News from the Empire by Fernando del Paso

[alcesverdes]

Noticias del imperio (News from the Empire) is a historical fiction novel written by Mexican author Fernando del Paso about the French Intervention in Mexico and the Second Mexican Empire. The novel covers from 1861 to 1927, starting with the appointing of Maximilian of Hasburg by Napoleon III and the Mexican Conservative Party until the death of Maximilian's wife, Charlotte of Belgium.

The novel opens in 1927 with a monologue by former empress Charlotte who by then suffered several mental illnesses. Even so, she begins saying who she is; she lists all her names and all her titles. Then, in a speech addressed to her dead husband, she starts remembering their times in Mexico and gives a quick summary of what is going to happen in the rest of the novel. You can tell Charlotte's mind isn't right, but there's still a logic thread in there that doesn't feel forced. I'd say the author crafted it pretty well.

There are other of Charlotte's monologues interspersed between the rest of the chapters. All of them marked as happening in 1927. They give commentary and fill in some details of the Court's daily life and the new inventions Charlotte sees in the beginning of the 21st Century.

Charlotte's monologues serve as breathers. They're more literary than the other chapters, which are more dense and filled with lots of historical facts. That doesn't mean those chapters aren't literary. They are, and they're very good. They're only, well, more dense.

The rest of the chapters are fictionalized historical events --or even out-right fiction events that could have happened given the circumstances-- written from different points of view which cover many of the Mexican social ladder.

It is a very good book, and I thoroughly recommend it. It is long and, as I mentioned above, it's quite dense --I am fast reader and it took me like six months to finish it. But it got me very interested in a time period I knew very little about.

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The pic above is of my books and I took it, so I can say: as long as you don't intend to make money out of it, you can use wherever you want. If you want to. :x