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| The Death of Artemio Cruz: A Novel | 
| Author: Carlos Fuentes
Creator: Alfred Macadam
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $0.74
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New (46) Collectible (1) from $4.78
Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 179026
Media: Paperback
Edition: Revised
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0374522839
Dewey Decimal Number: 863
EAN: 9780374522834
ASIN: 0374522839
Publication Date: May 1, 1991
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Standard used condition.
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Product Description
Hailed as a masterpiece since its publication in 1962, The Death of Artemio Cruz is Carlos Fuentes's haunting voyage into the soul of modern Mexico. Its acknowledged place in Latin American fiction and its appeal to a fresh generation of readers have warranted this new translation by Alfred Mac Adam, translator (with the author) of Fuentes's Christopher Unborn.
As in all his fiction, but perhaps most powerfully in this book, Fuentes is a passionate guide to the ironies of Mexican history, the burden of its past, and the anguish of its present.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Brilliant, innovative and powerful narrative August 9, 2008
Artemio Cruz is a man whose impending death compels him to look back over the span of his life to re-live its peak experiences. In a real sense Cruz was more than a man living in Mexico during a time of revolution: he is a microcosm of Mexico itself. I deeply respect and admire the inventive, narrative technique, which in some respects is revolutionary. The switch of narrative voice in its person is daring and works brilliantly to make the narrative come alive. The story line becomes personal and engaging in the first person and yet more objective in the second and third persons. One really gets to know Artemio in the first person narrative segments. The flashbacks intrigued me in the way that Fuentes used changes in time to serve the narrative as they take the reader to high-points and low points of this man's rise from abject poverty and military adventures to his love affairs and rise to power with its attendant material wealth. Cruz is a fascinating literary figure whose human weaknesses are legion but he is roundly and credibly drawn and leaps off the page by virtue of the narrative technique of Fuentes. The translation by Alfred Mac Adam is elegant, poetic, lyrically rich and does justice to this literary novel: I highly recommend this great translation. This is a great book by a supremely gifted writer and translator: I hope you decide to read Artemio Cruz.
 Long Winded Rantings Of A Dying Politician December 8, 2007
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is literally one of the worst books I have ever read, and I am a bibliophile. I can only equate this book to getting your teeth scraped at the dentist's office for hours on end. The only reason I finished reading this book is because it is required reading for one of my classes.
The only people that I suggest this reading to are those who:
1. enjoy the overuse of ellipsises.
2. enjoy an author who rather than use words that denote intelligence, devotes three pages to nothing but the use of the word "f@&!" and it's derivatives.
3. enjoy tangents that will leave you grasping frantically for a sense of meaning and finding none.
4. enjoy words and tenses that do not match up (i.e. "yesterday you will", etc)
5. enjoy the ever changing narrative perspective (I to you to he to I to you, etc.), but the narrator is the same person in every perspective.
6. enjoy with the changing narrative perspectives many
jumps in time that are not chronological (neither backwards nor forwards).
7. enjoy reading about absolutely meaningless sex that does not enhance or help the story line.
8. enjoy a gross indifference to rape, adultery, political corruption, greed, murder, etc.
9. are a politician and want tips on how to write your biography.
If that floats your boat, I would recommend this book. If not, I would find something else to satiate your literary appetite.
The out-of-print version is BETTER April 14, 2006
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
If you love literature then let me suggest that you purchase the "out-of-print" translation from one of the third party sellers. I read this book in a class and half the class read the older translation, the other half the new one. We voted hands down for the older translation. The new translation is good, but it simplifies a lot of the text and is mising the flair and use of complex figurative language of the older version.
Make it Work for You December 12, 2004
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
The book was beautifully written, the plot was interesting, and the character development went above and beyond most books.
So why is there such controversy over this book? Well it is easy to say, this is not your cruise vacation book to read while laying by the beach. The first chapter will have you kicking and screaming for anything tangible to grab onto. The only person in this book you have to guide you is Artemio Cruz, who is sharing with you his memories. However, he isn't always the most stable guide. Half the book he is on his deathbed rambling, switching tenses and narratives.
So that is the first warning. However if you are willing to invest some time, you can find an entire new meaning to life within this book. If you can't invest the time, go out and rent Citizen Kane, you'll get the gist in about two hours, rather then the month minimum you'll need to get this book. Even after rereading it, the book leaves dozens of pieces in the book isolated and unconnected. (In fact we never how Artemio gets from being 13 to 23, and if you read the book you'll know why this is important and frustrating).
