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El sueño mexicano o el pensamiento interrumpido
Más que presentarnos una historia lineal de los pueblos indígenas del México antiguo, el autor nos introduce en la dimensión mágica y onírica de la cosmogonía de los pueblos prehispánicos.
Como señala Le Clézio: "La ambivalencia de los dioses paganos es incomprensible para el religioso español", y esta incomprensión origina el desprecio por las "supersticiones", creencias que, por lo demás, estaban encaminadas a resolver problemas filosóficos que el mundo clásico antiguo ya se había planteado.
Sin embargo, para los españoles de la Europa renacentista del siglo XVI, esta multitud de dioses, algunos de ellos "gigantes que presiden la génesis del mundo", no eran más que demonios que producían horror o burla. Mediante el reconocimiento de bailes, ritos, ceremonias tribales y conmemoraciones, además de extensas citas de códices prehispánicos, el autor explora en esta minuciosa indagación la presencia, hasta nuestros días, de los valores culturales indígenas de México.
Como señala Le Clézio: "La ambivalencia de los dioses paganos es incomprensible para el religioso español", y esta incomprensión origina el desprecio por las "supersticiones", creencias que, por lo demás, estaban encaminadas a resolver problemas filosóficos que el mundo clásico antiguo ya se había planteado.
Sin embargo, para los españoles de la Europa renacentista del siglo XVI, esta multitud de dioses, algunos de ellos "gigantes que presiden la génesis del mundo", no eran más que demonios que producían horror o burla. Mediante el reconocimiento de bailes, ritos, ceremonias tribales y conmemoraciones, además de extensas citas de códices prehispánicos, el autor explora en esta minuciosa indagación la presencia, hasta nuestros días, de los valores culturales indígenas de México.
278 pages, Paperback
First published September 5, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
September 4, 2024
An evocative take on the history of ancient Mexico, the conquistadors, and the elimination of a culture. Le Clezio weaves all Amerindians into his vision of mesoamerican folklore, culture and beliefs, how this makes a people and of worlds colliding, tragically-- yet it was foreseen by the Apocalyptic prophecies of the Maya.
This is a rambling history told in seven novella- length essays by a man of literature- Le Clezio won the Nobel prize "as an author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization." Le Clezio, a Frenchman, had a passion for the mesoamerican lands, and has himself a second home in New Mexico.
His writing here is immensely detailed, highly repetitive and long-winded. Beautiful-but just....too much...excess...
We are spared nothing, particularly in the brutality of it all. It's hard to look away from the horrific description and it's deeply saddening on both sides.
The Aztecs were wiped out by the Spanish invasion, and knowing it was coming did not make any of it easier.
Le Clezio forces us to consider the impact- for all Amerindians on the North American continent were ultimately decimated-
Could these two cultures, European and Amerindians, have co-existed otherwise? he wonders.
It's quite a question.
This is a rambling history told in seven novella- length essays by a man of literature- Le Clezio won the Nobel prize "as an author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization." Le Clezio, a Frenchman, had a passion for the mesoamerican lands, and has himself a second home in New Mexico.
His writing here is immensely detailed, highly repetitive and long-winded. Beautiful-but just....too much...excess...
We are spared nothing, particularly in the brutality of it all. It's hard to look away from the horrific description and it's deeply saddening on both sides.
The Aztecs were wiped out by the Spanish invasion, and knowing it was coming did not make any of it easier.
Le Clezio forces us to consider the impact- for all Amerindians on the North American continent were ultimately decimated-
Could these two cultures, European and Amerindians, have co-existed otherwise? he wonders.
It's quite a question.
July 31, 2024
It is, I believe, the primary charm of poetry to give the lesson of mirage, that is, to show the fragile and vibrant movement of creation, in which the word is human quintessence, prayer.
The Nobel Laureate author gives us a series of essays largely about the fate of Amerindian Mexico during the Conquest: one essay odd enough is about Artaud in his Mexican exile--sigh. The essays aren’t edited to avoid repetitio, a fact which is annoying. The conclusions are murky but ring of the romantic.
I thought the opening section promising but ultimately it sounded like a Houellebecq rant.
The Nobel Laureate author gives us a series of essays largely about the fate of Amerindian Mexico during the Conquest: one essay odd enough is about Artaud in his Mexican exile--sigh. The essays aren’t edited to avoid repetitio, a fact which is annoying. The conclusions are murky but ring of the romantic.
I thought the opening section promising but ultimately it sounded like a Houellebecq rant.
November 11, 2023
I bought "The Mexican Dream" after Le Clézio won the Nobel Prize in 2008,and I bought it rather than one of his novels, because of my interest in Mexico and Latin America. Although French, Le Clézio has lived, studied, and taught around the world; he is a global citizen. He lived in Mexico and completed a PhD in colonial Mexican history.
I have recently read Miguel Leon-Portillo’s "The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico," and Le Clézio’s book length essay is very much in line with Leon-Portillo’s indigenous focus. I’ve always found more fascinating, as I think most people do, the cultures of the Aztecs, Mayans, Toltecs, Olmecs et. al. than the guns, iron, Catholic, and gold-obsessed culture that Cortez and the other conquistadors imported into Latin America. Leon-Portillo gave me more reasons to sympathize with the indigenous peoples who Cortez and Co. conned, and from L-P I learned–or perhaps was just reminded–of just how fraught and closely fought was the battle for Tenochtitlan. Superior technology may have won out, but it was by the skin of its teeth.
Although clearly the result of much research, and although there are a few notes and references, "The Mexican Dream" is not a scholarly book. With the skills that would make him a Nobel laureate, Le Clézio writes a sharp, engaging, and persuasive history. He begins with the texts of colonizers–Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s "The Discover and Conquest of Mexico," Bernardo de Sahaguan’s "The History of Mexico" and "The Florentine Codex"–and transforms them, through close reading shifting the authors’ foci from colonizer-centric to Mexica-empathetic. An deft rhetorical move on Le Clézio’s part. These were texts that were not readily accepted at the time of their writing, because they veered from the victorious Conquest narrative to find value in the conquered Other, so Le Clézio finds weaknesses in their colonial veneer to turn them to other purposes. I have read Mexican history over the years, and although I’ve been aware of much, maybe just some, of what Le Clézio talks about here, he brings it all together in a concise, coherent, and forceful narrative, wrangling an essentially non-western story into a western idiom. Le Clézio’s thesis: he rues the loss of the pre-Conquest civilizations to the narrow-minded, intolerant, and kleptocratic invasion of Europe, and he details those losses as well the potential of all the knowledge which might have been gained if those civilizations had survived.
