Word: artemio
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...cloudless Mexican morning, Carlos Fuentes gazes into the gilded nave of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a colonial church built over the ruins of the massive pyramid at Cholula. As the faithful kneel in prayer, the author of The Old Gringo and The Death of Artemio Cruz shakes his head in wonder. "It's a great example of Mexican culture -- the Indian and the Spanish religion coming together," he says. "What more perfect symbol than a pyramid topped by a church devoted to the Virgin Mary...
...first novel, a vivid tapestry of postrevolutionary Mexico called Where the Air Is Clear, galvanized that country's literature. Four years later, The Death of Artemio Cruz, a Faulknerian tour de force narrated by a man during the final hours of his life, propelled Fuentes into the front ranks of "el Boom," the globally acclaimed wave of Latin American authors that included Colombia's Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa...
...author is a great admirer, crediting Welles as an originator of the film noir genre and a technical pioneer whose influence can be detected in dozens of films. He even notes that the Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes has acknowledged that the structure of his book The Death of Artemio Cruz was lifted from Citizen Kane. But Brady is prudent about using the word genius, an encomium more freely handed out at Academy Award gatherings than at Nobel Prize ceremonies...
...interplay between past and present and between the diverse elements of Mexican culture. Fuentes' first novel "Where the Air is Clear" (1958) is a mythical history of Mexico City. In this novel Mexico's mythical past of rituals and sacrifices appears parallel with the present. In "The Death of Artemio Cruz" (1962), the story is narrated by the revolutionary turned opportunist of the book's title as he lies on his death bed. The story is told by multiple voices with a constantly shifting narrative and chronological viewpoint...
...does the reader fit into this complex structure of interwoven times and multiple voices? "Terra Nostra," for example, has often been considered unreadable by critics. Yet Fuentes emphasizes that in spite of its difficulty, it is a novel which does not go unread. "The Death of Artemio Cruz" and "Where the Air is Clear" were both considered extremely difficult and complicated when they first appeared. Fuentes tells of one critic who suggested that "The Death of Artemio Cruz" served no better purpose than to be flushed down the drain. "Today," Fuentes says, "these novels are read by 15 year-olds...