One Hundred Years of Solitude

In 1967 the Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez published the novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (Cien Años de Soledad).  The work won García Márquez a Nobel Prize in literature and is considered one of the most important achievements in Latin American and world literature.  It ushered in the literary genre known as "magic realism" in which magical elements are mixed with an otherwise realistic view of the world.  It tells the story of several generations of the Buendía family.  It begins with José Arcadio and his wife Ursula who, along with a number of friends, leave their home and establish the town of Macondo.

García Márquez during his lifetime refused to sell the film rights to the novel.  In 2019 the family of the author sold the rights to Netflix with the stipulations that it be filmed in Colombia in Spanish with Colombian actors.  The first season of eight episodes covers the first third of the novel, and premiered last December.

(Billboards along Paseo de la Reforma, advertising the series)

Alejandro and I have watched the first four episodes so far.  The production of this difficult novel is excellent.  The cinematography is beautiful, and the acting is very good.  Even though I read the novel many, many years ago in graduate school, I am finding it difficult to keep track of the characters.  I have found it necessary to go on the internet and look for a family tree of the Buendía family.  Viewers who do not speak Spanish will need to turn on the English subtitles.  (Even I have the subtitles on so that I catch everything.)  The "magic realism" of the story might not be to everyone's taste, but the series so far does justice to this important work of literature.

From My Bookshelf

I just finished reading another excellent book... "And the Mountains Echoed" by Khaled Hosseini.

The author was born in Afghanistan and moved to the United States with his family when he was a teenager.  He studied medicine and had been practicing as a physician for ten years when he wrote his first novel, "The Kite Runner".  (A book which I have also read.)  It was a best seller, and Hosseini since then has devoted himself to writing as well as working with the United Nation commission for refugees.

"And the Mountains Echoed" is his third novel.  The story begins in 1952.  Abdullah and his beloved baby sister Pari live in an impoverished Afghan village.  Severe economic conditions force their father to sell his daughter to a wealthy family in Kabul who are childless and wish to adopt a child.

The novel continues through the decades of Afghanistan's tumultuous history up to 2010.  Each of the nine chapters is written through the perspective of a different character.  This may be the novel's greatest flaw.  A couple of the characters have only the most tenuous connection with the story of Abdullah and Pari.  For example, one chapter deals with the life of a Greek surgeon who ends up going to Kabul after the fall of the Taliban to do relief work.  While the chapter is interesting and could stand alone as a novella, the reader is a bit impatient to get back to the fate of the central characters.  Will Abdullah and Pari ever meet again?

Nevertheless, "And the Mountains Echoed" is a compelling novel that I highly recommend.  

More from the Muralism Museum

Alejandro and I continued down a passageway to a double courtyard that was part of the old Customs House in colonial times.  I had never seen this part of the building before, and I don't think that it was previously open to the public.

By the grand staircase there are a series of murals by David Alfaro Siqueiros, one of the "Big Three" of Mexican muralism.  The murals are entitled "Patricians and Patricides".  Siqueiros began the paintings in 1945, but did not finish them until 1971, because he spent many years in prison or in exile.  Siqueiros is not my favorite artist, but I must say that these murals were quite striking.

Climbing the first flight of steps, you see that the murals continue on the walls and across the entire ceiling of the stairwell.

This wall must be undergoing some restoration work.

On the wall of one of the courtyards is a three-dimensional metal mural by Manuel Felguérez entitled "Education in Steel".  Felguérez is a member of the so called "Rupture" generation that rejected the representational art of the old guard of muralists.  Frankly, I don't care for it.

Retracing our steps back to the courtyards of the former convent, we turned into a hallway that led to the old church.  In that hall there is a mural by Raúl Anguiano entitled "The Meeting of Two Cultures".  It was commissioned for the 500th anniversary of the voyage of Columbus.

It shows the birth of the modern Mexicans as the merger of the Spanish and indigenous peoples.

What used to be the Church of Santa María de la Encarnación was later used as a library.

  

At the far end is a mural by Roberto Montenegro done in 1924.  It is called the "Union of Latin America".

The artist included portraits of the Spanish explorers and conquerors to the left, and the heroes of Latin American independence to the right.  They are flanked by warriors representing the pre-Hispanic civilizations of the Americas.