In Chapter 1, Dreams of the Conquerors, Le Clézio focuses on the conquest itself. Moreover, he organizes his narrative around the dreams of the two sides as well as the images associated with those dreams. For the Spanish, Le Clézio speaks of gold, language (persuasion), and the Minotaur. The Spaniard’s insatiable appetite for gold turned them into a monster consuming everything, Mexica civilization, in its path, and it is Cortez’s persuasive words, translated by La Malinche, that made satisfaction of that possible again and again; the Spaniard’s technology (guns, iron, horses) gave them the confidence to pursue their appetite, despite great losses. On the other side, the dreams of the Aztecs were marked by magic, faith, legends, and rituals: the everyday world and the divine were intimately connected (the everyday manifested the divine through magic); one traversed that world carefully and rigorously through ritual, and everything in the world was ritualized. The stories that anchored Aztec faith were simply true. Thus, when Cortez and Company appeared, they gave indelible proof to the story of the return of Quetzalcoatl and the end of Aztec civilization. Because of the close tie between the material world and the divine, when the Spaniards destroyed the statues of the Aztec gods, the Aztecs saw the destruction of their gods.
In Chapter 2, The Dream of Origins, Le Clézio uses Bernardo de Sahaguan’s "The History of Mexico" and "The Florentine Codex" to explore all that is fascinating and beautiful about Aztec culture and beliefs, making the point that, for all of Sahaguan’s Catholicism and judgment, the knowledge of the Mexica world that he collected in these two volumes fascinated and won him over, despite whatever moral and ethical brakes he might have used to slow his entrance into that strange, Other world. Le Clézio’s discussion of the significance of blood is the highlight of the chapter. Beginning with Sahaguan, he speaks to how shocked Spaniards were with Aztec blood practices–not only the sacrifices of the peoples they defeated, but also the daily ritual bleedings of the Aztecs themselves–and then he points out, flipping the argument, that the Spaniards were happily willing to spill other people’s blood for profit and conquest, just not so much their own. For the Aztecs, blood was the divine sign of the suffering nature of the world, so for the Aztecs to be part of that divine sign they had to participate in it themselves, whereas the Spaniard can’t conceive of ritually spilling their own blood, just the blood of others. Europeans move disconnected from both the material and spiritual worlds, a disconnect that increased the destruction they wrought as they moved through the world.
Chapter 3, Mexican Myths. A good chapter but not as interesting as the first two because it lacks their fascinating rhetorical. The chapter seems to be more background, the stories that fill, further illustrate the strange, beautiful and magical otherness of Mexica culture. I like the connection that he makes to modern Mexican lit (Rulfo et. al.). The pre-Hispanic world finds its way through.
Chapter 4, Nezahualcóyotl. The poet-king of Texcoco. Great chapter on high culture. Wish Le Clézio had made the connection to Alonso X, the Spanish poet-king. I love Le Clézio’s definition of poetry: “It is, I believe, the primary charm of poetry to give the lesson of mirage, that is, to show the fragile and vibrant movement of creation, in which the word is human quintessence, prayer.” (111)
Chapter 5, The Barbarian Dream. Le Clézio turns to another colonial text, "The Chronicle of Michoacan," for this chapter on the nomadic peoples of Mexico (what I’ll call the Chichimeca et.al., because there are so many of them (and I think Le Clézio tries to name them all)). Le Clézio follows the pattern of the first two chapters and uses colonial texts not to reiterate the information they store but to mine that information for wonder and magic and beauty. When Le Clézio looks at pre-Hispanic Mexican civilizations, he sees them as magical, as organized by a tight bond between this world and the divine. There is little if no distance between the Chichimeca et.al. and their gods. I have been little aware of these nomadic peoples, so this was a fascinating chapter to read. Spaniards had a much more difficult time defeating/controlling them than the settled Aztec. The Chichimeca et.al. occupied space rather than place. They were hunter-gatherers, war-like, expert bowmen, expert at the natural world, fast, intuitive, and deadly; they felt intimately connected with the world and to their gods, another example of a people living a divine life. They reacted badly when the Spanish attempted to restrict their traditions–polygamy, nudity, cremation, body painting and tattooing, long hair and jewelry, intoxication, ritual dances, and drugs–and started the Indian Wars. Le Clézio reclaims “barbarian” not as an insult but as a descriptor of civilizations that are beautiful and magical but far too Other for european culture to understand or adapt to.
Chapter 6, Antonin Artaud. Artaud, booted by Breton from the surrealist clique, goes to Mexico looking for salvation in Pre-Hispanic Mexican culture, the magic and the rituals, rejecting european culture for the primitive and intuitive of old Mexico, which of course he cannot really find. The search, the dream, drives him to a mental breakdown and ultimately institutionalization back in France. Artaud is damaged by european culture. He is a precursor to the Beats and Hippies looking for an alternative to the modern, warring, exploitative world as well as Le Clézio’s search for alternatives.
Chapter 7, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilization. This final chapter serves as a post-mortem for all that the world lost with the destruction of the pre-Conquest civilizations of Mexico. Le Clézio begins by pointing out that Cortez and all the other european conquerors were out not simply to collect as much gold and other riches as they could but to purposefully destroy the civilizations they encountered. Thus, when Cortez killed the Aztec ruling class and destroyed the material manifestations of Aztec faith, they left the surviving people, who had survived war and disease, in essence without a head (cities, leadership, history, culture, ritual, faith): that is, without the cultural resources to move forward into the future grounded in the knowledge of the past. With the genocidal destruction the conquistadors wrought, the survivors were reduced to bodies that could be dominated and enslaved, a situation that inhered until the early 20th C and captured in books like B. Traven’s "The Rebellion of the Hanged." The monotheistic, materialist, opportunistic, rational culture wipes out anything that doesn’t resemble and/or yield to it: “For we believe that the said Spaniards are acting thus so that we will all be finished and will fade away, and so there will no longer be any memory of us on earth.” Le Clézio then mourns what was lost: the philosophy, poetry, art, laws, moral harmony, the harmony of reality and the supernatural, the equilibrium between man and the world, the mythical and real, dreams and body, cyclical time and catastrophe. The inequality of armed strength perpetrated by Europeans around the world for the sake of domination, wealth extraction, and the erasure of Others created a giant cultural hole in history, a knowledge which perhaps the west might find useful now in the face of perpetual war and coming climate catastrophe.
Great book.
I have recently read Miguel Leon-Portillo’s "The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico," and Le Clézio’s book length essay is very much in line with Leon-Portillo’s indigenous focus. I’ve always found more fascinating, as I think most people do, the cultures of the Aztecs, Mayans, Toltecs, Olmecs et. al. than the guns, iron, Catholic, and gold-obsessed culture that Cortez and the other conquistadors imported into Latin America. Leon-Portillo gave me more reasons to sympathize with the indigenous peoples who Cortez and Co. conned, and from L-P I learned–or perhaps was just reminded–of just how fraught and closely fought was the battle for Tenochtitlan. Superior technology may have won out, but it was by the skin of its teeth.
