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A review by gerbe077
You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue
challenging
dark
funny
slow-paced
3.0
I have mixed feelings about You Dreamed of Empires and could very well revisit it in the future and give it a higher or a lower rating. My own ignorance of the history of Mexico and its empires makes my experience of this book stilted and unsatisfactory. The constant explanation of customs and history disrupts the flow of the book, but I also would have been even more lost without them. I read another review that described the books as "slippery" and that is the best way to describe it. I found myself frequently rereading passages that did not make sense the first time through. I found the book read more like a movie script than a novel which made it difficult for me to enjoy. I think it could make a dynamic movie. Intermittent surrealism is popular in film right now so it would fit right it.
The scene that will stick with me is when the caudillo is shining his boots while praying and it rotates between the prayer and the brutal way the Spaniards acquired this oil. It made me feel nauseous and I usually have a strong stomach. I think the source of the nausea was the knowledge that horrors like that could very well have happened. This scene was necessary to the story, but there was another scene, a rape scene, that felt completely unnecessary to the progression of the story. That scene made me look up the author to confirm that, yes, this book was indeed written by a man.
I can't really give an overall summary of my thoughts of the book because it was so all over the place. Some moments I wanted to give the book up, some I laughed, some I gagged, and still some I thought that this will become a classic. The writing style is stream-of-consciousness and the timeline is warped. If you don't enjoy experimental writing, you won't enjoy this book.
The scene that will stick with me is when the caudillo is shining his boots while praying and it rotates between the prayer and the brutal way the Spaniards acquired this oil. It made me feel nauseous and I usually have a strong stomach. I think the source of the nausea was the knowledge that horrors like that could very well have happened. This scene was necessary to the story, but there was another scene, a rape scene, that felt completely unnecessary to the progression of the story. That scene made me look up the author to confirm that, yes, this book was indeed written by a man.
I can't really give an overall summary of my thoughts of the book because it was so all over the place. Some moments I wanted to give the book up, some I laughed, some I gagged, and still some I thought that this will become a classic. The writing style is stream-of-consciousness and the timeline is warped. If you don't enjoy experimental writing, you won't enjoy this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Violence, and War