Book 73, Country 79 - Mexico

The ZigZag Way by Anita Desai - first published in the UK in 2004

Eric accompanies his student girlfriend on her field trip to Mexico but goes off exploring on his own.   He travels to the mining area where his paternal grandfather, a Cornish tin miner, once worked and where his own father was born.   Initially he stays at a hacienda belonging to the mysterious and unfriendly Dona Vera, an Austrian with a dubious past in wartime Europe.  He visits the place where his grandparents lived on the day of La Noche de los Muertos (Festival of the Dead).  The story of his grandparents lives in Mexico and his grandmother’s death in childbirth as they fled from the Mexican Revolution is also told.   At the end of the book Eric has an unexpected and strange meeting with someone, which ties the various strands of the story together.  I enjoyed learning about the history of the Cornish miners in Mexico, which was something I was hitherto unaware of.  Both the hardback and paperback copies of the book have quite scary covers with skeletons or skulls on, which I think give the wrong impression of the content of the book.  6/10

15th June 2012

Book 72, Country 78 - Guatemala

Lies – Enrique de Heriz – translated from Spanish and first published in the UK in 2007

A woman dies in a boat accident in a remote part of the Guatemalan jungle.  She is wrongly identified as Spanish anthropologist Isabel Garcia Luna.  When Isabel finds out that her husband and children think she is dead, she decides not to say anything for a while.  Meanwhile back in Malespina in Spain her daughter Serena is obsessed with disentangling the truth from all the lies she has been told about the life and death of her grandfather Simon.  I felt the story could have been told in a more succinct way and there is rather too much introspection for my liking.  However it is an unusual plot and has some interesting details about death customs and rituals and cannibalism in remote tribes around the world.  6/10

10th June 2012

Book 71, Country 77 - Honduras

The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux - first published in the UK in 1981

Allie Fox is a brilliant inventor but he is also paranoid and self obsessed.  He suddenly uproots his wife and 4 children from a comfortable, if unconventional, life in rural America and without consulting them decides they are emigrating to the Honduran jungle.  They settle in a remote place called Jeronimo and at first things go well.  They build a house, plant crops and Allie constructs an ice making factory.  Then unwittingly Allie invites some guests to stay who threaten their security.  Things spiral downhill for the family after this. The story is narrated by Allie's oldest son Charlie.  The book is well written but I vaguely remembered seeing the 1986 film starring Harrison Ford and so couldn't fully enjoy the story knowing that something awful was going to happen.  Allie isn't a likeable character, as he never considers the needs, safety, health or opinions of his wife or children.    7/10

16th May 2012