Although clearly the result of much research, and although there are a few notes and references, "The Mexican Dream" is not a scholarly book. With the skills that would make him a Nobel laureate, Le Clézio writes a sharp, engaging, and persuasive history. He begins with the texts of colonizers–Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s "The Discover and Conquest of Mexico," Bernardo de Sahaguan’s "The History of Mexico" and "The Florentine Codex"–and transforms them, through close reading shifting the authors’ foci from colonizer-centric to Mexica-empathetic. An deft rhetorical move on Le Clézio’s part. These were texts that were not readily accepted at the time of their writing, because they veered from the victorious Conquest narrative to find value in the conquered Other, so Le Clézio finds weaknesses in their colonial veneer to turn them to other purposes. I have read Mexican history over the years, and although I’ve been aware of much, maybe just some, of what Le Clézio talks about here, he brings it all together in a concise, coherent, and forceful narrative, wrangling an essentially non-western story into a western idiom. Le Clézio’s thesis: he rues the loss of the pre-Conquest civilizations to the narrow-minded, intolerant, and kleptocratic invasion of Europe, and he details those losses as well the potential of all the knowledge which might have been gained if those civilizations had survived.
In Chapter 1, Dreams of the Conquerors, Le Clézio focuses on the conquest itself. Moreover, he organizes his narrative around the dreams of the two sides as well as the images associated with those dreams. For the Spanish, Le Clézio speaks of gold, language (persuasion), and the Minotaur. The Spaniard’s insatiable appetite for gold turned them into a monster consuming everything, Mexica civilization, in its path, and it is Cortez’s persuasive words, translated by La Malinche, that made satisfaction of that possible again and again; the Spaniard’s technology (guns, iron, horses) gave them the confidence to pursue their appetite, despite great losses. On the other side, the dreams of the Aztecs were marked by magic, faith, legends, and rituals: the everyday world and the divine were intimately connected (the everyday manifested the divine through magic); one traversed that world carefully and rigorously through ritual, and everything in the world was ritualized. The stories that anchored Aztec faith were simply true. Thus, when Cortez and Company appeared, they gave indelible proof to the story of the return of Quetzalcoatl and the end of Aztec civilization. Because of the close tie between the material world and the divine, when the Spaniards destroyed the statues of the Aztec gods, the Aztecs saw the destruction of their gods.
In Chapter 2, The Dream of Origins, Le Clézio uses Bernardo de Sahaguan’s "The History of Mexico" and "The Florentine Codex" to explore all that is fascinating and beautiful about Aztec culture and beliefs, making the point that, for all of Sahaguan’s Catholicism and judgment, the knowledge of the Mexica world that he collected in these two volumes fascinated and won him over, despite whatever moral and ethical brakes he might have used to slow his entrance into that strange, Other world. Le Clézio’s discussion of the significance of blood is the highlight of the chapter. Beginning with Sahaguan, he speaks to how shocked Spaniards were with Aztec blood practices–not only the sacrifices of the peoples they defeated, but also the daily ritual bleedings of the Aztecs themselves–and then he points out, flipping the argument, that the Spaniards were happily willing to spill other people’s blood for profit and conquest, just not so much their own. For the Aztecs, blood was the divine sign of the suffering nature of the world, so for the Aztecs to be part of that divine sign they had to participate in it themselves, whereas the Spaniard can’t conceive of ritually spilling their own blood, just the blood of others. Europeans move disconnected from both the material and spiritual worlds, a disconnect that increased the destruction they wrought as they moved through the world.
Chapter 3, Mexican Myths. A good chapter but not as interesting as the first two because it lacks their fascinating rhetorical. The chapter seems to be more background, the stories that fill, further illustrate the strange, beautiful and magical otherness of Mexica culture. I like the connection that he makes to modern Mexican lit (Rulfo et. al.). The pre-Hispanic world finds its way through.
Chapter 4, Nezahualcóyotl. The poet-king of Texcoco. Great chapter on high culture. Wish Le Clézio had made the connection to Alonso X, the Spanish poet-king. I love Le Clézio’s definition of poetry: “It is, I believe, the primary charm of poetry to give the lesson of mirage, that is, to show the fragile and vibrant movement of creation, in which the word is human quintessence, prayer.” (111)
Chapter 5, The Barbarian Dream. Le Clézio turns to another colonial text, "The Chronicle of Michoacan," for this chapter on the nomadic peoples of Mexico (what I’ll call the Chichimeca et.al., because there are so many of them (and I think Le Clézio tries to name them all)). Le Clézio follows the pattern of the first two chapters and uses colonial texts not to reiterate the information they store but to mine that information for wonder and magic and beauty. When Le Clézio looks at pre-Hispanic Mexican civilizations, he sees them as magical, as organized by a tight bond between this world and the divine. There is little if no distance between the Chichimeca et.al. and their gods. I have been little aware of these nomadic peoples, so this was a fascinating chapter to read. Spaniards had a much more difficult time defeating/controlling them than the settled Aztec. The Chichimeca et.al. occupied space rather than place. They were hunter-gatherers, war-like, expert bowmen, expert at the natural world, fast, intuitive, and deadly; they felt intimately connected with the world and to their gods, another example of a people living a divine life. They reacted badly when the Spanish attempted to restrict their traditions–polygamy, nudity, cremation, body painting and tattooing, long hair and jewelry, intoxication, ritual dances, and drugs–and started the Indian Wars. Le Clézio reclaims “barbarian” not as an insult but as a descriptor of civilizations that are beautiful and magical but far too Other for european culture to understand or adapt to.
Chapter 6, Antonin Artaud. Artaud, booted by Breton from the surrealist clique, goes to Mexico looking for salvation in Pre-Hispanic Mexican culture, the magic and the rituals, rejecting european culture for the primitive and intuitive of old Mexico, which of course he cannot really find. The search, the dream, drives him to a mental breakdown and ultimately institutionalization back in France. Artaud is damaged by european culture. He is a precursor to the Beats and Hippies looking for an alternative to the modern, warring, exploitative world as well as Le Clézio’s search for alternatives.
Chapter 7, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilization. This final chapter serves as a post-mortem for all that the world lost with the destruction of the pre-Conquest civilizations of Mexico. Le Clézio begins by pointing out that Cortez and all the other european conquerors were out not simply to collect as much gold and other riches as they could but to purposefully destroy the civilizations they encountered. Thus, when Cortez killed the Aztec ruling class and destroyed the material manifestations of Aztec faith, they left the surviving people, who had survived war and disease, in essence without a head (cities, leadership, history, culture, ritual, faith): that is, without the cultural resources to move forward into the future grounded in the knowledge of the past. With the genocidal destruction the conquistadors wrought, the survivors were reduced to bodies that could be dominated and enslaved, a situation that inhered until the early 20th C and captured in books like B. Traven’s "The Rebellion of the Hanged." The monotheistic, materialist, opportunistic, rational culture wipes out anything that doesn’t resemble and/or yield to it: “For we believe that the said Spaniards are acting thus so that we will all be finished and will fade away, and so there will no longer be any memory of us on earth.” Le Clézio then mourns what was lost: the philosophy, poetry, art, laws, moral harmony, the harmony of reality and the supernatural, the equilibrium between man and the world, the mythical and real, dreams and body, cyclical time and catastrophe. The inequality of armed strength perpetrated by Europeans around the world for the sake of domination, wealth extraction, and the erasure of Others created a giant cultural hole in history, a knowledge which perhaps the west might find useful now in the face of perpetual war and coming climate catastrophe.
