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Title: The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution (Modern Library Classics)
ISBN: 0375759425
Author:
Mariano Azuela
Publicate Date: 2002-09
Publish: 2002-09
List Price: $11.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $6.55
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Scenes from a revolution
This novel, although mostly a series of vignettes with only the slightet of plot and character development, never the less delivers a harrowing descripton of the Mexican Revolution.
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2: Revolutionaries or Bandits
Mariano Azuela's novel about a group of men fighting in the decade-long Mexican Revolution is a seminal work in Latin American literature. As the concluding essay notes, Azuela's ability to accurately depict all that is most surreal in reality was the starting point for more modern magical realist authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This is a stand-out novel written in a sparse, at times dreamlike style.
The Underdogs, or Los de Abajo, reveals Azuela's ambivalence about the Revolutionary movement. While it is clear that the men persecuting the hero, Demetrio Macias, are not the men one wants controlling the state, Azuela also doesn't hesitate to depict the revolutionaries themselves as bandits, stealing from the peasants they are supposed to defend. The conflict over whether the Mexican Revolutionaries were soldiers or bandits is one that may be found in history books. Azuela's semi-autobiographical novel doesn't offer an answer to that question, but it does provide what some of the most famous historical literature does not: a depiction of the hellishness of war. In that alone, it is a good companion reading to any nonfiction accounts of the Revolution.
Frederick Fornoff's translation is mostly well-done, though his decision not to keep in the dialect in which most of the characters speak is, in my opinion, a poor one. There was an enormous cultural divide between the average revolutionary and the Mexicans living in cities or haciendas. I feel that Azuela's original language reflected that divide. However, this edition is still worth buying, because the concluding essay on Azuela's place in Latin American and epic literature is both poignant and revealing. The Underdogs is a grand novel, for both literature and history buffs.
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3: good book
book is excellente. I would recommend this acclaimed book for further study anytime. I appreciate the simplicity and outright insight in the time of a heartless revolution. Please pick this book up when you have the time.
matthew ellsworth
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4: Need to give it a chance...
The translation or something about the way it was written made it a bit confusing at first, but once you "get" the "writing style" of the book, you will be glad you kept reading.
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5: Devastating and Meaningless
THE UNDERDOGS may well be about the spirit of the Mexican people, as some other reviews have suggested, but its conclusions are quite different. Don't think this is some inspiring story of the noble masses and their unconquerable spirit!
Azuela was writing in response to previous romantic depictions of the Mexican revolution -- you know, Pancho Villa the poor heroic figure of the countryside. Many had argued -- and still are, as you can see from some of these other reviews -- that the revolution was a turning point and created a new, more modern mexico.
In response, Azuela skewered the revolution. His story has almost no dates or locations -- you won't learn anything about the historical facts, as the encyclopedia would define them, of the revolution from this book. What Azuela does depict are the people and their spirit -- but he does this in shockingly unflattering terms.
Much of the book is a parade of violent scene after violent scene. Houses are ransacked, artwork destroyed, people casually killed, women casually raped. For U.S. audiences today, the book might remind us of the film NATURAL BORN KILLERS in terms of its consistent violence with little morality attached.
Moreover, these are not revolutionaries with much of an idea what they are doing. Yes, they are the underdogs of the title. But the underdogs do not want a better state -- a better nation. They mock Cervantes, the intellectual among them. No, the underdogs want to be top dog -- to exploit just as those they replace.
This devastating message is the one the book leaves us: the revolution meant nothing, achieved nothing, and was nothing but Mexico's underdogs lashing out savagely.
It is an easy and enjoyable read, but it can leave you with a Nietzchean feeling that none of this matters...
-- Julian Darius
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