Carlos Fuentes: The Eagle's Throne

[Jayaprakash]

In the year 2020, the Mexican president decides to defy USA with a couple of defiant policy declarations. In retaliation, Mexico's communications networks, provided by contractors who are fronts for US government departments, are suspended. In the ensuing confusion, Mexico's top politicians and king-makers revert to the written (or recorded in some cases) word to communicate with each other. The big topic of the day, of course, is who will succeed to the presidency when the incumbent's term ends 4 years hence. A variety of colourful characters conspire and counter-conspire to ensure that they, or their choice of candidate, will be the next to occupy the eagle's throne.

The epistolatory novel is not a common form anymore, and Fuentes strikes what I think is a delicate but functional balance, giving the correspondents subtle shades of difference in tone of voice while maintaining a certain uniform frame of references and allusions that makes for a cohesive read. After a slow, stage-setting start, the often melodramatic events start piling up. There are betrayals, unexpected alliances, sudden reverses and equally abrupt victories along the way.

So far, so good - this book functions quite well as a political thriller with literary aspirations. Some of the political insight is acute, some of it (such as Fuentes' characterisaion of Bush Jr's administration as one run on the basis of opinion polls) less so. Fuentes left the world of politics and diplomacy behind to devote himself to literature, so many of the observations on politics in general and Mexican politics in particular do carry a certain weight and interest.

At the very end, though, the novel suddenly finds its emotional centre in a very unexpected, completely peripheral character. It's this final statement, I think, that elevates the novel to something more than a formally unusual yarn of political scheming. I also found that, somehow the characters had come vividly alive in my mind, to the extent that I missed being able to read about them the evening after I finished this book. Not an entirely succesful book, I think - there's a bit too much soap opera in here - but certainly gripping and thought provoking.

[cortazar]

Holy Smoke JP!

Only just noticed you had joined this community....our paths cross again hey?

Of course I'm known by another call sign normally which hints at a man who ended up spending a lot of time with a particular ring....

Eagles' Throne sounds interesting. I saw that book the other day in Melbourne but didn't pick it up.

I have the Fuentes Masterpiece in Terra Nostra in case you are wanting to check out another work by this master storyteller.....

Cheers...

[Daniel del Real]

Finished the novel yesterday and I still don't know how much I liked it.
It follows a lot of characteristics by Fuentes: the congregation of voices speaking by themselves, the political situation in Mexico and the expertise Fuentes shows about the topic.
The begining is a little slow, nothing new in Fuentes ouvre, that takes time to take you to know his multiple characters and set them into place. Once you framed the whole picture, you can start getting deep into the novel and the problematique. The story of president Lorenzo Teran is really interesting because it starts from a point where Fuentes asks "What would happen if..." and sets the plot in the year 2020 with Teran as a president and a lot of characters from his staff who wants to take his position when his period finishes at 2024. A lot of situations should be more interesting for Mexican people who know how politics run in this holy mess, or Latin American readers who have somethin similar in their own countries. However if you're not too familiarized with the situations, it still guides to a very interesting political thriller situation.
As I said before, the story begins slow, it goes up and reaches a point where an unexpected situation involving the presidential succesion and an old ex-president makes the book impossible to let out of your hands.
Unfortunately, I think this story is not exploited the way it should have and it falls down very quickly. Then, in the last 50 pages, as Jayaprakash says there's a lot of Soap Opera and the political objetive gets lost.
In the last pages, there's a revelation that the author might think gives a great end to the book, but for me it was unnecesary, making no big changes to the finale.
However, it is still a good political thriller, not very literary but entertaining.
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