Great book.
January 1, 2009
Nobel laureate J.M.G.Le Clezio has conjured for his readers, in various meditations, a vivid and informative description of the Meso-American myth. From direct translations of the historical perspective described by the Spanish conquerors of the land, a modern version of the ancient myth is delineated. Some unique insights can be gained from Le Clezio's mythical prose but often much of it is lost in names and places and technical aspects of the ancient civilization. It is not a read for experts in the topic nor for new readers. But for those seeking a different perspective on a well-studied myth, the Mexican Dream will provide new insights and new discoveries of a people who tragically and boldly provided a different model with which to experience this never-ending thing we call life.
February 4, 2015
A collection of seven related essays on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico and the religion of the native American populations (Aztecs, Maya, and other groups in Mexico). This collection shows the same strengths and weaknesses as his fiction; on the one hand, the condemnation of European colonialism, on the other, the romanticism of primitivism and magico-religious thought. It was worth reading for the factual material, but I couldn't agree with much of his interpretation or viewpoint.
May 9, 2013
A partir de plusieurs textes historiques, Le Clézio contemple et raconte l'âme du Mexique (et de l'Amérique indienne) avec le rêve comme fil conducteur.
Si la première partie, qui traite du choc des civilisations Aztèque et Européen, est assez palpitant pour maintenir facilement l'attention du lecteur, les parties suivantes sont un peu moins accessibles et l'on risque de se perdre dans l'inventaire de détails (même fascinants ) sur les rites, mythes, dieux, etc.
Mais avec un peu de persévérance, on arrive finalement au dernier chapitre ou Le Clézio élucide davantage la question de ce qu'aurait été la suite du développement d'une civilisation amérindienne si celle-ci n'avait pas été détruite au XVI siècle (« la pensée interrompue » du titre). Après toute l'élaboration et réflexion sur l'essence de cette pensée, la conclusion de l'auteur, qui tient en quelques pages seulement, peut paraître un peu ténu : la civilisation emergeante amérindien, en se développant, aurait pu apporter à l'humanité une meilleure harmonie entre le spirituel et le matériel et même un équilibre cosmique entre l'homme et la terre...
Il rêve peut-être, mais pourquoi pas ?
Si la première partie, qui traite du choc des civilisations Aztèque et Européen, est assez palpitant pour maintenir facilement l'attention du lecteur, les parties suivantes sont un peu moins accessibles et l'on risque de se perdre dans l'inventaire de détails (même fascinants ) sur les rites, mythes, dieux, etc.
Mais avec un peu de persévérance, on arrive finalement au dernier chapitre ou Le Clézio élucide davantage la question de ce qu'aurait été la suite du développement d'une civilisation amérindienne si celle-ci n'avait pas été détruite au XVI siècle (« la pensée interrompue » du titre). Après toute l'élaboration et réflexion sur l'essence de cette pensée, la conclusion de l'auteur, qui tient en quelques pages seulement, peut paraître un peu ténu : la civilisation emergeante amérindien, en se développant, aurait pu apporter à l'humanité une meilleure harmonie entre le spirituel et le matériel et même un équilibre cosmique entre l'homme et la terre...
Il rêve peut-être, mais pourquoi pas ?
December 2, 2011
The book pretends to ask "what if", to explore what our world might look like if the Aztec Empire (and other peoples) had survived in some form or had had more of an influence on our present philosophy and society. Well, it's only the last two pages that deal with that question. The rest of the book explains the culture and religion of the Aztecs and of other native peoples in immense detail. Some of it was new to me, but the majority was not, so that I was impatiently awaiting any insights relating it to the modern world, and I had to wait a long time for what amounted to a few barely elaborated ideas.
January 22, 2009
More like an anthropological treatise, but not as methodical. I don't know how the Nobel committee picks authors, but this one must have friends in high places. The only thing I found the least bit interesting was how centuries are measured in the Mayan/Aztec calendars - 52 years. According to some solar scientists 104 years is a certain kind of sun cycle which causes periodic long deep drought, especially in the SW USA and we are entering one right now, but this bit of knowledge was not in Le Clezio's book. I read in in Scientific American.
Read
February 9, 2022This singular book opened my mind up to a whole new way of thinking. It launched me on a literary journey that has centered chiefly around the Aztec civilization—highly recommended.
October 1, 2013
What if the thought of Amerindian civilization had not been interrupted by the genocidal Conquest of the Spaniards who landed on America’s shores beginning in 1492? What if it had progressed to its fullest flower of philosophical, political and artistic possibility? Those are the kinds of questions that underlie Le Clézio’s fine little book.
When my wife recommended this book to me, I bought it, read it, and put it aside. For some reason, it just wasn’t quite what I expected. I even regretted having bought it. Then a few days ago, I picked it up again, re-read it, and discovered what I had missed. Right there in the subtitle “the interrupted thoughts of Amerindian civilizations, was the whole point of Le Clézio’s book. What if the Amerindian civilizations had not been destroyed? “The conception of cyclical time, the idea of a creation based upon [chaos] might have been the points of departure for a new scientific and humanist way of thinking. [T]he respect for natural forces, the search for an equilibrium between man and the world might have been the necessary braking of technological progress in the Western world. Only today we are measuring what that equilibrium might have brought to medicine and psychology” (page 208). What if … the possibilities are almost endless.
But this was not to be so. The Amerindians of Mexico and the Yucatan, whose cities were so beautiful that they were awe-inspiring, were far ahead of Europe’s greatest cities in terms of cleanliness, waste removal and clean water, and whose music, visual and poetic arts astounded the invading Europeans was “in the span of one generation … reduced to dust, to ashes.” How could this possibly happen? “The Conquest was not just a handful of men taking over … seizing the lands, the food reserves, the roads, the political organizations, the work force of the men and the genetic reserve of the women. It was the implementation of a project, conceived at the very beginning of the Renaissance, which aimed to dominate the entire world. Nothing that reflected the past and the glory of he indigenous nations was to survive: the religion, legends, customs, familial or tribal organizations, the arts, the language, and even the history – all was to disappear in order to leave room for the new mold Europe planned to impose upon them” (page 176). “All means, especially violence, were used to carry out the program of the destruction of the indigenous societies: these means formed the set of rules which were to govern the American colonies until Independence” (page 177).
