You Dreamed of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue
Tu sueño imperios han sido
Buckle your seatbelts—this book is wild!
As the author explains, the overall architecture of the novel is Borgesian. Critics have compared Empires to Cortazar’s novel Hopscotch. But to my mind, the novel is a gorgeous homage to Carlos Fuentes’ Terra Nostra, one of my favorite novels of all times. The original title of Empires is Tu sueño imperios han sido, “your dreams empires have been,” which is a line from the seventeenth-century Spanish playwright Pedro Calderón’s Life Is a Dream. The translation into English was done by the highly respected translator Natasha Wimmer—and it’s nice to see her name on the cover, where it belongs!
Okay… so the story: it takes place over the course of a day. And what a day it was when Hernan Cortes arrived at the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, with his posse of clowns, and met the Emperor Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin— or Moctezuma.
The book is a hallucinogenic Dream. Yes, it’s a trip. And magic mushrooms are the name of the game.
In the first half, I found myself wildly wanting more history, which is crazy since the book is the product of intensive years of research. But the details were so intriguing and I found myself googling to learn as much as I could about this incredible city built in the middle of a lake. A city of pristine cleanliness and minimalist interiors…. And of colorful feather outfits and woven furniture—and pools loaded with flowers. There are floating gardens and aviaries. And wide causeways connecting the city to the mainland. Enrigue’s evocative descriptions lit my imagination on fire.
In so many ways, this was the great meeting of aliens— so unexpected to each other. And this is why the two translators in the story (real persona) become the truly compelling characters and the drivers of the action. How to translate one world into another? To the Spanish conquistadores, the beauty of Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan is astonishing. And to Moctezuma, his reaction is all about the miracle of the horses. This is a fever dream of a book and the writing is so incredibly good. Like in most stories of colonial encounters, the colonizers arrive at the perfect moment, when alliances are crumbling and the kingdoms in question are vulnerable. Of course, the Spanish have a secret weapon: small pox.
By the second part of the book, I started worrying about how short the book was and I was in grave danger of finishing it too fast. So I slowed down (I have the book in hardcover, kindle and on audible—and the narration is fantastic).
One of the reasons I treasure books in translation so much (as a translator I say, long live translators!) is that they bring new styles and storytelling magic to what is a rather narrow American world (I have to add that there are so many great books being published in the US too, so this is not necessarily a complaint). Books can do so much more than TV and Enrigue uses all the craft at hand and by the end he wildly changing point of view characters paragraph by paragraph—you would have whiplash if you didn’t realize that, well why not? Who makes up the stupid rules anyway…. And there is some great meta-fiction, like the narrator adding as an aside which is a chapter long that, "If Jazmín Caldera had existed, if he had crossed the threshold into the throne room of Axayacatl’s Old Houses at almost five in the afternoon on November 8, 1519, he would have seen before him—past the garden, past the arch in the palace’s outer wall…”
Caldera is also such a fantastic character… And I believe he is the only non-historical creation. You just have to wonder how many colonial soldiers did just disappear into the mist, preferring to give going local a shot, rather than keep looting and warring… The book just soars when both Cortes and the emperor take honey-dipped cactus… which is stronger than the usual magic mushrooms, but the emperor is doing it all, for within their dream journeys, Enrigue’s writing is sublime. Will this be the best book I read in 2024? I wonder….
Something about the cover, as well as the light-touch in describing historical characters in modern terms—like saying Cortez and his posse were a bunch of clowns… or Moctezuma dancing to the sound of T-Rex singing Monolith—- was genius.
And here is the LA Times review