, con debolezze e sogni, ma anche con la temerarietà di accettare ogni sfida, di partire; e infatti partirà da guerriero, mercante, scrivano.. a zonzo per tutto l’antico mondo, sarà tramite fra tribù alleate e mediatore fra tribù nemiche, a nord fino ad Aztlan a sud fino allo Yucatan.
Un uomo tormentato che cercava le origini della sua tribù e che in ultimo dovrà accettare che "Gli Aztechi non avevano niente e non lasciarono niente”
Leggerete pagine sconcertanti sui sacrifici umani atti ingraziarsi gli dei; sorprendenti sulla sessualità (tanto da battersela con quelle del Marchese de Sade); spiritose sullo stupore spagnolo di fronte alle usanze azteche e poi pagine commoventi in cui l’Azteco altro non sarà che un uomo come voi, vissuto e morto cinquecento anni fa; poi verranno le pagine in cui l’Azteco sarà Jennings stesso, nonostante il perizoma e il copricapo a testa d’aquila.
"Lo facciamo perché è quello che sappiamo fare meglio."
Non dissi altro poiché sapevo quanto sia futile ragionare di qualsiasi cosa con persone irrazionali. Tuttavia, in seguito, riflettei ulteriormente sulla risposta di Tes-disora in quell'occasione, e mi dissi che, forse, non era poi così assurda come aveva potuto sembrarmi allora. Credo che non avrei potuto giustificare meglio la mia passione di tutta una vita per l'arte della conoscenza delle parole, se qualcuno avesse voluto sapere il "perché"
Qualcuno prima di me ha commentato: “un romanzo con molti romanzi dentro”, io aggiungo che contiene alcune verità da poter estrarre, ad esempio il parallelo fra l’importazione del cattolicesimo e quella successiva della democrazia, con i loro esiti altrettanto nefasti.
In nome di Tonatiuiù gli Aztechi estraevano alle vittime i cuori ancora pulsanti
In nome di Dio gli spagnoli le loro vittime le mettevano al rogo.
Nel vecchio e nel nuovo mondo, Dio veniva usato come un pretesto, in quello attuale non continua forse ad avvenire la stessa cosa?
Erano circa le 9.00 di un sereno lunedì di luglio. Il sole si era già alzato ma spirava una brezza gradevole. Camminavo agevolmente sulla battigia semi deserta, le onde più insistenti mi bagnavano i piedi. In cuffia stavo ascoltando la parte finale del romanzo. Dopo queste parole, mi sono fermato, ho aperto il file sul quale sto scrivendo adesso e le ho trascritte. L’Azteco non era molto più vecchio di me quando le pronunciò:
Amore e tempo, queste sono le due uniche cose, nel mondo intero e in tutta la vita, che non è possibile comprare, ma che possono soltanto essere vissute
(*1) Jack Kerouac – On the road
(*2) https://postimg.cc/Lh0J4zLz
(*3) "Metztli" significa luna e "xictli" ombelico, quindi "Mexictli" o "México" si traduce letteralmente come "nell'ombelico della luna".
La mia fascinazione per il Messico nacque qui
Dietro di noi si stendeva tutta l’America e tutto quello che io e Dean sapevamo della vita, e della vita sulla strada. Avevamo finalmente trovato la terra magica in fondo alla strada e non ce l’eravamo nemmeno immaginata, la portata di quella magia. «Pensa a questa gente che sta su tutta la notte» sussurrò Dean. «E pensa a questo grande continente che abbiamo davanti con le enormi montagne della Sierra Madre che abbiamo visto al cinema, e le giungle giù fino in fondo e un intero altopiano deserto grande quanto i nostri che scende dritto fino al Guatemala e Dio sa dove, uuu! Cosa facciamo?
…Un breve passo di montagna ci portò all’improvviso a una cima dalla quale si vedeva tutta Città del Messico adagiata nel suo cratere vulcanico. Vomitava fumi e vapori nelle prime luci del crepuscolo. Filammo giù e imboccammo l’Insurgentes Boulevard, dritti verso il cuore della città, il Reforma Boulevard. (*1)
E raggiunse l’apice quando dalla stazione di Indios Verdes prendemmo la corriera che ci portò fino a
Teotihuacan.
Fu lì che comprai una piccola terracotta e arrivato a casa la corredai delle parole che tanto mi avevano colpito. (*2)
Trenta anni più tardi, con un entusiasmo non certo paragonabile a quello di allora, ho deciso di leggere l’Azteco, un Guerra e Pace mesoamericano che racconta delle civiltà precolombiane fino alla sciagurata invasione spagnola. Le parole che avevo riportato sotto la terracotta, nel libro di Jennings non ci sono. Il nome Montezuma si scopre essere una storpiatura.
Motecuzoma, [gli spagnoli] lo tramutarono in Montezuma, e ritennero sinceramente, credo, di non essere scortesi in quanto, siccome il nuovo nome includeva il loro termine per "montagna", se ne poteva ugualmente dedurre che esso implicasse grandezza e importanza. Il nome del dio della guerra, Huitzilopochtli, li sconfiggeva ancor più, e poiché essi odiavano, del resto, quel dio, lo chiamarono Huichilobos, includendovi il nome spagnolo delle bestie chiamate "lupi".
Quanto a Cortes invece si rimane allibiti a leggere che non era il Dio biondo venuto dal mare, ma bensì
era alquanto basso di statura, con le gambe arcuate e uno sporgente petto da tacchino, simile alla prua di una canoa. Aveva la pelle molto chiara, sebbene i capelli e la barba fossero neri. Gli occhi erano incolori e gelidi e remoti come un cielo invernale con grigie nubi. Questo individuo poco imponente era, ci disse egli stesso in tono pomposo, il Capitano Don Hernan Cortes di Medellin, nell'Extremadura, più recentemente di Santiago de Cuba, e si trovava nell'Unico Mondo quale rappresentante di Sua Maestà Don Carlos, Imperatore del Sacro Romano Impero e Re di Spagna
Succede questo quando si va a scomodare la leggenda, bisogna esser pronti ad accettarlo e bisogna essere anche disposti a leggere mille pagine di usi e costumi lontani dai nostri quanto lo è l’ombelico della luna. (*3)
Jennings ha fatto un lavoro immane per declinare la vita di quest’uomo, dall’infanzia alla morte. Un uomo appunto, con debolezze e sogni, ma anche con la temerarietà di accettare ogni sfida, di partire; e infatti partirà da guerriero, mercante, scrivano.. a zonzo per tutto l’antico mondo, sarà tramite fra tribù alleate e mediatore fra tribù nemiche, a nord fino ad Aztlan a sud fino allo Yucatan.