The bulk of Le Clézio’s wonderful book is an exploration of the rich cultural heritage of these people as it was preserved by Mendieta, Bartolomé de Las Casas, Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, Fernando de Alva Ixtilxóchitl, and those Amerindian sources, such as the Mayan Popol Vuh that were not destroyed.
Some books just never let loose of my mind and imagination, and this is one of them. So if you feel you're not liking the book, set it aside, then pick it up again later.
When my wife recommended this book to me, I bought it, read it, and put it aside. For some reason, it just wasn’t quite what I expected. I even regretted having bought it. Then a few days ago, I picked it up again, re-read it, and discovered what I had missed. Right there in the subtitle “the interrupted thoughts of Amerindian civilizations, was the whole point of Le Clézio’s book. What if the Amerindian civilizations had not been destroyed? “The conception of cyclical time, the idea of a creation based upon [chaos] might have been the points of departure for a new scientific and humanist way of thinking. [T]he respect for natural forces, the search for an equilibrium between man and the world might have been the necessary braking of technological progress in the Western world. Only today we are measuring what that equilibrium might have brought to medicine and psychology” (page 208). What if … the possibilities are almost endless.
But this was not to be so. The Amerindians of Mexico and the Yucatan, whose cities were so beautiful that they were awe-inspiring, were far ahead of Europe’s greatest cities in terms of cleanliness, waste removal and clean water, and whose music, visual and poetic arts astounded the invading Europeans was “in the span of one generation … reduced to dust, to ashes.” How could this possibly happen? “The Conquest was not just a handful of men taking over … seizing the lands, the food reserves, the roads, the political organizations, the work force of the men and the genetic reserve of the women. It was the implementation of a project, conceived at the very beginning of the Renaissance, which aimed to dominate the entire world. Nothing that reflected the past and the glory of he indigenous nations was to survive: the religion, legends, customs, familial or tribal organizations, the arts, the language, and even the history – all was to disappear in order to leave room for the new mold Europe planned to impose upon them” (page 176). “All means, especially violence, were used to carry out the program of the destruction of the indigenous societies: these means formed the set of rules which were to govern the American colonies until Independence” (page 177).
The bulk of Le Clézio’s wonderful book is an exploration of the rich cultural heritage of these people as it was preserved by Mendieta, Bartolomé de Las Casas, Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, Fernando de Alva Ixtilxóchitl, and those Amerindian sources, such as the Mayan Popol Vuh that were not destroyed.
Some books just never let loose of my mind and imagination, and this is one of them. So if you feel you're not liking the book, set it aside, then pick it up again later.
December 30, 2019
The first chapter provides a good overview of the conquering of Mexico and validates Hancock's War God Trilogy:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I am still puzzled by references to Maya cities along the coast (e.g. on the Rio Grijalva) as they don't come in the Maya histories.
Interesting item on page 14 "...precious treasures of gold, melted down... sent back to Spain, were used as collateral to finance more expeditions tonthe New World.
Page 17 makes Cortez (a contemporary of Machiavelli) out to be the ultimate player of "Survivor" winning through deceit, divide and conquer and deception.
Le Clezio points out that although the Aztecs (and neighbours) were considered barbarians it is the Europeans with unclean cities and destructive ways (destroying monuments, culture and records) were the barbarians. "The Mexican peoples never showed the kind of cruelity exhibited by the Romans in their circus games." page 62 which in turn was dwarefd by the miyions slaughtered in European religious wars and World Wars.
Yet not all indigenous groups were conquered. Forty years of war (1550-1590) with the Chichimecs resulted in the Spanish loosing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chich...
The Chichimecs excelled at the use of bow and arrows able to launch three arrows before the first one accurately hit its target.
Another interesting bit was the use of the four cardinal directions being associated with a colour (east/red, north/white, west/black and south/yellow as per the Medicine Wheel concept of the Plains Indians. Who was influencing who? Identical associations exist with Buddhist sand paintings. Medicine Wheels [Majorville, the world's largest located in Alberta) go as far back as 3200 BCE well before MesoAmerican civilizations made their mark.
On page 194 the author asks "How could the same calendar have been known simoultaneously by people as different as the Toltecs, the Aztecs, the Sioux, the Arapahos ... the Iroquois, the Algonquins, and the Kwakiutl? Whereas as other knowledge and other technology remain localized - gold, bronze, pewter, poisons and rules of architecture - the invention of the calendar spread over the North American continent as easily did agriculture techniqes." It may have been a matter of available resources whereas techniques and concepts do not have physical limits.
Yet Le Clezio is vague as to where he gets his information. I am not aware of the cycical calendar being in use beyond MesoAmerica (ballcourts yes - as far as Arizona).
The book is full of dribs and drabs of hodge podges of information merely connected by themes with little elaboration, that I found unsatisfactory.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I am still puzzled by references to Maya cities along the coast (e.g. on the Rio Grijalva) as they don't come in the Maya histories.
Interesting item on page 14 "...precious treasures of gold, melted down... sent back to Spain, were used as collateral to finance more expeditions tonthe New World.
Page 17 makes Cortez (a contemporary of Machiavelli) out to be the ultimate player of "Survivor" winning through deceit, divide and conquer and deception.
Le Clezio points out that although the Aztecs (and neighbours) were considered barbarians it is the Europeans with unclean cities and destructive ways (destroying monuments, culture and records) were the barbarians. "The Mexican peoples never showed the kind of cruelity exhibited by the Romans in their circus games." page 62 which in turn was dwarefd by the miyions slaughtered in European religious wars and World Wars.
Yet not all indigenous groups were conquered. Forty years of war (1550-1590) with the Chichimecs resulted in the Spanish loosing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chich...
The Chichimecs excelled at the use of bow and arrows able to launch three arrows before the first one accurately hit its target.
Another interesting bit was the use of the four cardinal directions being associated with a colour (east/red, north/white, west/black and south/yellow as per the Medicine Wheel concept of the Plains Indians. Who was influencing who? Identical associations exist with Buddhist sand paintings. Medicine Wheels [Majorville, the world's largest located in Alberta) go as far back as 3200 BCE well before MesoAmerican civilizations made their mark.
On page 194 the author asks "How could the same calendar have been known simoultaneously by people as different as the Toltecs, the Aztecs, the Sioux, the Arapahos ... the Iroquois, the Algonquins, and the Kwakiutl? Whereas as other knowledge and other technology remain localized - gold, bronze, pewter, poisons and rules of architecture - the invention of the calendar spread over the North American continent as easily did agriculture techniqes." It may have been a matter of available resources whereas techniques and concepts do not have physical limits.
