Battles in the Desert (40th Anniversary Edition)

by José Emilio Pacheco

Book Overview

This landmark novella--one of the central texts of Mexican literature, is eerily relevant to our current dark times--offers a child's-eye view of a society beset by dictators, disease, and natural disasters, set in "the year of polio, foot-and-mouth disease, floods." A middle-class boy grows up in a world of children aping adults (mock wars at recess pit Arabs against Jews), where a child's left to ponder "how many evils and catastrophes we have yet...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811230953
• ISBN13: 9780811230957
• Release Date: June 2021
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Length: 48 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 4.3" x 7.1"

Customer Reviews

Moving title novela

The title novela is very moving. It's terrific in its use of language. I read it in Spanish for a class. It would be easy to translate. I read one criticism of the translation (I haven't read it): that you can't distinguish in it occurrences of English words (and their Spanglized spellings) that are insinuating themselves ever more into Mexican Spanish, serving dually as the obvious metaphor. It's important, but no matter. I haven't read the others stories. ------------ review from the Spanish language version ---------- This is an amazing novella of a young boy growing up in Mexico City in the 1950's and his and the purity of emotion. It is a reminiscence, but related through the first person eyes and point of view of its young narrator. His amalgam of wide-eyedness as well as some unexpected realistic judgment, intermingled with the slightest underlying touch of the sardonic as he encounters situations both mundane and some of those singular ones that we've all had render it both an interesting and often fun read. There are many wonderful, complex aspects of the novella in its portrayals of the US dominance over Mexico, both cultural and economic, political corruption at home, class differences from the very poor to the very rich, and, even from the point of literary theory(!), how the narrator's adult viewpoint is subtly insinuated at a key moment. But riding above all this is the pureness of emotion, even as the Mexico of his childhood disappears. It concludes with a terrific last line, both simple and yet so heartfelt. It will remain with me a long time. I can't too highly recommend it.

Moving novella of a young boy in Mexico City in the 1950's

This is a moving and amazing novella of a young boy growing up in Mexico City in the 1950's and his and the purity of emotion. It is a reminiscence, but related through the first person eyes and point of view of its young narrator. His amalgam of wide-eyed-ness as well as some unexpected realistic judgment, intermingled with the slightest underlying touch of the sardonic as he encounters situations both mundane and some of those singular ones that we've all had render it both an interesting and often fun read. There are many wonderful, complex aspects of the novella in its portrayals of the US dominance over Mexico, both cultural and economic, political corruption at home, class differences from the very poor to the very rich, and, even from the point of literary theory(!), how the narrator's adult viewpoint is subtly insinuated in a key event. But riding above all this is the pureness of emotion, even as the Mexico of his childhood disappears. It concludes with a terrific last line, both simple and yet so heartfelt. It will remain with me a long time. I can't too highly recommend it. ---------- Note: I had never heard of this author, but we had to read this book for my Spanish class. The Spanish is pretty easy (it is expressed more or less through the eyes of a boy, after all). True, there was a good dose of slang, including some groserias, that somehow never made it into any of my stilted textbooks. I think an excellent translation by nearly anyone who knows what they're doing (that's not me!) would be easy, which I mention because there is an English language edition, Battles in the Desert and Other Stories, which, obviously, also includes other stories by the author.

Una novela linda

En muy pocas páginas, Pacheco nos cuenta la historia de México en los años 50 por los ojos de Carlos, un hombre quién está recordando su adolesencia en la Colonia Roma, D.F. En este bildungsroman, encontramos de nuevo el primer amor y la entrada al mundo adulto, un mundo en que uno se lucha contra la perdición.

IDEAL VIEW MEET IMPURE WORLD

Battles in the Desert is a short but powerful collection of short stories by a Mexican writer that I believe needs more exposure in America. The stories in this book mainly deal with the conflicts that children or young adults have with the world they will have to grow up in. For example, in the title story, a young man falls in love with his classmate's mother, whose declaration of love leads to unforseen and negative results, not because of his feelings, but because of the prejudices of his neighborhood. That's really what this collection is about. The main character of each has an almost pure emotion of love for someone but when this feeling is brought out in the open, such as in "The Pleasure Principle", in which two young lovers are kept apart by circumstances, either a betrayal or the people around them drive a wedge into their bliss. Pacheco also focuses on the plight of the poor in "The Sunken Park" in which a boy is payed by his aunt to take her beloved cat to the vet to be put to sleep for 20 pesos. Him and his friend decide to kill the cat themselves and spend the money on food. These stories are quite touching and written very realistically in a masterful way.

Good evocative writing

In Mexico City, there is a big and very traditional neighborhood, where wealthy people lived decades ago, and now is a middle-class place, with nice streets, restaurants, museums, ann bookstores. It was there that the protagonist of this short novel was born. It is a remembrance of childhood. The narrator retells the story of his infatuation with the young and attractive mother of one of his classmates, who is also the mistress of a politician. One day he skips school and visits her, and he delcares his love for her. The visit is known of in the community, and sparks a small scandal. Years later, he will find an ex-classmate and find out what happened to her. It is a good story, full of nostalgia for Mexico City in the 30's.