Un uomo tormentato che cercava le origini della sua tribù e che in ultimo dovrà accettare che "Gli Aztechi non avevano niente e non lasciarono niente”
Leggerete pagine sconcertanti sui sacrifici umani atti ingraziarsi gli dei; sorprendenti sulla sessualità (tanto da battersela con quelle del Marchese de Sade); spiritose sullo stupore spagnolo di fronte alle usanze azteche e poi pagine commoventi in cui l’Azteco altro non sarà che un uomo come voi, vissuto e morto cinquecento anni fa; poi verranno le pagine in cui l’Azteco sarà Jennings stesso, nonostante il perizoma e il copricapo a testa d’aquila.
"Lo facciamo perché è quello che sappiamo fare meglio."
Non dissi altro poiché sapevo quanto sia futile ragionare di qualsiasi cosa con persone irrazionali. Tuttavia, in seguito, riflettei ulteriormente sulla risposta di Tes-disora in quell'occasione, e mi dissi che, forse, non era poi così assurda come aveva potuto sembrarmi allora. Credo che non avrei potuto giustificare meglio la mia passione di tutta una vita per l'arte della conoscenza delle parole, se qualcuno avesse voluto sapere il "perché"
Qualcuno prima di me ha commentato: “un romanzo con molti romanzi dentro”, io aggiungo che contiene alcune verità da poter estrarre, ad esempio il parallelo fra l’importazione del cattolicesimo e quella successiva della democrazia, con i loro esiti altrettanto nefasti.
In nome di Tonatiuiù gli Aztechi estraevano alle vittime i cuori ancora pulsanti
In nome di Dio gli spagnoli le loro vittime le mettevano al rogo.
Nel vecchio e nel nuovo mondo, Dio veniva usato come un pretesto, in quello attuale non continua forse ad avvenire la stessa cosa?
Erano circa le 9.00 di un sereno lunedì di luglio. Il sole si era già alzato ma spirava una brezza gradevole. Camminavo agevolmente sulla battigia semi deserta, le onde più insistenti mi bagnavano i piedi. In cuffia stavo ascoltando la parte finale del romanzo. Dopo queste parole, mi sono fermato, ho aperto il file sul quale sto scrivendo adesso e le ho trascritte. L’Azteco non era molto più vecchio di me quando le pronunciò:
Amore e tempo, queste sono le due uniche cose, nel mondo intero e in tutta la vita, che non è possibile comprare, ma che possono soltanto essere vissute
(*1) Jack Kerouac – On the road
(*2) https://postimg.cc/Lh0J4zLz
(*3) "Metztli" significa luna e "xictli" ombelico, quindi "Mexictli" o "México" si traduce letteralmente come "nell'ombelico della luna".
March 1, 2015
This book is a Historical Fiction masterpiece.
It’s cruel and raw, adventurous and passionate, at times even perverse, and in the end heart breaking.
It is the story of the Aztec civilization and its conquest by the Spaniards.
This book has blood in it, cruelty, sexuality, freaks, incest, war, struggle, a lost love, and an unfulfilled one…
What more could you ask?
It’s cruel and raw, adventurous and passionate, at times even perverse, and in the end heart breaking.
It is the story of the Aztec civilization and its conquest by the Spaniards.
This book has blood in it, cruelty, sexuality, freaks, incest, war, struggle, a lost love, and an unfulfilled one…
What more could you ask?
September 26, 2020
No necesito pensarlo dos veces, este libro son 5⭐'s seguras. En más de 860 páginas conoceremos el origen, vida y caída de los Mexicas; pero también conoceremos el estilo de vida y gobierno de otros pueblos como los Acolhuas de Texcoco y los Tepanecas de Tlacopan. Estos tres pueblos formaban una Triple Alianza, y al mando de los Mexicas, gobernaban todo el valle de México y más allá.
La historia la narra Mixtli, un ciudadano mexica de la más baja categoría, nacido al norte del lago de Texcoco. Mixtli vivirá un montón de aventuras en sus muchos viajes a tierras lejanas de Tenochtitlan, y a través de la historia de su vida conoceremos como funcionaban las cosas en "El mundo conocido" antes de que los españoles llegarán a conquistar, pero también nos contará la tragedia de la guerra y las enfermedades que trajeron consigo, así como el surgir de la Nueva España.
No te dejes intimidar por el número de páginas, el libro se lee solito porque todo lo que nos cuenta va más allá de lo interesante.
La historia la narra Mixtli, un ciudadano mexica de la más baja categoría, nacido al norte del lago de Texcoco. Mixtli vivirá un montón de aventuras en sus muchos viajes a tierras lejanas de Tenochtitlan, y a través de la historia de su vida conoceremos como funcionaban las cosas en "El mundo conocido" antes de que los españoles llegarán a conquistar, pero también nos contará la tragedia de la guerra y las enfermedades que trajeron consigo, así como el surgir de la Nueva España.
No te dejes intimidar por el número de páginas, el libro se lee solito porque todo lo que nos cuenta va más allá de lo interesante.
April 4, 2023
Una interesante, pero larga (de verdad larga) novela sobre la civilización Azteca a través de los ojos de un indígena a quien acompañamos desde su niñez hasta su adultez, esta última coincidiendo con los inicios de la colonización española.
Se nota que Gary Jennings no solo es novelista sino también historiador, puesto que nunca cae en el exotismo, tampoco busca irse por el lado de contarnos algo fantasioso y no tiene reparo en contarnos, por fuertes que puedan ser algunos eventos, las cosas como sucedieron. Espero vivir tanto como el protagonista y en algún momento leerme el resto de las novelas.
Se nota que Gary Jennings no solo es novelista sino también historiador, puesto que nunca cae en el exotismo, tampoco busca irse por el lado de contarnos algo fantasioso y no tiene reparo en contarnos, por fuertes que puedan ser algunos eventos, las cosas como sucedieron. Espero vivir tanto como el protagonista y en algún momento leerme el resto de las novelas.
January 22, 2020
I read this so long ago. It must have been right after it was published, so 1980 or '81. I liked it a lot and recommended it to my mom.
July 27, 2011
This book may change you. At the very least, it’ll excite your imagination and insult your senses. Full of lust for life, written "in the field" in Mexico, the book is polarizing, and has drawn both admiration and outright disgust from a few generations of readers.
It was the very first book I found when doing the competitive market research for my own writing about 10 years ago. Back then, I wanted to write a novel called “The Aztec”.
Imagine the depths of my emotion when I found an immensely successful title of the same name by the late Gary Jennings, a brilliant historical novelist.
Since then, I’ve re-read the book at least three times, and loaned it to many good friends. Predictably, some of them loved it, while others felt compelled to toss it into my face.
Here's what I learned from this work.
+ The Knowledge Shines Through:
Per the official website of his estate, Gary Jennings wasn't able to afford the life in New York after deciding to focus on his writing. So he went south to Mexico where he lived, travelled and wrote for 12 years.
His fascination with the country and its people comes across wonderfully in AZTEC, and his genuine joy at telling the story makes me come back to it over and over again.
His writing style seems to have been formed by the very life he led. Having fought in a war, and having travelled widely across several continents, Jennings weaves his insights into human behaviors into the intricate plot that takes us to all the corners of the world known to his characters.