Yet Le Clezio is vague as to where he gets his information. I am not aware of the cycical calendar being in use beyond MesoAmerica (ballcourts yes - as far as Arizona).
The book is full of dribs and drabs of hodge podges of information merely connected by themes with little elaboration, that I found unsatisfactory.
February 20, 2018
No soy un experto en el tema de la conquista de Mesoamérica por lo que solo puedo opinar de el libro de manera personal y personalmente me pareció aburrido y seco, con referencias refritas y cunado el autor decide dar su opinión del tema estas son tibias poco inspiradas. Con un estilo digno de un libro de texto, quizá lo único que rescato del libro es que ofrece una síntesis bastante concreta de los factores involucrados en la conquista de México y de algunas de las repercusiones a futuro que tuvo esta brutal campaña. Como texto introductorio me parece bueno a secas, pero el estilo es tan árido que dudo que alguien después de leerlo se sienta motivado para buscar más lecturas al respecto, y para un libro de esta naturaleza, eso me parece un gran problema.
April 13, 2009
This was a more academic text than I had expected, a collation of papers into chapters. It was rich with history that Le Clezio has mined over many years of researching the native cultures of pre-Hispanic America. His take on the religio-philosophical underpinnings of those societies, whether "barbarian" or "theocratic," is realized more fully as by the novelist than by an anthropologist. Indeed I couldn't help thinking occasionally, as I read, of Carlos Castaneda.
July 9, 2016
I actually expect some explicit and insight into the "what if" the Amerindian civilizations had not been interrupted but no, some thoughts are only reflected during the last few pages. It is not that I do not enjoy reading mythologies and stories of all kinds because I really do. I enjoy reading all the Mexican mythologies included in this book but I did not find much I was looking for. A slight disappointment.
February 7, 2015
"It was the extermination of an ancient dream by the frenzy of a modern one, the destruction of myths by a desire for power. It was gold, modern weapons, and rational thought pitted against magic and gods: the outcome could not have been otherwise."
June 25, 2010
A very tough read but enlightening and edifying. White man done fucked up.
July 28, 2025
Genial!
January 19, 2025
3.5 Estrellas.
Para empezar, al libro, no sé si es solamente esta edición, le hace falta un buen prólogo. A mitad del libro me enteré de que en realidad se trataba de un compilado de textos de Le Clézio sobre el México prehispánico y no tanto de una sola obra unificada. Por otro lado, le hace falta una buena bibliografía, las citas aparecen al pie de margen, pero hay menciones a otras cosas de las que nunca te enteras de donde salieron.
Creo que el mayor defecto, en cuanto al contenido, que presenta el libro es precisamente que sea una compilación de artículos, principalmente por 2 cosas, la primera es que los artículos son un tanto dispares, de repente habla de creencias mágicas prehispánicas y luego te cambia el tema a Artaud y su supuesto viaje por el norte de México, y en segundo, que el formato de artículo se queda corto para lo ambicioso que es el texto, Le Clézio busca dar una imagen general del pensamiento de las culturas americanas prehispánicas, pero termina dando una introducción muy superficial y a veces un tanto confusa, por el hecho de querer abarcar demasiado.
El libro funciona bastante bien como una introducción al pensamiento prehispánico, sin embargo, se queda solamente en eso, una introducción. Me genero mucho interés por leer los cronistas que me faltan leer, y por adentrarme en el mundo de las leyendas mexicanas, pero me hubiera gustado un enfoque más centrado y menos general, por ejemplo, habla mucho de la Relación de Michoacán y también de las crónicas de Sahagún, pero también incluye tradiciones muy diferentes como la Huichol o la de los Indios Pueblo.
Para empezar, al libro, no sé si es solamente esta edición, le hace falta un buen prólogo. A mitad del libro me enteré de que en realidad se trataba de un compilado de textos de Le Clézio sobre el México prehispánico y no tanto de una sola obra unificada. Por otro lado, le hace falta una buena bibliografía, las citas aparecen al pie de margen, pero hay menciones a otras cosas de las que nunca te enteras de donde salieron.
Creo que el mayor defecto, en cuanto al contenido, que presenta el libro es precisamente que sea una compilación de artículos, principalmente por 2 cosas, la primera es que los artículos son un tanto dispares, de repente habla de creencias mágicas prehispánicas y luego te cambia el tema a Artaud y su supuesto viaje por el norte de México, y en segundo, que el formato de artículo se queda corto para lo ambicioso que es el texto, Le Clézio busca dar una imagen general del pensamiento de las culturas americanas prehispánicas, pero termina dando una introducción muy superficial y a veces un tanto confusa, por el hecho de querer abarcar demasiado.
El libro funciona bastante bien como una introducción al pensamiento prehispánico, sin embargo, se queda solamente en eso, una introducción. Me genero mucho interés por leer los cronistas que me faltan leer, y por adentrarme en el mundo de las leyendas mexicanas, pero me hubiera gustado un enfoque más centrado y menos general, por ejemplo, habla mucho de la Relación de Michoacán y también de las crónicas de Sahagún, pero también incluye tradiciones muy diferentes como la Huichol o la de los Indios Pueblo.
August 30, 2024
Grata sorpresa me llevé con la lectura de este bellísimo libro en el que su autor, Le Clézio compara los ritos celebrados, los dioses adorados, los significados del fuego, el agua, la tierra, para las diferentes naciones recién conocidas por los peninsulares y describe “la actitud de amor y de respeto que las culturas prehispánicas tenían por la naturaleza” p. 267, al grado que en el siglo XVIII y el XIX, los filósofos describían a “los salvajes” del Nuevo Mundo como los mayores defensores de la naturaleza.
La medicina, la astronomía, la irrigación, el drenaje y el urbanismo eran campos en los que las civilizaciones amerindias sobre todo las de México según el autor francés y premio Nobel, iban adelante de Europa: “… esa armonía entre el hombre y el mundo, ese equilibrio entre el cuerpo y el espíritu, esa unión del individuo con la colectividad, que eran la base de la mayoría de las sociedades amerindias…” p. 271. En el texto, el autor demuestra que los grandes señores del Anáhuac y el cazonci de Michoacán no fueron solamente jefes guerreros, también eran filósofos, poetas, sabios y urbanistas.
Así pues, llegamos a advertir que actualmente los pueblos indígenas refugiados en las montañas y los desiertos, “ocultos en la profundidad de las selvas y los bosques siguen siendo la imagen de una absoluta fidelidad a los principios de la libertad, de solidaridad y de sueño de las antiguas civilizaciones prehispánicas: siguen siendo los guardianes de ‘Nuestra madre tierra’, los observadores de las leyes naturales y del ciclo del tiempo.” p. 275
No debes perderte la lectura de este importante libro.
