La Muerte del Quinto Sol

by Robert Somerlott

Un emperador azteca todopoderoso, un conquistador espalo implacable, inquisidores fanáticos, capitanes sedientos de oro y sangre, vistos por los ojos de na mujer india condenada a amar y odiar simultáneamente a las dos razas que la oprimían.

Ce Malinalli, llamada también Malinche o Doña Marina, la amante india de Hernán Cortés, vió cómo los aztecas asesinaban a su familia y cómo los españoles torturaban a su hijo.

Hernán Cortés dejó su huella indeleble en el territorio ocupado y en las carnes de Malinche.

Genres: Historical Fiction

414 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the best of the many fictional novels about the Fall of the Aztec It is first, a story of a woman (Dona Marina " La Malinche" and a man (Hernando Cortes). The storyteller predicts the future of Ce Malinalli and how she will be the bringer of death and destruction to all. She is saved from a required death and is instead raised by her non-Aztec father in politics and cultural studies. The novel takes us from the wilderness frontier of her birth where she is enslaved by the Aztecs and then captured by the Spanish. We see how she meets the Spanish invader, Hernando Cortes and why she creates the myth that he is the embodiment of the Quetzacoatl, Plumed Serpent/High priest who was exiled. In time, she comes to see Cortes as a man whom she loves but remains distant. Even though she becomes his translator, lover and close confidant, she is treated as a servant. She bears witness to the cruelty that Cortes and the Spanish possess, their greed for gold and their lust for power and violence. In time she is cast aside and paseed to another man. While she often retells the tragedy of the fall of the Aztec Empire and culture, she becomes an outcast. In the end, she outlives many of the main players in the tragedy but is forever branded a traitor and cursed by the indigenous peoples. In spite of this, she remains proud and resolute about the path her life takes. While this is a work of fiction, the accuracy to detail in regards to historical events, characters, religious arguments, ritualistic practice, battles, and political intrigue helps to re-create the time vividly. In the end, the reader questions the role of fate, the misuse of power, religious fervor and man's bigotry and hatred.

[Ra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This obscure book is worthy of being republished or re-written. The events of Hernan Cortes's conquest of Mexico are narrated from the viewpoint of his translator and consort La Malinche, who is also a real historical figure that had huge influence on the outcome of the conquest.

The only fault with the book was its oscillating narrative between past and present, sometimes going back and forth in the narrative of the past, but it fits with the rambling of an old woman (in the terms of those past centuries).

I found La Malinche's voice fascinating. She viewed the Spaniards, their ways and their religion, through the prism of her own culture and knowledge, and in comparing the two cultures, exposed quite innocently and effortlessly the hypocrisy of the supposedly superior culture and religion. While the natives had their savage and cruel traditions, the conquistadors who were supposed to liberate them and bring them the true religion, disguised their own brands of cruelty also as some sort of holy conquest.
I thought the author's depiction of her thoughts, her love for Cortes, and her ambiguous role as a mediator, or a traitor to her culture was successful. Her strength of character is clear in the pages.

I have noted many nuggets of wisdom spoken in the voice of La Malinche. Here is a sampling:
On the subject of the hypocrisy of the white conquistador, who was driven to this new world by greed and huger for wealth, Cortes was explaining to La Malinche about the precious metal law, which makes it illegal for anyone except Spaniard to hand silver or gold, the archbishop has pronounced that handling such metals might corrupt the souls of the "Indians".
"So our souls are too pure to be endangered by wealth, yet so wicked that the devil prompts us in learning. I have just decided something: a soul is worth exactly what somebody else gains by saving it."
"To be old is to be better acquainted wit the dead than the living."
"I accepted that survival is a lottery and it is no good protesting that it is rigged and crooked. Yet I still think that there are persons whose longevity should be added to the list of their faults."
Later she goes on when she describes her relationship with Cortes, how they came together in talk of war, tactics and politics, and how that was the substance of their lives: " These were the hours I cherished most, and I supposed myself peculiar. Then years afterward, I heard an old farmer's widow lamenting at the wake held for her newly dead husband. She did not wail for the lost kisses of courtship or the embraces of the marriage bed. Instead tears ran down her leathery cheeks and she sobbed, saying 'We planted the corn together for forty years. We pulled the weeds and drove away the crows. When one field turned barren, we burned it off and cleared another.' It had been work and hope that united them, not passion - although they must have enjoyed that, too. So it was with me."
"The disappointment of visiting scenes of the past was not that they evoked tragedy but that they evoked nothing."
And while thinking of the fate of her son Tepi (Marin Cortes, also a real character), who grew up in Spain away from her "I had heard about him only from infrequent visitors, report so delayed that time had tempered them. Now it would still be best to hear what happened long after the worst was over. Bad news is one of the few things that softens with age."

La Malinche is a controversial figure until this day. Whether she did what she did out of self interest, or religious belief (Cortes with his plumed hat was believed to be a reincarnation of a native god - Plumed Serpent, coming back to reclaim the Aztec Capital), her ambiguity and motives are intriguing enough to drive the historical narrative.

[Joel]

DNF.. As interesting as Aztec's were, leave it at Horrible Histories.