You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue: A psychedelic reimagining of the historic first encounter between Moctezuma and Cortés

In this 2nd installment of Mexico Well-Read, Ann Marie Jackson reviews Álvaro Enrigue’s ‘You Dreamed of Empires.’ Against the immense arc of conquest and colonization, Enrigue offers the scholar a fleeting, electrical time successful which everything mightiness inactive person been otherwise.

History, we are often told, is written by the victors. In “You Dreamed of Empires,” writer Álvaro Enrigue proposes thing adjacent much unsettling: History is written by the improvisers, the intoxicated, the confused, the frightened, the vain. 

Tenochtitlán arsenic it apt looked during the epoch of the Mexica, betwixt the 14th and 16th centuries. (Gary Todd/Wikimedia Commons)

The conquest of Mexico becomes successful Enrigue’s hands a daylong fever imagination successful which nary 1 — including the expected masterminds, Cortés and Moctezuma — afloat understands what is happening.

Yes, “You Dreamed of Empires” came retired 2 years ago, stretching to its limits this column’s self-imposed explanation of “new and newish” books to review, but the acclaimed caller offers specified a unsocial and fascinating instrumentality connected this infamous humanities brushwood that you shouldn’t fto it walk you by unread.

Moctezuma and Cortés: The infamous brushwood reframed

The caller narrows our absorption to a azygous day: Nov. 8, 1519, erstwhile Hernán Cortés and his tiny set of Spaniards were welcomed into Tenochtitlán by the Mexica emperor. That fateful enactment has agelong been embalmed successful legend: alloy and gunpowder confronting obsidian and prophecy, the result — from our perch successful the contiguous — seen arsenic inevitable. 

Enrigue, however, reimagines the brushwood connected a precise quality level. The destiny of continents is compressed into an elaborate and awkward meal, mandatory nap, hallucinogenic snacks, inaccurate translations and mounting suspicions.

The New York Times called the publication “short, strange, spiky and sublime,” praising its “humane drama of manners” unfolding nether the changeless menace of decapitation — which perfectly captures the novel’s paradoxical tone: It is astatine erstwhile tartly comic and saturated with dread. 

While heads whitethorn not rotation immediately, everyone senses the looming blade. The conquistadors bash not astatine each recognize the codes of behaviour governing their hosts, conscionable arsenic the Colhua-Mexica tribunal cannot for the beingness of themselves decipher the Spaniards’ behaviors and intentions. Each broadside regards the different with a substance of disgust and pity.

Guests oregon captives? In a Borges-worthy labyrinth 

A depiction of the autumn of México-Tenochtitlan astatine the hands of the Spaniards successful 1521. (Wikimedia Commons)

Enrigue’s Tenochtitlan (rendered by the writer successful a Nahuatl-inflected spelling, Tenoxtitlan) is simply a marvel: a vast, orderly, high-tech imperial capital. The Spaniards, accustomed to reasoning of themselves arsenic representing the pinnacle of civilization, rotation blindly done its palace corridors similar baffled, bumbling provincials. For astir of the book, they cannot genuinely archer whether they are guests oregon captives. The palace itself becomes a labyrinth worthy of Jorge Luis Borges, 1 of Enrigue’s acknowledged influences. Corridors constrictive and repeat, portion doors garbage to pb wherever expected.

The caller opens with a ceremonial repast truthful grotesque that it tips into farce. Priests wearing capes of flayed tegument beryllium crossed from the smelly, bearded men whose boots way mud connected the pristine palace floors. The Spaniards are repelled by the odor of sacrificial blood; their hosts are disgusted by the guests’ ain odors arsenic good arsenic their array manners. The Wall Street Journal praised the author’s usage of specified “sublime absurdities.”

Viewing past arsenic not a fixed grounds but a shifting dream

All the while, everyone awaits the beingness of the emperor, Moctezuma, who is freshly portrayed by Enrigue not arsenic the dithering mystic of assemblage lore but arsenic a volatile, politically astute ruler nether bonzer unit — who happens to trust heavy connected hallucinogenic mushrooms. 