La medicina, la astronomía, la irrigación, el drenaje y el urbanismo eran campos en los que las civilizaciones amerindias sobre todo las de México según el autor francés y premio Nobel, iban adelante de Europa: “… esa armonía entre el hombre y el mundo, ese equilibrio entre el cuerpo y el espíritu, esa unión del individuo con la colectividad, que eran la base de la mayoría de las sociedades amerindias…” p. 271. En el texto, el autor demuestra que los grandes señores del Anáhuac y el cazonci de Michoacán no fueron solamente jefes guerreros, también eran filósofos, poetas, sabios y urbanistas.
Así pues, llegamos a advertir que actualmente los pueblos indígenas refugiados en las montañas y los desiertos, “ocultos en la profundidad de las selvas y los bosques siguen siendo la imagen de una absoluta fidelidad a los principios de la libertad, de solidaridad y de sueño de las antiguas civilizaciones prehispánicas: siguen siendo los guardianes de ‘Nuestra madre tierra’, los observadores de las leyes naturales y del ciclo del tiempo.” p. 275
No debes perderte la lectura de este importante libro.
August 19, 2019
La conquête des antiques peuples amérindiens est conçue par Le Clézio comme un rencontre des rêves, d’un côté lequel du voleur d’or, tandis que de l’autre, lequel de la magie. La destruction du système de la pensée indienne a parvenu juste au moment lorsqu’elle aurait pu se constituer comme une doctrine philosophique mûre, complète. Anéantie à jamais, combattue par l’église catholique, seul nous reste d’imaginer l’effet qu’elle aurait produit sur l’histoire globale si elle aurait été accouchée, soignée et transmise à ce moment critique. La perte est incommensurable, mais la reconstruction de tel système pourrait s’achever, au moins d’une manière partielle, en étudiant les coutumes, mythes, rituels et la conception du monde en générale des gens qui ont survécu mises en exile aux montagnes, à la forêt, où ils préservent l’héritage de cette pensée antique basé sur l’amour à la mère terre, au transe mystique et à la communauté. J'ai bien profité cette lecture.
January 12, 2025
El sueño mexicano de Le Clézio explora la documentación de fuentes primarias de la Conquista, a Díaz del Castillo, Sahagún, la Relación de Michoacán, y a historiadores posteriores en un fascinante recuento de las civilizaciones mesoamericanas antes y durante la colonización española. A través de sus mitos, rituales y dioses, analiza la cosmovisión de los pueblos indígenas, en sus similitudes y diferencias, y concluye que el desarrollo de una filosofía mexicana originaria fue interrumpido por la opresión española. Es un ensayo, más que un texto académico, por lo que la tesis es más bien literaria, pero la investigación es muy buena. Hay mucho sobre la cultura purépecha que fue nuevo para mí. Recomiendo.
November 3, 2021
This was immensely sad. The Mexican Dream talks about the pre-conquored civilizations of Mexico and their beliefs/philosophy in a way that is not sensationalist or focused on only violence. This is by no means a comprehensive history nor do I think it would be enjoyed by people who have no base knowledge of Mesoamerican cultures, but it is an interesting text focusing on what came before, how conquest of these people happened so easily (relative to their population size and might), and the cultural vacuum that came after that is still occurring today.
November 6, 2014
Cuando el premio nobel de literature (2008) escribe un libro sobre la civilizacion Mexicana, seria torpe pasarlo por alto. De hecho Le Clezio es un mexicanista consumado, traduce del Maya al frances y ha iblicado esudios antropologicos sobre la region. The Mexican dream es mas ambicioso, su tesis es que la conquista española privo al mundo de una manera de pensar no vista antes, ni despues de las civilizaciones mexicanas.
Desde su perspective, solo ha habido una sola masacre equiparable en la historia de la humanidad… adivinan? No lo compara con la caida del imperio romano, ni la perdida de los imperios africanos, ni el holocaust judio, no. Lo equipara al exterminio de los Nerdeanthal a manos del Homo Sapiens. A ese grado! Una perdida a otro nivel cualitativo.
Tiene un capitulo que valdria un libro en si: la historia del artista surrealista Antonin Artaud que fue a Mexico en los años 30’s “I came to Mexico to look for a new ida of Man”, “Mexico, that precipitate of innumerable races, is like the crucible of history. It is from that precipitate, that mixture of races, that it must derive a unque product from which the Mexican soul will emerge”. La saga de Artaud en la sierra Tarahumara, el peyote, y los cmabios tan profundos que nunca se pudo reincorporar a la sociedad occidental, ni en Mexico, ni en Europa. Artaud termino consumido por el sueño mexicano.
Que es eso tan valioso lo que perdio la humanidad con la caida de Tenochtitlan segun Le Clezio? Antes de intentar contester, aqui van algunas de mis secciones favoritas.
P42. […] the annihilation of a world, with all its cruelty and demoniacal cults, but also with its beauty, its harmony and its grandeur. For Sahagun, to understand all that was to touch upon the misteryof human destiny.
P 45. […] it was the shock of the Conquest which managed to engender four centuries of poverty and social imbalance […] as well as that sort of “defeatist complex”
P48. Rituals took the place of laws, art, morality, history, and even language.
66. The Indian peoples lived the great philosophical themes with a keenness which no other civilization in the ancient world ever did.
P69. Citando a Sahagun “according to what the ancients said, when men died, they did not disappear, but began a new life, as if they were awakening from a dream, and they were transformed into spirits or gods”
P88. Citando a Sahagun, y su admiracion por la severa educacion que los Aztecas le daban a sus hijos “nowhere did I ever see anyone live off his nobility alone, nor from his rank alone”
P90. Obeying their laws, however, was not a form of slavery, and we can imagine the happiness of that golden age, in spite of the cruelty of their wars and sacrifices. It was the happiness of a magical age, when time was not an inevitable and useless passage, but rather a connection to the wheel of the centuries, which carried out a mysterious and perfect destiny”
P192. Among most Amerindian peoples the belief in dreams and auguries expressed a profound philosophical idea, that of the recurrence of time.
P197. […] the Indian world […] saw creation as a succession of catastrophes, that is, a discontinuity, chaos. That conception was the complete opposite of the Christian one. In Europe, it was necessary to wait until the beginning of the scientific era with, for example, the theory of Max Planck, before the same concept of chaotic creation would be discovered. For the ancient Mexicans, as the world had not been ordered according to man’s understanding, it could not be in his image. There was something quite profound in the Amerindian religious’ refusal to anthropomorphism, a refusal the Western system could not accept, because it was above all ethnocentric system. Stripped of their symbolic significance, Indian beliefs and myths were reduced by the Conquerors to the role of pagan figurations, that is, absurdities or superstitions.
