Aztec

Rating:
Summary: Historical soft porn for men.
Review: One thing that is as accurate in this book is the accuracy of what has been told of the beliefs of the Aztec's. However there is still quite a bit of expansion in the decriptions here. Once you get past that it seems to be structured to support soft porn for men in the endless sexual encounters of the story teller. If you take that away, and you are left with a story telller that has contradicitons in what he says and believes and then does in actually opposite ways. So you continue to read only to discover that he never gets to the point of the begining of the story that caught your interest. While he plays hard on the Spanish explorers, I have found that in many ways he was too gentle and held back much of what the Spanish have done in the past that is historical writing and is provable.

I rated it a good read, tho struggling at times.

Rating:
Summary: Orgullo Mexicano
Review: Es increíble como un Estadounidense pudo concretizar de una forma tan sutil, interesante, amena y explosiva, una historia tan difícil de contar, Mixtli quedará en la mente de los lectores como Sinuhe lo hizo hace muchos años, las historias me parecen similares en cuanto a la grandeza del personaje, sin embargo, cada uno tien una historia digna de contar. Definitivamente Azteca y Sinuhe el Egipcio son las 2 lecturas más recomendables que uno pueda encontrar. Vamos a ver que logró Jennings con Otoño Azteca.

Rating:
Summary: A magnificent panoply of the last of the Aztec empire
Review: AZTEC - part history - part fiction - partly the result of archeology and anthropology - is, for those of us who are tired of the dry, bare bones of what is known about the Aztecs, an excellent compantion to Bernal Diaz's "Discovery and Conquest of Mexico." Diaz, a member of Cortez's rapacious band, wrote this excellent memior in his retirement, having gotten out of Tenochtitlan with his skin intact. It is probably the most definitive work on the Spanish conquest of Mexico,but is ably abetted by many works from priests who, in the name of the Cross, burned the codices of the people massacred by war, European diseases, and, laterally, the Inquisition and slavery. In short, they burned the Aztec writings that would have told us much about them. We have excellent historical references by the destroyers, but, until fairly recently, we have had little intelligible information about the vastness of the empire that was destroyed along with its cultural richness. Archeology and anthropology, have been plodding along in the last two centuries belatedly trying to repair this atrocity. Now comes Mr. Jennings with his excellent ability to weave together the widespread strands of this information and put them together in a highly readable narrative that tells the other side of the story with, no doubt, "poetic" license. This is not a poor-boy-made-good-in-an-exotic-setting story. This is an attempt to emulate what everyday life must have been like at various social levels and geographical settings at the apex - and the death knell - of the empire of the eagle. In doing this, he has made an excellent contribution to the understanding of the reader of just what Mexico was before the crusade for gold and the Cross destroyed an entire civilization. Even its mythology was virtually destroyed. Even better, he has painted a graphic picture of the fate of the s! ubjugated...Thank you, Mr. Jennings. Your work would make a magnificent epic movie.

Rating:
Summary: Frankly, I don't see what all the fuss is about....
Review: I actually picked up & tried to read this book years ago when it first came out but lost interest about a third of the way through, put the thing aside & then lost it. More recently it was recommended to me as a great historical read &, since I love that kind of stuff & had nothing more pressing to read, I bought another copy & took it up again. This time I pushed past the part that stymied me before (by dint of great effort) & have concluded that the book IS readable, but unexceptional, to say the least.

It's a tale of a lower class Mexica Indian (in the old Aztec empire) who climbs the social ladder through luck & skill (& a little supernatural help?) in time to be there @ the top of his society when the Spanish conquistadors arrive to permanently alter the lands & people they discovered in the New World. Regrettably, though the concept of the Indian Mixtli is intriguing (an old Aztec recounting his life story to the missionaries of New Spain and tweaking them in subtle ways by managing to be both informative & annoying by turns), it fails to engage us. The protagonist & the people he recalls never come to life in any real way, while the picaresque tale of his adventures around the land which was to become Mexico, never compels us. In fact the tale didn't really seem to catch fire, as a tale, until the last quarter of what is a very long book (nearly a thousand pages).

In general it's not a bad read if you've got the time & interest in the subject matter (which is certainly fascinating), but it's not in Shogun's class (for narrative sweep & power) & certainly not up to Hope Muntz' The Golden Warrior (in terms of the depth & power of its characters & sensibility). The "voice" alone is tiresome since it sounds, for much of the tale, like a modern man in a modern society, completely shattering the illusion of the old Indian recounting the last days of Tenochtitlan. And, though it is chock full of detail about the ancient Az! tec culture (much of it quite true, I'm sure, since the book appears well-researched) the descriptions indulged in by the author, in order to present this material, never manage to bring the times or the scenes presented to life. They are dull listings, at best, of facts and scenes and artifacts of the old Aztec lands, described in workmanlike fashion, but never with any pizzazz.