His specific, visual writing leaves no doubt about what he wants to convey. No misunderstandings are possible, and he treats the most controversial subjects with confidence.
The words are chosen with care, the scenes are complete, and the text is easy to read. He was having fun writing, and the fun comes across and draws the reader into his world.
That world isn't only unique and engaging; it's colored with nostalgia for the wealth of cultures, languages and peoples of the old Mexico, erased from our society’s collective memory by the self-serving Spanish priests and warlords.
From the first pages Jennings grounds us firmly in one of the classic scenes of the time. An elderly ‘native’ relates his life story to a group of scribes in service of the Catholic Church, which seeks to understand the native mentality to make its conversion efforts more efficient. However, this native goes well beyond the usual recital of ritualistic incantations that fill so many Aztec codices.
From the awing descriptions of the Mexico’s lands, to the minute details of flush toilets, the sights, smells, and sensations of the time are reproduced impeccably. The level of detail may slow the story somewhat; but every time I read this book, I forget about time. The text is so visually and sensually compelling that the experience is like that of watching a movie, or having a vivid dream.
I’ve read a lot of the source material, and I guarantee that many facts follow the established scholarly tradition. Jennings had discovered some delightful historical episodes that truly add to our understanding of the world we have lost.
+ The Strong Character can Carry 1036 Pages … and more:
Love him or hate him, but Mixtli ("Dark Cloud") is a joy to get to know. He's one of the richest literary personages that I know of. The insights into his nature are deep and disturbing, and his no-nonsense, observant and humorous voice temps you to keep the pages turning in search for new revelations.
Some people complained that Mixtli tends to find himself in all the right places at the right times, ala an Aztec Forrest Gump of sorts. He draws maps of foreign lands for his nation’s rulers, he’s in the midst of every juicy political scandal of the time, he meets Hernan Cortes and Dona Marina, and he even invents the modern Mexican flag.
I don’t mind.
Way larger than life, Mixtli guides us in our explorations of almost all the known aspects of his world. Over his shoulder, we see the beauty of Tenochtítlan years before its destruction, we explore the little tribal villages on the many trade routes, and we witness the sacrifices and the feats of Aztec medicine.
The secondary characters may not be as rich, but they’re believable, and their eventual deaths still disturb me.
The book is honest and brave in diving straight into the deepest temptations and dilemmas we humans face. A lesser author couldn't have done it, but Jennings excels.
+ The Plot can be Life Itself:
Some folks seem to expect a fast-moving plot from this book which is probably a "milieu" novel rather than an event-driven story.
The plot is the life itself, and every scene is in its place, following the stages of Mixtli’s life. He’s a warrior, a travelling merchant, a diplomat, a leader of a doomed group of settlers and even a historical researcher; and each life stage is explored in loving detail, almost becoming a novel in its own right.
Even the most bizarre scenes (e.g. Mixtli puking onto the old whore, or having intercourse with his sister) move the story forward in more than one way, showing Jennings’ superb planning and execution.
This brings me to the three grudges that I have with this novel. Because of these, to be honest, I refuse to read any of his other stories.
Here come my 3 grudges
- It's Easy to Succumb to your own Vision of ... Women:
There's one aspect of the book which I couldn't quite stand by the end, and this is Jennings' trademark cookie-cutter women. I hate it when things become predictable.
However in this novel, every lady even of a fleeting importance to Mixtli is a beauty of unbelievable grace, all too ready to inundate our well-endowed hero with her unconditional love, only to die an untimely and horrific death.
Over and over again.
When his incest-inclined sister dies (and her death still haunts my nightmares), Mixtli finds a lover. When a lover dies, he finds a wife. All breathtaking, of course. And between them, there's a procession of other beautiful women. Over and over again.
Every such lady ends up worshiping his male member and indulging into all sorts of behaviors with him from regular incest to casual adultery. Over and over again.
- There CAN be too much Sex:
I have to diagnose Mixtli with a compulsive sexual disorder and a bad case of narcissism.
I found his fixation on how every woman’s “tipili” looks and feels, and his unrestrained fascination with the size of his own “tipuli” tiring to no end. I’m no Puritan, and I’ve done my share of wild things in my travels, but even I was surprised.
In this book, Jennings doesn't go to the extent of some of his Aztec sequels where every inch of a woman's genitalia is described in loving detail; but as it stands, some folks may find it a bit too much.
There's temptation . . . and then there's smut.
Here we come close to smut.
- Historical Mistakes can be Forgiven . . . to a point:
I'll be brief on this one, because I can't make up my mind on how much inaccuracy can be acceptable. Jennings does't make a singe silly mistake, as far as I can tell; he doesn't place Petra an arrow flight away from Sphinx, so to speak, like some writers do.
But I'll just say this: the flow of conquest is distorted; Montezuma, whose rich and conflicted character is well-documented, is made into an impotent buffoon; Doña Marina comes across a bitch. Which is a shame, because these things are clearly done to serve the plot.
I guess this can be forgiven, as our character has suffered as a direct consequence of Montezuma’s and Doña Marina’s actions. But I didn’t find all that mockery to be fair.
In Summary
Overall, AZTEC is an engrossing book and a compelling read. It affected me deeply, and possibly changed me. How many books have done this to you?
Cheers,
Austin.
It was the very first book I found when doing the competitive market research for my own writing about 10 years ago. Back then, I wanted to write a novel called “The Aztec”.
Imagine the depths of my emotion when I found an immensely successful title of the same name by the late Gary Jennings, a brilliant historical novelist.
Since then, I’ve re-read the book at least three times, and loaned it to many good friends. Predictably, some of them loved it, while others felt compelled to toss it into my face.
Here's what I learned from this work.
+ The Knowledge Shines Through:
Per the official website of his estate, Gary Jennings wasn't able to afford the life in New York after deciding to focus on his writing. So he went south to Mexico where he lived, travelled and wrote for 12 years.
His fascination with the country and its people comes across wonderfully in AZTEC, and his genuine joy at telling the story makes me come back to it over and over again.
His writing style seems to have been formed by the very life he led. Having fought in a war, and having travelled widely across several continents, Jennings weaves his insights into human behaviors into the intricate plot that takes us to all the corners of the world known to his characters.
His specific, visual writing leaves no doubt about what he wants to convey. No misunderstandings are possible, and he treats the most controversial subjects with confidence.
The words are chosen with care, the scenes are complete, and the text is easy to read. He was having fun writing, and the fun comes across and draws the reader into his world.
That world isn't only unique and engaging; it's colored with nostalgia for the wealth of cultures, languages and peoples of the old Mexico, erased from our society’s collective memory by the self-serving Spanish priests and warlords.
From the first pages Jennings grounds us firmly in one of the classic scenes of the time. An elderly ‘native’ relates his life story to a group of scribes in service of the Catholic Church, which seeks to understand the native mentality to make its conversion efforts more efficient. However, this native goes well beyond the usual recital of ritualistic incantations that fill so many Aztec codices.