P205. In destroying those cultures, by abolishing so completely the identity of those peoples, what richness did the European conquerors deprive us of? […] we need to remember all the realms in which the Amerindian civilizations, and particularly those of Mexico, were ahead of Europe: medicine, astronomy, irrigation, drainage and urbanism. But we must especially remember the chapter in history, ignored at the time by Europeans, which is of vital importance to us: the harmony between man and the world, that balance between the body and the spirit, the union of the individual and the collectivity which were the foundations of most American societies. […] Specifically, the inequality of armed strength succeeded in obscuring all other values. Because the Indian peoples were persuaded of the communality of the earth and the impossibility of diving up the body of the goddess-mother, they abandoned their rights to inhabit their own continent, and found themselves excluded from progress.
P.208 The Indian heritage of shamanism, if it had not been fought by the purgers of sorcery, might have been integrated dream and ecstasy into daily life, and enabled equilibrium to be achieved. Therefore is not by chance that our western civilization today rediscovers the philosophical and religious themes of America. Because he has put himself into a position of disequilibrium, because he has let himself be carried away by his own violence, western man must reinvent all that once made up the beauty and harmony of the civilizations he has destroyed.
Desde su perspective, solo ha habido una sola masacre equiparable en la historia de la humanidad… adivinan? No lo compara con la caida del imperio romano, ni la perdida de los imperios africanos, ni el holocaust judio, no. Lo equipara al exterminio de los Nerdeanthal a manos del Homo Sapiens. A ese grado! Una perdida a otro nivel cualitativo.
Tiene un capitulo que valdria un libro en si: la historia del artista surrealista Antonin Artaud que fue a Mexico en los años 30’s “I came to Mexico to look for a new ida of Man”, “Mexico, that precipitate of innumerable races, is like the crucible of history. It is from that precipitate, that mixture of races, that it must derive a unque product from which the Mexican soul will emerge”. La saga de Artaud en la sierra Tarahumara, el peyote, y los cmabios tan profundos que nunca se pudo reincorporar a la sociedad occidental, ni en Mexico, ni en Europa. Artaud termino consumido por el sueño mexicano.
Que es eso tan valioso lo que perdio la humanidad con la caida de Tenochtitlan segun Le Clezio? Antes de intentar contester, aqui van algunas de mis secciones favoritas.
P42. […] the annihilation of a world, with all its cruelty and demoniacal cults, but also with its beauty, its harmony and its grandeur. For Sahagun, to understand all that was to touch upon the misteryof human destiny.
P 45. […] it was the shock of the Conquest which managed to engender four centuries of poverty and social imbalance […] as well as that sort of “defeatist complex”
P48. Rituals took the place of laws, art, morality, history, and even language.
66. The Indian peoples lived the great philosophical themes with a keenness which no other civilization in the ancient world ever did.
P69. Citando a Sahagun “according to what the ancients said, when men died, they did not disappear, but began a new life, as if they were awakening from a dream, and they were transformed into spirits or gods”
P88. Citando a Sahagun, y su admiracion por la severa educacion que los Aztecas le daban a sus hijos “nowhere did I ever see anyone live off his nobility alone, nor from his rank alone”
P90. Obeying their laws, however, was not a form of slavery, and we can imagine the happiness of that golden age, in spite of the cruelty of their wars and sacrifices. It was the happiness of a magical age, when time was not an inevitable and useless passage, but rather a connection to the wheel of the centuries, which carried out a mysterious and perfect destiny”
P192. Among most Amerindian peoples the belief in dreams and auguries expressed a profound philosophical idea, that of the recurrence of time.
P197. […] the Indian world […] saw creation as a succession of catastrophes, that is, a discontinuity, chaos. That conception was the complete opposite of the Christian one. In Europe, it was necessary to wait until the beginning of the scientific era with, for example, the theory of Max Planck, before the same concept of chaotic creation would be discovered. For the ancient Mexicans, as the world had not been ordered according to man’s understanding, it could not be in his image. There was something quite profound in the Amerindian religious’ refusal to anthropomorphism, a refusal the Western system could not accept, because it was above all ethnocentric system. Stripped of their symbolic significance, Indian beliefs and myths were reduced by the Conquerors to the role of pagan figurations, that is, absurdities or superstitions.
P205. In destroying those cultures, by abolishing so completely the identity of those peoples, what richness did the European conquerors deprive us of? […] we need to remember all the realms in which the Amerindian civilizations, and particularly those of Mexico, were ahead of Europe: medicine, astronomy, irrigation, drainage and urbanism. But we must especially remember the chapter in history, ignored at the time by Europeans, which is of vital importance to us: the harmony between man and the world, that balance between the body and the spirit, the union of the individual and the collectivity which were the foundations of most American societies. […] Specifically, the inequality of armed strength succeeded in obscuring all other values. Because the Indian peoples were persuaded of the communality of the earth and the impossibility of diving up the body of the goddess-mother, they abandoned their rights to inhabit their own continent, and found themselves excluded from progress.
P.208 The Indian heritage of shamanism, if it had not been fought by the purgers of sorcery, might have been integrated dream and ecstasy into daily life, and enabled equilibrium to be achieved. Therefore is not by chance that our western civilization today rediscovers the philosophical and religious themes of America. Because he has put himself into a position of disequilibrium, because he has let himself be carried away by his own violence, western man must reinvent all that once made up the beauty and harmony of the civilizations he has destroyed.
October 11, 2020
Le Clezio brings the ancient Mexican people to life and depicts how their culture, rituals, and myths clashed with Western culture. He suggests that, absent the tragedy of the conquest, their culture and religion could have contributed something sacred to our own culture. But then there was the frenzy of their human sacrifices, which Le Clezio also depicts, and only partially explains, perhaps because they are ultimately unexplainable. I will be thinking about this book for a long time.
November 13, 2025
Le premier tiers du livre est intéressant. Le reste sont des répétitions et du recyclage. Beaucoup d’énumération avec le même nom, imprononçable, en différentes langues indigènes. Cela alourdit le texte et est inutile.
Le Clézio parle du rêve mexicain et du rêve des conquistadors; qui ne sont pas des rêves mais des réelles réalités.
Le style voulu poétique ne correspond pas du tout avec la réalité sanglante qu’il décrit.
Pompeux. Trop lourd. Surtout à ne pas recommander !
Le Clézio parle du rêve mexicain et du rêve des conquistadors; qui ne sont pas des rêves mais des réelles réalités.
Le style voulu poétique ne correspond pas du tout avec la réalité sanglante qu’il décrit.
Pompeux. Trop lourd. Surtout à ne pas recommander !
June 7, 2025
It's a great book. Le Clézio is really a great author but there is some opinions that are doubtful. We can't know for sure why some things happened the day they did and history tends to prove Clézios' wrong but the book is old and we can't hold it against him because all in all, it's really a great book.
February 11, 2020
I love the myths of Mexico
June 17, 2021
Putting it down after reading half. Not for the layperson.
January 7, 2023
No se puede comprender la historia sin tomar en cuenta los sueños, las mitologías y los delirios. Gran libro de Le Clézio.
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