An utter waste of my time, except for one passage:"...perhaps this man had been able to do what no one was supposed to: he had come home again, he was trying to relive one of the oldest myths of mankind, the return to the lar, the earth, the warm home of our origins.That cannot be done, she told herself, and not only because very likely the place won't be there anymore. Even if it were, though, nothing could ever be the same: people age, things break down, feelings change. You can never go home again, even to the same place and the same people, if by chance both have remained, not the same, but simply there, in their essence. She realized that the English language could only conjugate one kind of being -- to be. Home is a memory. The only true memory: for memory is our home. And thus the only true desire of our hearts: the burning quest for our tiny, insecure paradises, buried deep within our hearts..."

In the end I came sort of round to the book, but lots of impediments to the liking. Fuentes must have read all of Faulkner, then thought: so this is how one writes.Too many convolutions, paradoxes, contradictions, enigmas, etc. of primal, mythic, esoteric etc. essence for me. And unfortunately not Faulkner's skill at making you feel like you really are peering into the heart of something very dark and mysterious, something which you really need and want to know about but never will.I think Fuentes should have read Hemingway first.You also need some historical background: Mexico, Pancho Villa and Ambrose Bierce, as the novel presents those two and that land as the major characters in the novel. The book has some historical basis to it, though it is primarily about the revolutionary collision of the Mexican social classes with a good dose of American intervention (which we still doing).The book also seemed rather clichéd in its presentation of the Wild West (Wild Mexico, that is) and the full complement Clint Eastwood heroes, villains and right hand men.I guess in the end, the book's main draw is that it keeps you going, though not overly enthusiastically. But maybe if you're Mexican or interested in Mexico, then this might seem a much better book.

Otro meh para Carlos Fuentes.Lo siento, bebé. Tal vez no nacimos para estar juntos.