From the awing descriptions of the Mexico’s lands, to the minute details of flush toilets, the sights, smells, and sensations of the time are reproduced impeccably. The level of detail may slow the story somewhat; but every time I read this book, I forget about time. The text is so visually and sensually compelling that the experience is like that of watching a movie, or having a vivid dream.
I’ve read a lot of the source material, and I guarantee that many facts follow the established scholarly tradition. Jennings had discovered some delightful historical episodes that truly add to our understanding of the world we have lost.
+ The Strong Character can Carry 1036 Pages … and more:
Love him or hate him, but Mixtli ("Dark Cloud") is a joy to get to know. He's one of the richest literary personages that I know of. The insights into his nature are deep and disturbing, and his no-nonsense, observant and humorous voice temps you to keep the pages turning in search for new revelations.
Some people complained that Mixtli tends to find himself in all the right places at the right times, ala an Aztec Forrest Gump of sorts. He draws maps of foreign lands for his nation’s rulers, he’s in the midst of every juicy political scandal of the time, he meets Hernan Cortes and Dona Marina, and he even invents the modern Mexican flag.
I don’t mind.
Way larger than life, Mixtli guides us in our explorations of almost all the known aspects of his world. Over his shoulder, we see the beauty of Tenochtítlan years before its destruction, we explore the little tribal villages on the many trade routes, and we witness the sacrifices and the feats of Aztec medicine.
The secondary characters may not be as rich, but they’re believable, and their eventual deaths still disturb me.
The book is honest and brave in diving straight into the deepest temptations and dilemmas we humans face. A lesser author couldn't have done it, but Jennings excels.
+ The Plot can be Life Itself:
Some folks seem to expect a fast-moving plot from this book which is probably a "milieu" novel rather than an event-driven story.
The plot is the life itself, and every scene is in its place, following the stages of Mixtli’s life. He’s a warrior, a travelling merchant, a diplomat, a leader of a doomed group of settlers and even a historical researcher; and each life stage is explored in loving detail, almost becoming a novel in its own right.
Even the most bizarre scenes (e.g. Mixtli puking onto the old whore, or having intercourse with his sister) move the story forward in more than one way, showing Jennings’ superb planning and execution.
This brings me to the three grudges that I have with this novel. Because of these, to be honest, I refuse to read any of his other stories.
Here come my 3 grudges
- It's Easy to Succumb to your own Vision of ... Women:
There's one aspect of the book which I couldn't quite stand by the end, and this is Jennings' trademark cookie-cutter women. I hate it when things become predictable.
However in this novel, every lady even of a fleeting importance to Mixtli is a beauty of unbelievable grace, all too ready to inundate our well-endowed hero with her unconditional love, only to die an untimely and horrific death.
Over and over again.
When his incest-inclined sister dies (and her death still haunts my nightmares), Mixtli finds a lover. When a lover dies, he finds a wife. All breathtaking, of course. And between them, there's a procession of other beautiful women. Over and over again.
Every such lady ends up worshiping his male member and indulging into all sorts of behaviors with him from regular incest to casual adultery. Over and over again.
- There CAN be too much Sex:
I have to diagnose Mixtli with a compulsive sexual disorder and a bad case of narcissism.
I found his fixation on how every woman’s “tipili” looks and feels, and his unrestrained fascination with the size of his own “tipuli” tiring to no end. I’m no Puritan, and I’ve done my share of wild things in my travels, but even I was surprised.
In this book, Jennings doesn't go to the extent of some of his Aztec sequels where every inch of a woman's genitalia is described in loving detail; but as it stands, some folks may find it a bit too much.
There's temptation . . . and then there's smut.
Here we come close to smut.
- Historical Mistakes can be Forgiven . . . to a point:
I'll be brief on this one, because I can't make up my mind on how much inaccuracy can be acceptable. Jennings does't make a singe silly mistake, as far as I can tell; he doesn't place Petra an arrow flight away from Sphinx, so to speak, like some writers do.
But I'll just say this: the flow of conquest is distorted; Montezuma, whose rich and conflicted character is well-documented, is made into an impotent buffoon; Doña Marina comes across a bitch. Which is a shame, because these things are clearly done to serve the plot.
I guess this can be forgiven, as our character has suffered as a direct consequence of Montezuma’s and Doña Marina’s actions. But I didn’t find all that mockery to be fair.
In Summary
Overall, AZTEC is an engrossing book and a compelling read. It affected me deeply, and possibly changed me. How many books have done this to you?
Cheers,
Austin.
December 10, 2010
This book is completely brilliant.
Let me assure you that yes, it is graphically violent and a tragedy from beginning to end. Perhaps only the last quarter or so involves the Spanish, so anyone who harbors any delusions about the "noble savage" will be greatly disappointed. I myself am not particularly prone to those sorts of romanticizations. Be that as it may, to some degree I can understand the notion of human sacrifice far better than I can understand the actions of the Spanish. I don't condone it, true, and it was gruesome, yes, but there was a sort of honesty to it along with a general public consensus. A flowery death is a fairly quick thing, unlike being burned at the stake, regardless of the things done to the body after the fact.
Oddly, I spent a goodly amount of time laughing while reading this...not that any of it was in and of itself particularly funny. I can't honestly say I know why. Perhaps I was amused by bits of irony or absurdity or agreement. Perhaps you just have to be Pagan of some flavor to find it funny. Humor aside, it is loaded with sage remarks.
If I had to compare it to anything, I would compare it to The Mists of Avalon, being the same sort of powerfully moving theme of the struggle to preserve what little is left. I can honestly say I was more horrified by the Spaniards melting down the gold works of art to make it into ingots and razing Tenochtitlan to the ground than I was by any preceding grisly ceremony of human sacrifice. Whatever merit there was or wasn't to the Aztec culture, only pale slivers and ruins of it remain.
Let me assure you that yes, it is graphically violent and a tragedy from beginning to end. Perhaps only the last quarter or so involves the Spanish, so anyone who harbors any delusions about the "noble savage" will be greatly disappointed. I myself am not particularly prone to those sorts of romanticizations. Be that as it may, to some degree I can understand the notion of human sacrifice far better than I can understand the actions of the Spanish. I don't condone it, true, and it was gruesome, yes, but there was a sort of honesty to it along with a general public consensus. A flowery death is a fairly quick thing, unlike being burned at the stake, regardless of the things done to the body after the fact.
Oddly, I spent a goodly amount of time laughing while reading this...not that any of it was in and of itself particularly funny. I can't honestly say I know why. Perhaps I was amused by bits of irony or absurdity or agreement. Perhaps you just have to be Pagan of some flavor to find it funny. Humor aside, it is loaded with sage remarks.
If I had to compare it to anything, I would compare it to The Mists of Avalon, being the same sort of powerfully moving theme of the struggle to preserve what little is left. I can honestly say I was more horrified by the Spaniards melting down the gold works of art to make it into ingots and razing Tenochtitlan to the ground than I was by any preceding grisly ceremony of human sacrifice. Whatever merit there was or wasn't to the Aztec culture, only pale slivers and ruins of it remain.