Enrigue does not dainty this arsenic specified color: The emperor’s cause usage shapes the novel’s operation and style. Time softens; visions intrude; past and aboriginal bleed together. In 1 of the book’s boldest moves, Moctezuma glimpses centuries yet to travel and adjacent catches show of the novelist himself astatine work. The effect is dizzying, comic and strangely moving. History is nary longer a fixed grounds but a shifting dream.

The Washington Post called the caller an “alternate past of Mexican conquest with a Tarantino-ready twist,” praising its “deliciously gonzo” style. 

That benignant oscillates betwixt earthy item and high-minded speculation. While, yes, we are told astir bleeding fingers and unwashed bodies, astatine the aforesaid time, we are besides invited to see the theological foundations of sacrifice. The ineffable and profane coexist comfortably.

Álvaro Enrigue, writer of ‘You Dreamed of Empires.’ His communicative of 1519 is not lone astir clashing armies but besides translation errors, hallucinatory visions, fragile egos and exhausted men. (PEN American Center/Wikimedia Commons)

The interaction of translation — and mistranslation — connected history

The often underappreciated relation of translation is captious to the story. Every diplomatic speech indispensable walk done 2 intermediaries: the friar Aguilar — translating from Maya into Castilian — and Malinalli, La Malinche, who is translating from Maya into Nahuatl. Of course, meaning is filtered, adjusted, softened oregon sharpened astatine each stage. 

Enrigue is himself good translated by Natasha Wimmer. He uses Nahuatl presumption without mentation — alternatively than footnoting them into submission, helium allows their meanings to look done context, giving the scholar a sensation of some the excitement of vulnerability to caller meanings and besides the resulting confusion.

Enrigue’s wit is relentless but not glib. While the Spaniards squabble amongst themselves similar investors successful a dubious startup, Moctezuma alternates betwixt grandeur and petulance. The fictional Captain Jazmín Caldera, 1 of the fewer characters who seems susceptible of imagining defeat, watches events with mounting alarm. 

The Spaniards, helium tells us, “were making things up arsenic they went along, with bonzer results” and “ultimately they came to judge successful their ain ruses.”

Bringing the past “to vivid, brain-melting life”

The novel’s hallucinatory episodes intensify arsenic the time progresses. In 1 notable sequence, Moctezuma hears strains of 1970s glam stone — specifically a T. Rex opus — bleeding into the sixteenth century. The anachronism is simply a declaration: Time is porous.

By the clip Cortés and Moctezuma yet look each other, the aerial is electrical with possibility. The country carries the value of 5 centuries. We each know, of course, what followed: siege, smallpox, devastation, the commencement of New Spain. Enrigue does not contradict that history. Instead, helium pauses for reflection, inviting america to reconsider the far-from-certain moments that preceded the last outcome. When the conquest proceeds, it is little done strategical brilliance than communal miscalculation.

A representation of Mexico-Tenochtitlan aft Hernán Cortés arrived successful present-day Mexico successful 1524. (INAH/Wikimedia Commons)

As 1 reviewer noted successful Publishers Weekly, Enrigue brings the past “to vivid, brain-melting life,” culminating successful a climactic country that offers a startling alternate to the humanities record. 

The publication has been described arsenic a benignant of “colonial revenge story,” but Enrigue seems little funny successful revenge than helium does successful possibility: What if Moctezuma had chosen differently? What if Cortés had made antithetic mistakes astatine antithetic moments? What if empires are little inevitable than they look successful hindsight?

Join the speech astir ‘You Dreamed of Empires’

What are your thoughts connected this fascinating reimagining of a history-defining day? Do you person suggestions of caller and forthcoming titles to review? Let america cognize successful the comments. 

Ann Marie Jackson is simply a publication exertion and the award-winning writer of “The Broken Hummingbird.” She lives successful San Miguel de Allende and tin beryllium reached done her website: annmariejacksonauthor.com.