So what does this book have to offer besides several headaches and why in the world did I give it five stars? Well I could throw a lot of pretty adjectives out at you, but I won't. I will tell it to you simply. This book makes you think. And not in the painful way. If you fight this book, you will never get it. If you embrace it, even in it's most challenging passages, you will be opened to a whole new world of ideas. Ideas about memory, desire, life, death, and our place within society are embedded in this story.
Bottom line: This story is like an excavation site waiting to be dug up, hidden with endless treasures. If you are willing to put in the time, you won't be disappointed. If that sounds like too much work, move right along then.
 The Death of Artemio Cruz November 20, 2004
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
Artemio Cruz owns a vast empire in Mexico, encompassing newspapers, land, construction and more. He has a beautiful wife and daughter, both of whom he cannot stand, nor they him. His aide, Padilla, a man he trusts with his empire, and one he has grown to love as the son he lost so many years ago. He is so important, so respected, so necessary to the Mexican country that the President tries to impress him, rather than the other way around. But Artemio Cruz is dying, painfully and slowly, and it is while dying that he has a chance to evaluate his life, to take a good look at himself and what he has achieved.
Cruz is a complicated man. As a youth, he fought in the various, chaotic revolutions and counter-revolutions that periodically caused Mexico to cease functioning as a nation, becoming little more than a series of loosely connected fiefdoms. Using his intelligence and daring, he was able to secure a command in the fight against Pancho Villa, but more importantly, he also knew when to leave the life of a soldier for a more solid existence. As a young man, he met Regina, the woman he was to love until his dying day.
As an older man, he is respected and influential, but also cold and distant. Gone are the passionate, poorly thought-out heroics of his early adulthood. He no longer loves like it doesn't matter, or cares much for the reality of another person. At his annual New Year's party, Cruz retires early to a comfortable leather chair positioned so he can watch everyone else have fun. The unspoken rules of the party forbids guests to talk to him at all, other than to pay their respects. His wife lives in another city, and a prostitute shares his bed this night, as she has every other night for the past eight years.
The three technique Fuentes uses in painting Cruz's life are quite interesting. In the present of the novel, when Cruz is dying, the narration is first person, disjointed, and very, very personal. No physical details are omitted, no matter how disgusting. Thoughts are fragmented, jumping from place to place, from time to time. The first few instances of this are difficult to follow, because we do not yet know Cruz's life, but as the novel progresses, the chaotic mental ramblings of the present become clearer, if not for Cruz but for us.
The second stylistic method used are the second person sections. These are generally short, but are the harshest and most self-critical. It is as though Cruz has stepped back from himself, created a 'you' for him to pour forth his bile, resentment, anger and also satisfaction about himself and his own life. These sections are just as personal as the first-person chapters, but in an emotional sense. He probes at the reasons he did this, or why he would think that. These sections are almost entirely devoid of other characters, it is simply Cruz with himself, condemning and praising, remembering and trying to forget.
The third - and most plentiful - type of chapters are in third person, dated, and taken from various times throughout his life. It is here we learn of Regina, here we learn why the phrase, 'We crossed the river on horseback' is so important, why his wife hates him, and more. In these sections, we are almost never shown his thoughts, nor those of anybody else. They are very detached, expositionary scenes, helping to explain the intimate thoughts and ramblings of the second- and first-person chapters.
Towards the end of the narrative, as Artemio Cruz approaches his death, the 'you' and the 'I' narratives start to merge, fuzzing and growing indistinct. He rails against himself, then defends his decisions over the years, then praises himself for the love he has, even now, for Regina. The sections - interspersing the 'you' and 'I' and even 'he' of Cruz within the space of four sentences - could be confusing if done earlier, but because we are familiar with his life and thoughts, they make sense. There are pages long sequences of broken thoughts, flitting between time and place without warning or explanation, and surprisingly, these are effective and do not come across at all as a gimmick. Rather, it is the character of Cruz - presented elsewhere as so strong and stable when old, so mercurial and romantic when young - breaking apart, unable to accept his death, unwilling to leave his life, even if it will mean re-uniting with Regina.
In the end, what we have is a character study. The setting - early 20th century Mexico - is rich and colourful, although at times, it does fade into the background as Artemio Cruz's character takes over. This is by no means a negative, as Cruz is a wonderful diverse man. He has weaknesses and strengths, and the novel spends as much time of his flaws as it does on his achievements. It is a credit to Fuentes that the vibrancy of Mexico shines through in what is, primarily, a journey through the mind of a proud man, a lonely man, a dying man: Artemio Cruz.
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