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A review by jpeaslee
Aztec by Gary Jennings
5.0
I love this book. I loved it when I was a teenager and I felt deliciously wrong reading the lurid descriptions of human sacrifice and various sexual practices. I was pleased to discover that I loved it just as much as a slightly jaded thirty-something.
This 750 page epic follows Mixtli, the Forest Gump of the Mexica (more on him later). It is filled with vivid descriptions of Aztec civilization, ranging from people, customs, and territories. That said, it is a product of its time, and certain historical elements are inaccurate. However, it's worth reading if only to glimpse our journey of understanding the historicity of Cortes and Motecuzoma.
As I have mentioned, there's a lot of sex in this book. Like. A lot. We follow Mixtli, a common middle class citizen, through his sixty-odd years of life, approximately half of which is spent engaging in some sexual lewdness or other. There is incest, many different kinds of rape, and the kind of pedophiliac literature you only get by reading the coke-fueled writings of the 80s.
Mixtli also goes on so many adventures that by the end of the book I felt his credibility was tested. He invents monocles. He meets several kings (or the equivalent thereof) and even kills one. Every important historical event in the last fifty years before Cortes landed is attended - or directly influenced - by Mixtli. It's a little much at times.
Although almost all of this book is engrossing, and easy to read, I felt like the last fifty or so pages of the novel drag. This final section goes into the struggle against the Spanish, containing very little dialogue, and I did not find the battles as interesting as the cultural exploration in earlier pages.
That said, it is all worth it. Aztec is funny, romantic, enraging, heartbreaking, and everything in between.
This 750 page epic follows Mixtli, the Forest Gump of the Mexica (more on him later). It is filled with vivid descriptions of Aztec civilization, ranging from people, customs, and territories. That said, it is a product of its time, and certain historical elements are inaccurate. However, it's worth reading if only to glimpse our journey of understanding the historicity of Cortes and Motecuzoma.
As I have mentioned, there's a lot of sex in this book. Like. A lot. We follow Mixtli, a common middle class citizen, through his sixty-odd years of life, approximately half of which is spent engaging in some sexual lewdness or other. There is incest, many different kinds of rape, and the kind of pedophiliac literature you only get by reading the coke-fueled writings of the 80s.
Mixtli also goes on so many adventures that by the end of the book I felt his credibility was tested. He invents monocles. He meets several kings (or the equivalent thereof) and even kills one. Every important historical event in the last fifty years before Cortes landed is attended - or directly influenced - by Mixtli. It's a little much at times.
Although almost all of this book is engrossing, and easy to read, I felt like the last fifty or so pages of the novel drag. This final section goes into the struggle against the Spanish, containing very little dialogue, and I did not find the battles as interesting as the cultural exploration in earlier pages.
That said, it is all worth it. Aztec is funny, romantic, enraging, heartbreaking, and everything in between.