August 31, 2007
The Aztec series is my guilty pleasure. This first book in the series has 900-ish pages of lush, incredibly intricate, dramatic and absorbing detail about Aztec life up to the Conquistadors' arrival. Interspersed with porn. No wonder the Aztecs didn't die out--they worked very diligently to make more Aztecs. Says Gary Jennings. :)
May 23, 2011
One of the most eye opening, intense, and enjoyable books I've ever read. Recommended to me by my grandmother, a devout conservative catholic, I was almost shocked she'd read such an intense book (go grandma!). Gary Jennings spent over a decade researching the Aztec culture and created this non-fiction based fictional story about a culture so incredible different from our own, and yet even more cultured in some ways. The story follows an Aztec man who's captured by the Spanish Inquisition and regales his life story from pauper to prince. Prepare yourself for a journey of intense and bazaar sexual acts, lavish environments, bloody sacrifices, and an opportunity to go beyond your comfort zone and into a different world that's not all that far away.
July 2, 2017
I read this a number of years ago and as I recall, this was a fascinating read and it's just short of being a five-star masterpiece to me. It's like a thrill ride, a roller coaster that would have been sensationally perfect had you not had to wait two hours in line to experience the ride itself. Jenning's doesn't know the term "restraint": everything is over the top. There is a stupendous, relentless level of violence and gore: let's just call it what it is, torture porn. And the sex, well, it's everywhere, all the time, and some of it is just way, way past the point of believability, veering toward impossibility. I have never thought I would actually write the following words, but here goes: this is a case where a Reader's Digest condensed version, taking out about 100 pages of simply unbelievable violence and sex, would have resulted in a 5 star masterpiece. I do recommend it, though, to lover's of historical fiction. But with a warning: this book leaves NOTHING to the imagination, and sometimes, as a reader, I just don't want to know EVERY little detail.
January 18, 2024
Far from finished, but here is a preliminary review.
Reading Gary Jennings' monstrous 400,000-word historical novel, Aztec, it’s a sure bet he spent a lot of time conducting research in the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City. Aztec is as famous for its sex scenes as it is for its historical detail. As yet, I’ve found one 21st-century cancel culture review of the novel. This reviewer found nothing more to this huge book than a story about a man and his penis, and compares Aztec to the film Boogie Nights. Aztec is narrated by Mixtli, an Aztec scribe, asked to tell of his life and times so the Bishop of New Spain (Mexico) can send this history back to the King of Spain. It’s an immensely rich story, giving an unparalleled overview of the complexities of religion, trade, love, and war in the last days of the Aztec Empire. However, the Bishop, in his letters that accompany installments of the narrative, only tells the king how outraged he is over the tales of sex and human sacrifices. He sees nothing of value in the Aztec world. He is blind like a cancel culture reviewer trawling old books looking for sexism and racism and finding them…and nothing but. In my reading, Aztec is full of strong female characters. That’s not to say Jennings can’t be criticized for many things, but boiling this epic down to a man and his penis is insanely reductive. This author puts everything in, he's not good at leaving stuff out—and obviously a lot of sex went on in Aztec society, but sex, much more so than violence, gets people in a tizz. But look here, it's OK to read this even if it's written by a white American middle-aged man (the horror) (who spent 12 years researching and may actually know stuff) because it's an ANTI-COLONIAL text. In Mexico, they know it's good, and I saw it on sale at the bookshop in the former Dominican Convent (amusing) in Tepoztlán and at a stall in the same town's market.
Out of all the amazing pre-Colombian artefacts at the National Musem of Anthropology, my favourite is the 3-metre-tall basalt sculpture of Coatlicue, the Aztec goddess who gave birth to the moon, stars, and Huitzilopochtli, the God of War. Her name means skirt of snakes. Jennings’ description of the sculpture of Coatlicue in Aztec is outstanding. He weaves it into his story by attributing its creation to one of his characters.
“Since Coatlicue was, after all, the mother of the god of war, most earlier artists had portrayed her as grim of visage, but in form she had always been recognizable as a woman. Not so in Tlatli's conception. His Coatlicue had no head. Instead, above her shoulders, two great serpents' heads met, as if kissing, to compose her face: their single visible eye apiece gave Coatlicue two glaring eyes, their meeting mouths gave Coatlicue one wide mouth full of fangs and horribly grinning. She wore a necklace hung with a skull, with severed hands and torn-out human hearts. Her nether garment was entirely of writhing snakes, and her feet were the taloned paws of some immense beast.”
And those taloned paws have animal eyes too—the feet of this God have been zoomorphised. I’ve heard the word anthropomorphised many times, but never zoomorphised until I watched this video (YouTube, Smarthistory, Coatlicue) with an excellent explanation about the sculpture of Coatlicue.
Reading Gary Jennings' monstrous 400,000-word historical novel, Aztec, it’s a sure bet he spent a lot of time conducting research in the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City. Aztec is as famous for its sex scenes as it is for its historical detail. As yet, I’ve found one 21st-century cancel culture review of the novel. This reviewer found nothing more to this huge book than a story about a man and his penis, and compares Aztec to the film Boogie Nights. Aztec is narrated by Mixtli, an Aztec scribe, asked to tell of his life and times so the Bishop of New Spain (Mexico) can send this history back to the King of Spain. It’s an immensely rich story, giving an unparalleled overview of the complexities of religion, trade, love, and war in the last days of the Aztec Empire. However, the Bishop, in his letters that accompany installments of the narrative, only tells the king how outraged he is over the tales of sex and human sacrifices. He sees nothing of value in the Aztec world. He is blind like a cancel culture reviewer trawling old books looking for sexism and racism and finding them…and nothing but. In my reading, Aztec is full of strong female characters. That’s not to say Jennings can’t be criticized for many things, but boiling this epic down to a man and his penis is insanely reductive. This author puts everything in, he's not good at leaving stuff out—and obviously a lot of sex went on in Aztec society, but sex, much more so than violence, gets people in a tizz. But look here, it's OK to read this even if it's written by a white American middle-aged man (the horror) (who spent 12 years researching and may actually know stuff) because it's an ANTI-COLONIAL text. In Mexico, they know it's good, and I saw it on sale at the bookshop in the former Dominican Convent (amusing) in Tepoztlán and at a stall in the same town's market.
Out of all the amazing pre-Colombian artefacts at the National Musem of Anthropology, my favourite is the 3-metre-tall basalt sculpture of Coatlicue, the Aztec goddess who gave birth to the moon, stars, and Huitzilopochtli, the God of War. Her name means skirt of snakes. Jennings’ description of the sculpture of Coatlicue in Aztec is outstanding. He weaves it into his story by attributing its creation to one of his characters.