The book is also marred by tons of kinky sex, seemingly included to titillate the modern reader & serving, in parts, as a distressingly poor substitute for action & character development. In fact the sex scenes, if some of these fairly grusome portrayals may be deemed that, fail utterly either to advance the action or even to titillate, thus weighing down the tale rather than causing it to take wing. And Mixtli seems a particularly boorish dolt in regard to the women he encounters, coupling with any and all he meets, but spurning certain of these for no obvious reason and generally to his detriment. (Moral compunctions in our Judeo-Christian sense don't really explain it since they seem out of place in the culture being presented -- or @ least they ought to be.)

At best this was a plodding read, leaving me mystified by the rave reviews & best seller status this book seems to have garnered elsewhere. --- Stuart W. Mirsky

Rating:
Summary: Best read so far this year
Review: Far and away my best read so far this year. We have built up so many legends about the Aztecs in our minds, with no understanding. Although he goes a little bit overboard in the "evil white man" theme, we did do a terrible thing destroying this culture. The characters were fully explored and realistic, the plot and writing style admirable. It is a huge book that I just could not put down. I found myself planning my day around "when will I have time to read more of this." The only negatives were the emphasis on sex and evil WASPs, which were far outweighed by the grandeur of the story. If you like this one, try 1812 by David Nevin too (almost, but not quite, as good).

Rating:
Summary: Superbly and an Enrichful read. Food For Thought
Review: MIXTLI wasn't that different from the average Joe from our "Modern World".With the same worries about life and the problems that atributes us today with the only great exception that we don't have the threat of an invasion of strange and sadistic "aliens" from a far away land. It opens the big picture of our civilization that we are only here so we could die like the great NEZAHUALCOYOTL once profetized. The truth is not out there, but within... AZTEC.

Rating:
Summary: An Equal to "With Fire and Sword" by Sienkiewicz
Review: I thought that "With Fire and Sword" was alone at the top of great historical fiction until I read Jenning's Aztec. Now there are at least 2.

Aztec started slowly and built steadily toward a crescendo as the book closed. Engrossing. Exciting. Gripping. With great characters whom we got to know well, Aztec has everything, including an education into a historically solid account of a great people.

Aztec entertains and educates. It is a must read for anyone interested in great historical fiction.

Rating:
Summary: No acabo de leer un libro, acabo de vivir un Mundo...
Review: Como antropólogo mesoamericanista la lectura de AZTECA como novela histórica, me enfrentaba desde un inicio a dos problemas que para el autor debían haber generado igualmente situaciones de difícil solución: Por una parte, la exigencia de la rigurosidad histórico-documental en el contenido de la obra, por la otra lograr que ese esfuerzo no se transformara en una publicación árida o engorrosa, cuyo exceso de información documental la hiciese poco ágil e interesante.

Jennings superó con honores ambos retos. La lectura de su obra nos entrega una historia sólida, interesante, dinámica, profunda y excelentemente bien documentada.

Gracias a 'Azteca', acompañé a Miztli y a sus amigos al calmecac, sentí bajo la planta de los pies la lisa superficie de las piedras calentadas por Tonatiuh en la explanada del Templo Mayor, me deleité con el arte de la plumaria en los escudos de los Caballeros Aguilas, me envolvieron los gritos de guerra y dolor de la Guerra Florida y mis narices se llenaron con el copal que ahumaba los templos del Cem Anahuac. También vi la desmesura en la mirada febril de los recién llegados, incapaces de comprender siquiera cuanto les rodeaba. Percibí la locura tras esos rostros enjutos y barbados, su hedor castigó mis narices y la espuma caliente de sus caballos me salpicó la cara en los combates de la Noche Triste.

Miztli no murió en la hoguera de la inquisición. Su cuerpo quemado por el fanatismo del irrespeto y la intolerancia se hizo estrella, se hizo un Pueblo que construye futuro.

Por último, como agradecimiento a Gary Jennings que con esta obra nos legó algo inolvidable, un escrito del Huey Tlatoani de la Ciudad de Texcoco, poeta Netzahualcoyotl: UN RECUERDO QUE DEJO

¿CON QUÉ HE DE IRME?, ¿CÓMO HA DE ACTUAR MI CORAZON?, ¿NADA DEJARÉ EN POS DE MI SOBRE LA TIERRA?... ¿ACASO EN VANO VENIMOS A VIVIR, A BROTAR SOBRE LA TIERRA?. DEJEMOS AL MENOS FLORES... AL MENOS CANTOS.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely accurate historically, yet a compelling novel.
Review: As a long time scholar of Latin America, and having lived in Mexico for nearly three years, I found Aztec to be thoroughly accurate and beautifully detailed. It is the story of the end of the Aztec (really Mexica) Empire told from the point of the view of the Aztecs. While tremendously long, it is one of those books you hate to see end.

Rating:
Summary: We need a producer. This is the best!
Review: I finished AZTEC two months ago and I can't find a good word to describe it, it's simply amazing. I had too many doubts about the documentation behind this but reading all this comments I noticed that Gary Jennings documented his work very very well. Congratulations Mr. Jennings, this is a GREAT book. Now we need a producer to make the film, because, as someone said, that would be a dream come true.