Word: nostrae
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...Mafia's tradition of omerta, the code of silence, is explicit: betray the family and pay with your life. But beginning with the televised confessions of Cosa Nostra Songbird Joseph Valachi in 1963, that code has been repeatedly violated. At the racketeering trial of reputed Mafia Boss John Gotti last week in Brooklyn federal court, omerta suffered one of its rudest shocks...
...School in 1962 and going to work as an assistant district attorney, he began to moonlight as legal counsel for some of his acquaintances from the neighborhood. When the D.A. ordered him to abandon his private practice in 1969, Light instead quit to work full time for the Cosa Nostra. He said he received 80% to 90% of his fees in cash--"the best way to get paid...
...Terra Nostra" is not the only novel which uses the 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...
...second year in a row, Fuentes is teaching a course--Lit and Art C-41, "History and Fiction in Spanish America"--which is a condensed and restructured version of "Terra Nostra." In the course, Fuentes traces the heritage of Latin America back to the different currents of thought which followed Columbus across the Atlantic. The New World became Europe's utopia: a place where Europeans could reconstruct their world without any of its faults. But as the invading Spanish and Portuguese driven by a Maciavellian thirst for gold and power, they did not face an empty continent. The history...