At the opposite end of the hall is another mural, this one done in glazed ceramics by the Japanese-Mexican artist Luis Nishizawa.  It is entitled "The Image of Man".

By this time Alejandro and I had spent more than three hours at the museum.  We still had the upper two floors to see.  Admission was free, so we decided that we would return another day to see the rest.

A New Museum

I may have been disappointed by the renovation of the upper floor of the Anthropology Museum, but there was no disappointment when Alejandro and I visited Mexico City's newest museum, the Museum of Muralism, last Saturday.

The museum is housed in the former headquarters of the Department of Public Education (known as SEP or "Secretaría de Educación Pública).  

The headquarters were located in the Historic Center just a couple blocks north of the Zócalo.  In an effort to move government offices out Mexico City, several departments have been moved to other cities.  The SEP has been moved to Puebla, and the enormous building has been repurposed to serve as a museum dedicated to the muralist movement.

Muralism is considered to be Mexico's most important contribution to 20th century art.  The muralist movement began in the 1920s after the Mexican Revolution.  The government sought out artists to do paintings on the walls of government buildings, schools and public spaces to establish a national identity, portray the nation's history, and to glorify the revolution.  It could often be viewed as government propaganda, similar to Soviet realism art in the U.S.S.R.  However, out of the movement emerged some of the most important painters of modern art.

The former SEP building is an appropriate place for a museum on muralism since the building is filled with mural paintings by numerous artists, particularly Diego Rivera.  The walls of the three floors of the two courtyards are covered with Rivera murals... more than in the courtyard of the National Palace, perhaps his best known project.  

I visited the building when it was still the SEP headquarters a couple of times to see the paintings, and I wrote about them on the blog.  Here are a few of the Rivera murals from just the ground floor.  These portray daily life and traditional festivals.  (His more political paintings are on the upper floors.)

Before dealing with muralism, the first hall of the museum presents the history of the building.  The structure is actually three buildings...  1) the former Church and Convent of Santa María de la Encarnación del Divino Verbo, dating from the 17th and 18th centuries,  2) the 18th century Customs House, where taxes were placed on goods entering the city, and 3) the 20th century renovation of the convent cloisters in neo-classical style done when the site was converted into the SEP headquarters.

Mexico City was built atop the ruins of the Aztec capital, and beneath the building numerous pre-Hispanic artifacts have been found.

There are also objects from the former convent, including a crown worn by novices when they took their vows.

The next hall deals with muralism in Mexico's prehistoric and pre-Hispanic past.  The oldest murals in the Americas, dating from 5500 B.C., are from a cave in Baja California.  Here is a replica of one of the paintings.

There are also reproductions of mural paintings from the pre-Hispanic civilizations.

Mural in the Red Temple at Cacaxtla, Tlaxcala

Mural from Teotihuacan

Portion of the mural from the temple at the Mayan city of Bonampak

Modern murals that drew their inspiration from pre-Hispanic cultures

"Rites" by Raúl Anguiano

"Death" by Maximiliano González de Olazábal

"Friar Bernardino de Sagahún and His Rescue of the History of Mexican Culture"

by José Chávez Morado

"The History of Religion Part I" by Diego Rivera

Numerous halls discuss aspects of mural painting.  There are a some large scale works (perhaps not technically murals) on display.

"Mexican Stoicism" by Fernando Andriacci

"Abundance" by César Menchaca García

More to come from the Museum of Muralism in the next post...

Relocation

 If you have read this blog over the years, you know that our favorite restaurant in Mexico City used to be a place called Angelopolitano.  They specialized in the cuisine of the state and city of Puebla, and I wrote many times about their excellent "moles" and superb "chiles en nogada".  At some point, it seemed that the food was not as good as it used to to be, and they often did not have dishes listed on the menu.

Last month when someone asked me about the restaurant, I checked its address on Google Maps.  I was shocked to see that it was listed as "permanently closed".  It also found a short article on the internet that said, without any explanation, that Angelopolitano had shut it doors after more than a decade in business.  Recently, on one of my long walks, I made a point of passing by its location on Puebla Street in the "colonia" of Roma Norte.  Indeed, the place where we had dined so many times over the last twelve years was closed.

