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| The Old Gringo (Picador Books) | 
| Author: Carlos Fuentes
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book
Buy Used: $1.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Format: Import
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
ISBN: 0330293273
EAN: 9780330293273
ASIN: 0330293273
Publication Date: 1987
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Good 8vo-over 7 3/4"'"-9 3/4"'" tall. 208pp. Pictorial card covers. 1st Printing of the British and Commonwealth Trade paperback edition. Blurbs by Evan S. Connell, Henry Mayer, Michiko Kakutani, Phoebe-Lou Adams, Earl Shorris, Paul West, John Seabrook. A fictional recreation of the disappearance of Ambrose Bierce in Mexico in 1914. No spine creases, couple of minor cover creases, first page missing, bottom half title page missing, a few pages with underlining. Still a nice-looking reading copy.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 Moving, Gentle Story of Two Gringos and a General in Mexico. March 4, 2007
This is a quiet gentle story of an aging man who comes to Mexico to die by the hand of Pancho Villa and an American woman who eventually finds herself involved with a Villa general. Both have baggage in the US and are trying to find something in Mexico that has been missing from their lives.
Class Assignment February 27, 2006
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I would not have read this book on my own. My literature instructor at Santa Monica College assigned it. It took a while for me to get into the book. I would recommend it if you are looking for something totally different than a fast pace, exciting read.
 I loved this novel. September 25, 2005
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I thoroughly enjoyed Fuentes' The Old Gringo. It constitutes everything a novel should be: love, death, war, sex, etc. It includes themes of brotherhood, colonialism, relations between the US and Mexico, freedom, love across national boundaries, and what it is to die. I found Fuentes' prose to be beautiful and diverse; an intersubjective consciousness flows through the characters, revealing as well that we are all only readers, and we will never know the real story. Beacuse of his style, Fuentes enriches the text, makes it stand out and vibrate with life. It's tactile. His characters are complex and story line great.
For anyone interested in Latin-American works, I would highly recommend this one. It takes the revolution and gives it the colors we would never see as outsiders.
 Movie was bad, book is worse. March 2, 2005
3 out of 8 found this review helpful
The story starts out very good, but the farther one reads the slower and more boring it becomes, I was only able to scan thru the second half, as other reviewers remarked the sex scene is really really laughable, avocados indeed. I felt as if I were wasting my time reading this when I could have been reading something good.
 I'll Never Eat Guacemole Again. February 5, 2005
4 out of 10 found this review helpful
Usually things I read don't bother me, no matter how absurd or disgusting they are. I'm an English major, and I've read enough to not be shocked by much. But then there comes The Old Gringo. What shocks me about The Old Gringo isn't really the events of the plot. As far as a story goes, this is just pretty dull and wouldn't offend. The writing, however, is shocking. I don't know if it's the translation or what, but there is some really absurd writing in here. The guy actually wrote the following image (I'm recalling this sentence, but I know this is still pretty accurate): "Arroyo's testicles were like furry little avocados." This isn't even the dumbest image in the book. The sex scenes throughout are similarly hilarious. Fuentes writes half of the book about sex, and the terms he describes it in are either cliched or are as laughable as the avacado image.
Anyway, I'm giving this book two stars because, even though the writing made me cringe when I read it, it makes me laugh now. There are probably a few things in the book that are profound, too. But I generally can't remember them for all the absurdity throughout.
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