“Since Coatlicue was, after all, the mother of the god of war, most earlier artists had portrayed her as grim of visage, but in form she had always been recognizable as a woman. Not so in Tlatli's conception. His Coatlicue had no head. Instead, above her shoulders, two great serpents' heads met, as if kissing, to compose her face: their single visible eye apiece gave Coatlicue two glaring eyes, their meeting mouths gave Coatlicue one wide mouth full of fangs and horribly grinning. She wore a necklace hung with a skull, with severed hands and torn-out human hearts. Her nether garment was entirely of writhing snakes, and her feet were the taloned paws of some immense beast.”
And those taloned paws have animal eyes too—the feet of this God have been zoomorphised. I’ve heard the word anthropomorphised many times, but never zoomorphised until I watched this video (YouTube, Smarthistory, Coatlicue) with an excellent explanation about the sculpture of Coatlicue.
July 9, 2010
When I first picked up this book, I was skeptical. The first few pages move fairly slowly and are written as letters in the dry and formal archaic style one would expect from a subject writing to his king. There is also a fair sprinkling of long and unfamiliar words in the Nahua tongue, the primary language spoken by Aztecs, but once one gets the feel for the words and the way they might have sounded, the difficulty with them lessens.
The story is set in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, in Mexico after Spanish conquest. The conquerers know little about this new land, its culture, or its people, so the King of Spain has asked for information. The information comes in the form of the elderly Aztec Mixtli, who, having learned the Spanish language, has agreed to tell his story. He is a good man for the job, for in his life, he has brushed shoulders with princes and kings, slaves and commoners, has worked as a scribe, a warrior, and a traveling merchant. In his time, he lived to see the rise and fall of a civilization that had reached legendary proportions of influence, wealth, and fame.
It becomes immediately evident that Mixtli is not your typical hero, but a man with deep personal flaws. He is intelligent, brutally honest, and often mercilessly driven to achieve his goals. He is real, raw, and excruciatingly human. I read somewhere a small anecdote of a man who was rewarded for telling King Motecuzoma the truth. Gary Jennings must have had this in mind when creating the character of Mixtli.
We figure out early on that our jilted narrator can be depended on for relaying events in grim detail, no sugar on top. If you like a soft story where brutal or sexual things are only implied and everyone has a happy ending, this one is not for you. He spares us nothing, I mean, absolutely nothing.
I couldn't name too many strong emotions I did not feel while reading this book, including wonder, dismay, and disgust. I was also awed by the amount of research that went into it. My favourite sort of novel is one with a mixture of fact and fiction, education and adventure, and in this aspect, Aztec does not disappoint. I learned more about Aztec culture in this book than I have in all my time of personal research on this subject.
The story is absolutely unforgettable; full to the brim with rich visceral detail, to the point where it can nearly overwhelm. It's been two years since I read this book, and still the images are etched into my mind; the corroding remains of the Mayan culture, the blinding glare of whitewashed pyramids, the hot lime dust of the rock quarry, the tangled smelly nest of the priests' hair. Aztec is a feast for the senses!
The story is set in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, in Mexico after Spanish conquest. The conquerers know little about this new land, its culture, or its people, so the King of Spain has asked for information. The information comes in the form of the elderly Aztec Mixtli, who, having learned the Spanish language, has agreed to tell his story. He is a good man for the job, for in his life, he has brushed shoulders with princes and kings, slaves and commoners, has worked as a scribe, a warrior, and a traveling merchant. In his time, he lived to see the rise and fall of a civilization that had reached legendary proportions of influence, wealth, and fame.
It becomes immediately evident that Mixtli is not your typical hero, but a man with deep personal flaws. He is intelligent, brutally honest, and often mercilessly driven to achieve his goals. He is real, raw, and excruciatingly human. I read somewhere a small anecdote of a man who was rewarded for telling King Motecuzoma the truth. Gary Jennings must have had this in mind when creating the character of Mixtli.
We figure out early on that our jilted narrator can be depended on for relaying events in grim detail, no sugar on top. If you like a soft story where brutal or sexual things are only implied and everyone has a happy ending, this one is not for you. He spares us nothing, I mean, absolutely nothing.
I couldn't name too many strong emotions I did not feel while reading this book, including wonder, dismay, and disgust. I was also awed by the amount of research that went into it. My favourite sort of novel is one with a mixture of fact and fiction, education and adventure, and in this aspect, Aztec does not disappoint. I learned more about Aztec culture in this book than I have in all my time of personal research on this subject.
The story is absolutely unforgettable; full to the brim with rich visceral detail, to the point where it can nearly overwhelm. It's been two years since I read this book, and still the images are etched into my mind; the corroding remains of the Mayan culture, the blinding glare of whitewashed pyramids, the hot lime dust of the rock quarry, the tangled smelly nest of the priests' hair. Aztec is a feast for the senses!
April 3, 2011
My GOD this man could write. He's from my hometown, and lived not so far away from my house, and I could never arrange a meeting while (and being I'm not a stalker and respected the crap out of this guy, I didn't try too hard). A complete enigma to me; massive genius. I might have been scared to meet him, in fact — loved his writings, but they were so graphic that I believe I feared meeting someone who could imagine such brutality.
I love historical fiction, and Jennings' works tackle times that aren't politically correct to tackle with such honesty; but I'm not a fan of sugar-coating history, either. That being said, this book, albeit with such historical verisimilitude, engaging characters, and subtle dialogue, could have benefited from a tad less gruesome detail; it can be hard to read on a full stomach, and the unsettling images last for years.
Jennings deals us an engaging story that's so descriptive that you can put the book away and half-expect to be IN that world; he draws you in as an observer, and you don't feel safe in that world. Such immersion can be horrifying, especially in dealing with cannibalism and sacrifice, but you come away feeling like you have a better understanding of a completely lost and foreign culture. That's the highest praise I can give to an historical fiction.
And after reading this tome, I never wanted to visit and SEE the historical sites for a fictional work so much, maybe if just to test the truthfulness, and possibly to mourn the loss, of such a society. You come away feeling that there's blood on everybodys' hands: the Aztecs, the conquerors, ...humanity. But in a good way, that doesn't leave room for judgment, but rather for thought. Aztec works as a great equalizer.
My criticism would certainly be that his writing is so compelling, and the violence so disturbing, that if it's not as truthful as it seems, could be an unfair indictment against an entire society. In other words, Jennings is such a good storyteller, and has so much actual history to back him up, that he needed to be very careful that his dramatics doesn't leave an unfair portrayal of that society.
I think if you read this keeping in mind that it's historical FICTION, you can get a good understanding of a society that ritually sacrifices and consumes humans. It will leave an impression on your soul, imo, about what humanity is capable of.
I loved it; will reread it again. Mindblowing.
I love historical fiction, and Jennings' works tackle times that aren't politically correct to tackle with such honesty; but I'm not a fan of sugar-coating history, either. That being said, this book, albeit with such historical verisimilitude, engaging characters, and subtle dialogue, could have benefited from a tad less gruesome detail; it can be hard to read on a full stomach, and the unsettling images last for years.