Then, a few days ago, Alejandro was looking at the restaurant's Instagram account and saw, "Próximamente, Puebla 151"... "Coming soon", a new address on Puebla Street.  Yesterday, on another one of my long walks, I passed by that new address.  151 Puebla Street is one of those elegant old buildings, probably dating from the early 20th century, which abound in the Roma neighborhood.

It is an apartment building. On the ground floor, there are a couple of spaces (known in Spanish as "locales") for retail businesses.  On the far side beyond the main entrance is a store selling copying machines.  In the lower left corner of this photo there are the doors of a unoccupied space.  

There was a gentleman outside who appeared to be the doorman for the building.  I asked him if he knew if a restaurant called Angelopolitano was relocating at this address.  He pointed to the vacant "local", and said they had the space ready.  He said they were supposed to open last week, but for some reason were delayed.

I suppose that when Angelopolitano reopens, Alejandro and I will have to give it another chance and see if the quality has returned to its former level.

Upstairs at the Anthropology Museum

The crown jewel of Mexico City's many museums is the National Museum of Anthropology.  No where in the world will you find a comparable collection of treasures from Mexico's pre-Hispanic civilizations.  If a visitor to the city sees only one museum it should be this one.  Most visitors never make it to the upper floor which contains ethnographic exhibits dealing with the culture of Mexico's many indigenous peoples today.

Before the pandemic it seemed that they were doing a renovation of the upstairs.  Back then I wrote several entries on the blog, and there were still parts of the upstairs that were not completed and closed off.  It's been a while since I have been to the museum's upper floor.  I had no idea that another remodeling was taking place until I read earlier this month that  President Claudia Scheinbaum had attended the reopening of the floor.

I was eager to see what had been done, so last week I took a visit to the museum.

I went away very dissatisfied with the changes that had been made.

This map in the museum shows the many indigenous groups which live throughout the country.

More than 20 million people in Mexico identify as members of one of more than 60 groups, and more than 11 million live in households in which at least one family member speaks an indigenous language.  The highest concentration of indigenous peoples are in the states of Yucatán and Oaxaca.

The ethnographic exhibits used to be arranged by geographic region.  So, for example, if you wanted to learn about the Huichol people of western Mexico, there was an area that presented their way of life, religious beliefs and artwork with detailed explanations.  You went away with a better understanding of that group.

Now the exhibits are divided by themes such as food, fiestas, textiles.  So, continuing with the example of the Huichol people, you will see objects related to them throughout the museum floor.  It seemed to me a very disorganized manner of presentation with a lack of focus.

What irritated me even more was the lack of identification of objects.  There are around six thousands objects on display on the second floor... many of them beautiful works of art.  But, at least for the first half of the exhibit, there is very little signage.  There are showcases filled with masks, pottery, jewelry, etc. that are meant to show the diversity of the country's many tribes.  Yes, they are very lovely, but where do the individual pieces come from and who made them???

As I continued through the upper floor, finally the individual objects in the showcases were identified.  It almost seemed as if they hadn't finished with the signage and had not got around to the first half of the displays.  (It certainly would not be the first time the government had opened a project with fanfare before it was actually completed.)

I preferred the way the floor was organized previously.  As a person who frequently plays tour guide to visiting friends, I would find it very difficult to give a coherent tour of the exhibits as they are now displayed.

Tax Time

I always dreaded this time of year when I would have to start collecting tax documents to file my income tax with the IRS and the state of Ohio.  And just because I now live in Mexico does not mean that I don't have to pay Uncle Sam.  However, now, instead of waiting for paper documents to arrive in the mail, I have to gather them online and send them via a secure website to my accountant.  Even though it went fairly smoothly last year, it still dread it.

One tax bill which is quick, easy, and painless to pay is the real estate tax for my Mexico City apartment.  That arrived in the mail last week and was delivered to my apartment by the doorman.  I will go to the bank (any bank) and pay it today.  If I pay for the entire year before January 31st, I get a discount.

The real estate tax for the year on my three bedroom, two bathroom condo in a very nice Mexico City neighborhood is 9,748 pesos.  That converts to about 470 U.S. dollars.

That is definitely an enormous savings over what I was paying back in Ohio even for just half the year!