Jennings deals us an engaging story that's so descriptive that you can put the book away and half-expect to be IN that world; he draws you in as an observer, and you don't feel safe in that world. Such immersion can be horrifying, especially in dealing with cannibalism and sacrifice, but you come away feeling like you have a better understanding of a completely lost and foreign culture. That's the highest praise I can give to an historical fiction.
And after reading this tome, I never wanted to visit and SEE the historical sites for a fictional work so much, maybe if just to test the truthfulness, and possibly to mourn the loss, of such a society. You come away feeling that there's blood on everybodys' hands: the Aztecs, the conquerors, ...humanity. But in a good way, that doesn't leave room for judgment, but rather for thought. Aztec works as a great equalizer.
My criticism would certainly be that his writing is so compelling, and the violence so disturbing, that if it's not as truthful as it seems, could be an unfair indictment against an entire society. In other words, Jennings is such a good storyteller, and has so much actual history to back him up, that he needed to be very careful that his dramatics doesn't leave an unfair portrayal of that society.
I think if you read this keeping in mind that it's historical FICTION, you can get a good understanding of a society that ritually sacrifices and consumes humans. It will leave an impression on your soul, imo, about what humanity is capable of.
I loved it; will reread it again. Mindblowing.
February 11, 2020
Calificación real 5 estrellotas. Excelente servicio!
Pues podrán muchos criticarlo pero Azteca es un libro maravilloso que cualquiera que se crea orgulloso de ser mexicano debe leer.
Ciertamente es ficción histórica pero hay que reconocer la ardua tarea de investigación que llevó a cabo Gary Jennings y que le llevó 12 años viviendo en México para poder escribir esta magnífica novela.
La caída de El Único Mundo: Tenochtitlán. Pero antes de eso su esplendor máximo visto a través de un testigo Mixtli después bautizado Juan Damasceno. Desde su nacimiento el va presenciando el más alto esplendor del imperio Mexica, sus Venerados Oradores junto con su vida llena de todas esas costumbres que ahora quedaron en el recuerdo a partir de la conquista española.
Hago la aclaración que el 80% del libro es sobre el imperio Mexica después conocido como Azteca y lo que resta es cuando se toca lo de Hernán Cortés. Sin embargo es una historia maravillosa aunque eso si, llena de mucho sexo y sexo hard core y de violencia.
Azteca será un libro que no te dejará indiferente y te hará añorar el esplendor de un imperio ya destruido.
Pues podrán muchos criticarlo pero Azteca es un libro maravilloso que cualquiera que se crea orgulloso de ser mexicano debe leer.
Ciertamente es ficción histórica pero hay que reconocer la ardua tarea de investigación que llevó a cabo Gary Jennings y que le llevó 12 años viviendo en México para poder escribir esta magnífica novela.
La caída de El Único Mundo: Tenochtitlán. Pero antes de eso su esplendor máximo visto a través de un testigo Mixtli después bautizado Juan Damasceno. Desde su nacimiento el va presenciando el más alto esplendor del imperio Mexica, sus Venerados Oradores junto con su vida llena de todas esas costumbres que ahora quedaron en el recuerdo a partir de la conquista española.
Hago la aclaración que el 80% del libro es sobre el imperio Mexica después conocido como Azteca y lo que resta es cuando se toca lo de Hernán Cortés. Sin embargo es una historia maravillosa aunque eso si, llena de mucho sexo y sexo hard core y de violencia.
Azteca será un libro que no te dejará indiferente y te hará añorar el esplendor de un imperio ya destruido.
December 13, 2012
Qué libro tan bueno!, es una historia bien contada, con personajes creíbles y una visión interesante de ese mundo que se perdió. Y es que la novela no solo trata sobre los últimos años del mundo Azteca, es mas una mirada sobre el mundo precolombino en Centroamérica y parte de Norteamérica.
Me gusta el equilibrio que maneja en el sentido de no andar exaltando ni denigrando el mundo precolombino, casi que se limita a describirlo. No sé que tan cerca está de la realidad histórica, pero después de leer la novela, dejándome llevar de la mano de Jennings, quiero creer que la realidad fue muy parecida a como él la describe.
Otro aspecto que me llamó la atención fue la forma como caracteriza a los personajes, no parecen hombres del siglo XX ubicados en el siglo XVI, no, estos personajes son diferentes, su forma de pensar, su visión del mundo es otra. En fin es un libro imprescindible para todo aquel que le guste la Novela Histórica.
Me gusta el equilibrio que maneja en el sentido de no andar exaltando ni denigrando el mundo precolombino, casi que se limita a describirlo. No sé que tan cerca está de la realidad histórica, pero después de leer la novela, dejándome llevar de la mano de Jennings, quiero creer que la realidad fue muy parecida a como él la describe.
Otro aspecto que me llamó la atención fue la forma como caracteriza a los personajes, no parecen hombres del siglo XX ubicados en el siglo XVI, no, estos personajes son diferentes, su forma de pensar, su visión del mundo es otra. En fin es un libro imprescindible para todo aquel que le guste la Novela Histórica.
February 6, 2023
Es la tercera vez que leo esta novela en mi vida y nuevamente he aprendido algún dato adicional de nuestra historia.
Esta vez junto al club de lectura hemos coincidido que Mixtli es el ironman de la novela y todas las mujeres quieren con él jajaja. Sin embargo, si antes consideraba su historia de vida interesante ahora me sumergí mucho mas en las costumbres y tradiciones que nos va platicando las cuales resultan ser innumerables. Aunque algunas veces el autor se toma sus licencias, muchos datos históricos son verídicos, lo que nos permite profundizar en ellos, como resultado personal de esta lectura hice una visita a Templo Mayor en CDMX y al museo de Antropología e Historia.
También noté que en mis pláticas sociales he podido ahondar en temas de este estilo porque la información ya esta fresca en mi mente.
La historia de Mixtli, un anciano mexica que debe relatar su historia de vida a los frailes españoles a petición del Rey, nos permite ir descubriendo ese mundo prehispánico maravilloso, intrigante, fantástico y misterioso. Dónde lo inimaginable puede pasar.
Es un tocho complicado, pero yo lo recomiendo siempre al ser uno de mis favoritos desde la primera vez.
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2015
He leído este libro dos veces, y cada una fue sumamente gratificante.
Me llevó al mundo Azteca y sus costumbres, imagine los paisajes, modos, vestimenta, cultura y al protagonista, imperfecto, humano, su vida y aventuras. El pasaje de Beu ribé me emociona, me entristece, la bella Luna que espera.
Unos de mis favoritos sin lugar a dudas.
Esta vez junto al club de lectura hemos coincidido que Mixtli es el ironman de la novela y todas las mujeres quieren con él jajaja. Sin embargo, si antes consideraba su historia de vida interesante ahora me sumergí mucho mas en las costumbres y tradiciones que nos va platicando las cuales resultan ser innumerables. Aunque algunas veces el autor se toma sus licencias, muchos datos históricos son verídicos, lo que nos permite profundizar en ellos, como resultado personal de esta lectura hice una visita a Templo Mayor en CDMX y al museo de Antropología e Historia.
También noté que en mis pláticas sociales he podido ahondar en temas de este estilo porque la información ya esta fresca en mi mente.
La historia de Mixtli, un anciano mexica que debe relatar su historia de vida a los frailes españoles a petición del Rey, nos permite ir descubriendo ese mundo prehispánico maravilloso, intrigante, fantástico y misterioso. Dónde lo inimaginable puede pasar.
Es un tocho complicado, pero yo lo recomiendo siempre al ser uno de mis favoritos desde la primera vez.
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2015
He leído este libro dos veces, y cada una fue sumamente gratificante.
Me llevó al mundo Azteca y sus costumbres, imagine los paisajes, modos, vestimenta, cultura y al protagonista, imperfecto, humano, su vida y aventuras. El pasaje de Beu ribé me emociona, me entristece, la bella Luna que espera.
Unos de mis favoritos sin lugar a dudas.
August 7, 2007
I'd recommend this book to anyone who like historical fictions, or intense fictions in general. I read it for the first time seven years ago, and it still is one of the most memorable books I've read. Jennings' writing is raw and unforgiving; he has an in-your-face style that can make you cringe, feel heavy hearted, and give you an unbelievable adrenaline rush during any given scene. I'm surprised to see that other readers gave his follow up books to this slightly higher ratings; for me, Aztec was much more engaging than Aztec Autumn and Aztec Blood (although I have yet to read Aztec Rage).
March 3, 2022
I'm quitting this book at the 200 page mark (which, considering its length, is only about a quarter of the way through). The author has lost my trust.
I was enjoying the book and the insights it offered into not only the Aztec empire, but the various indigenous peoples who lived in what is now central Mexico not only at the time of European conquest but in the centuries before. I was getting a much richer sense of who was there, how people interacted, what they believed, etc.
But from the start I had my reservations. How much of this could I believe? I kept seeing it referred to as "heavily researched." But there are no footnotes or endnotes. So how do I know where reliable sources slide into speculation and then on into pure fabrication?
My distrust grew from Jennings' seeming fascination with sex and with some pretty outdated sexual stereotyping. So far the only people whose sex lives he describes are two women, each of whom is ridiculously insatiable as well as a rapist. Really? But don't worry. They both are executed for their transgressions. The same fate befalls two men who are in love with each other (though we're never granted a literal seat at their bedside as the narrator is when commanded to draw one of the women in her various lovemaking positions. Yep).
So I looked up Jennings' NYT obituary and learned that among other things he was a "managing editor of two men's magazines, Dude and Gent." I'm not kidding you. I looked these up. They were nudie mags. Okie dokie.
I don't need to be an audience for this guy's working through his issues and fantasies. And once I knew the kind of "extensive research" that informed that aspect of the book, I kinda didn't care about the rest. If I want abundant sex, I'll go back to the Outlander books.
I was enjoying the book and the insights it offered into not only the Aztec empire, but the various indigenous peoples who lived in what is now central Mexico not only at the time of European conquest but in the centuries before. I was getting a much richer sense of who was there, how people interacted, what they believed, etc.
But from the start I had my reservations. How much of this could I believe? I kept seeing it referred to as "heavily researched." But there are no footnotes or endnotes. So how do I know where reliable sources slide into speculation and then on into pure fabrication?
My distrust grew from Jennings' seeming fascination with sex and with some pretty outdated sexual stereotyping. So far the only people whose sex lives he describes are two women, each of whom is ridiculously insatiable as well as a rapist. Really? But don't worry. They both are executed for their transgressions. The same fate befalls two men who are in love with each other (though we're never granted a literal seat at their bedside as the narrator is when commanded to draw one of the women in her various lovemaking positions. Yep).
So I looked up Jennings' NYT obituary and learned that among other things he was a "managing editor of two men's magazines, Dude and Gent." I'm not kidding you. I looked these up. They were nudie mags. Okie dokie.
I don't need to be an audience for this guy's working through his issues and fantasies. And once I knew the kind of "extensive research" that informed that aspect of the book, I kinda didn't care about the rest. If I want abundant sex, I'll go back to the Outlander books.
September 8, 2020
Veinte mil estrellas? Es poco.
Cada persona que tenga sangre Mexica en sus venas, tiene la obligación moral de leer esta obra.
Jamás me sentí tan orgullosa de mis raíces mexicas, de la cultura tan maravillosa, de las costumbres y los infinitos Dioses a los cuales rendimos tributo; y a su vez, jamás me sentí tan asqueada, tan llena de impotencia y coraje por el España antiguo.
Novela Histórica, (presuntamente), narrada por un azteca que tuvo la fortuna o el infortunio de vivir cada parte de la espantosa transformación que tuvieron mis hermosas raíces, un relato que está lleno de vida, de cultura, de enriquecimiento; y también de despojos de injusticias y de calamidades traídas por los españoles, Hernán Cortés, la Malinche, Moctezuma y los que le siguieron, fueron la inevitable caída del México-Tenochtitlan Justo que solía ser. Derrame lágrimas al darme cuenta de muchas de las cosas, situaciones, religión y costumbres que profesamos, son resultado del robo, del despojo y del derrame de sangre de mis hermanos Mexicas. Que orgullo decir que lo llevo en las venas, que tristeza que como mexicanos, nos avergoncemos de nuestro pasado tan lleno de vida.
Cualquier libro hará difícil que supere esta historia que me ha regalado tanto, que me ha hecho crecer como ser individual que forma parte de la maravillosa cultura Mexica.
Cada persona que tenga sangre Mexica en sus venas, tiene la obligación moral de leer esta obra.
Jamás me sentí tan orgullosa de mis raíces mexicas, de la cultura tan maravillosa, de las costumbres y los infinitos Dioses a los cuales rendimos tributo; y a su vez, jamás me sentí tan asqueada, tan llena de impotencia y coraje por el España antiguo.
Novela Histórica, (presuntamente), narrada por un azteca que tuvo la fortuna o el infortunio de vivir cada parte de la espantosa transformación que tuvieron mis hermosas raíces, un relato que está lleno de vida, de cultura, de enriquecimiento; y también de despojos de injusticias y de calamidades traídas por los españoles, Hernán Cortés, la Malinche, Moctezuma y los que le siguieron, fueron la inevitable caída del México-Tenochtitlan Justo que solía ser. Derrame lágrimas al darme cuenta de muchas de las cosas, situaciones, religión y costumbres que profesamos, son resultado del robo, del despojo y del derrame de sangre de mis hermanos Mexicas. Que orgullo decir que lo llevo en las venas, que tristeza que como mexicanos, nos avergoncemos de nuestro pasado tan lleno de vida.
Cualquier libro hará difícil que supere esta historia que me ha regalado tanto, que me ha hecho crecer como ser individual que forma parte de la maravillosa cultura Mexica.
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