aztec autumn by gary jennings- several reviews - copy-part ii.docx

7/22/2019 Aztec Autumn by Gary Jennings- several reviews - Copy-part II.docx

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Aztec Autumn by Gary Jennings

Reviewed by Allan Cogan

Readers of these reviews may remember that I was a big fan of Jennings previous work, Aztec . I gave it

my highest accoladefive stars. And here comes the sequel, which is almost as good.

The action in this one takes place 12 years after all the goings on in Aztec and concerns the adventures

of 18 year old Tenamixtli, the son of Mixtli, the hero of the former novel. Indeed, in the first chapter,

Tenamixtli witnesses an execution, a burning at the stake being publicly carried out by Spanish troops.

Later, he discovers that the executed man was his father. Hows that for getting a story started? As you

can imagine, revenge plays a big part in the plot.

It becomes Mixtlis mission to rid his country of the Spaniards and he sets about the task with great

deliberation. He starts by going to Mexico City and learning Spanish.

"Studying the white mans tongue?" Netzlin said. "Is that why you are here in the city?" I went on to tell

him how I intended to learn everything possible about the white man. "So that I can effectively raise a

rebellion against them. Drive them out of all the lands of The One World."

Tenamixtli also recruits a number of people with the same intention. By patiently working with the

Spanish conquerers and learning their customs he acquires a great deal of knowledge about his

enemies. While serving on a duck hunt, for example, he learns a something about weaponry and

discovers how to make gunpowder.

Our hero also visits the northern part of Mexico which has remained unmolested by the Spaniards, at

least at the time being written about. There he visits some of the northern tribes to try to recruit

warriors.

When he visits Michoacan, which is under Spanish control, he recruits a small army of women warriors.

He also meets a Spanish priest, who, somewhat against the will of his own people, is setting out to

create a Utopia in that state. He is also trying to teach the locals how to make Spanish guitars!


2/6

All these travels and adventures and characters give author Jennings wonderful opportunities to exhibit

his enormous research about the customs, religions and ways of life of these people. He also depicts

extremely well throughout what it must be like to live in a conquered and subjugated country.

As in the previous book theres the usual frequent use of Aztec vocabulary and the usual tongue-twisting

pronunciations to wrestle with. Indeed, its occasionally overdone. For example, in one exchange a

character says to another: "Are you tlahuele, friend, or merely xolopitli?" What hes really asking is: Are

you stark raving mad or are you just acting silly?" And as all the other things these characters say are

written in plain English, one wonders why that particular question couldnt bewritten in plain English,

rather than holding up the narrative to explain what was just said. Theres an overabundance of such

exchanges, both in Aztec and Spanish. However, on the positive side, the foreign words do lend

something to the feeling of reality of the overall narrative. I suspect the author would defend those

passages on those grounds.

Theres also an interesting sex scene where our boy loses his virginity. I find Im getting a bit long in the

tooth for sex scenes but it at least gave me the opportunity to learn a bunch of new naughty words, like

xacapili, tepuli, tipili, omicetl, and cuilontli. If that turns you on, its on page 119.

The last two hundred pages of Aztec Autumn are great fun, with stories of sieges, battles, guerrilla

warfarecomplete with lots of treachery, heroism and cruelty. In one scene 138 prisoners of war areeach given the choice of their method of execution. And although the story naturally conforms with

historyi.e. the Aztecs dont win its still satisfying.

Verdict: Good stuff. One for the shopping cart.

http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/858-aztec-autumn-by-gary-jennings
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3/6

Book Review: Aztec Autumn

Posted by Joe August 21, 2009

0

Gary Jennings novel Aztec Autumn is a fine example of how to make history more interesting through

storytelling, but the history frequently overshadows the story and makes the novel a bitwhats the

word?awkward.

The book follows the life of Tenamaxtli, an Aztec nobleman living during the early years of the Spanish

colonization of the New World who leads a rebellion against the conquistadors several years after

Cortez captured Tenochtitlan (Mexico City). To make things even more interesting, the hero was a real

person and his rebellion really did take place during the Mixton War.

To showcase an impressive amount of historical research, Jennings has his hero wandering the

countryside in preparation for his rebellion, giving him ample opportunity to discover and explore

various settings, cultures, and historical figures of the day. To the history-minded reader, this is

fascinating material and it is usually rather easy to tell when something historical (rather than narrative)

is being explored.

Which brings us to the problem.

Jennings sends his hero on a long, meandering quest around western and northern Mexico (the One

World) in search of allies, but this is really a sort of picaresque in which Tenamaxtli serves as an

unwitting tour guide to show us:

the rebuilding of Mexico City

the cruelty of the Church

the kindness of the Church

the land of bald women

the land of primitive savages

the island of pearl-diving women


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Spanish explorers

the treatment of Africans

cross-cultural politics

religion

All of which is fine and interesting, and while it is far more engaging than any history textbook, it makes

for a clunky work of fiction. Tenamaxtlis grand rebellion against the Spanish Empire becomes more of

an excuse to travel (and sleep with a lot of women) than a story of war or survival.

The last issue I have with the book is the hero himself. While I believe that Jennings has created the

most authentic Aztecatl character Americanly possible, it is hard to like him. Again, Tenamaxtli himself is

a historical and cultural exploration of attitudes toward men and women, children and the elderly, sex,

food, marriage, religion, racism, etc. The end result is someone a bit mechanical, as well as someone a

bit hard to empathize with.

So while Aztec Autumn succeeds mightily in delivering history in a highly engaging manner, it never

quite reaches the moment in which you forget youre reading a book and just fall into the story.

http://josephrobertlewis.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/book-review-aztec-autumn/
http://josephrobertlewis.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/book-review-aztec-autumn/http://josephrobertlewis.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/book-review-aztec-autumn/http://josephrobertlewis.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/book-review-aztec-autumn/


5/6

Aztec Autumn

Aztec Autumn

Cover of 1997 First Edition

Author Gary Jennings

Country United States

Language English

Genre(s) Historical novel

Publisher Forge (Tor Books)

Publication date August 1997

Media type Print (Hardbound)

Pages 380 pp

ISBN 0312862504

OCLCNumber 36350568
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Dewey Decimal 813/.54 21

LC Classification PS3560.E518 A993 1997

Preceded by Aztec

Followed by Aztec Blood

Aztec Autumnis a 1997historical fictionnovel byGary Jennings;it is a sequel to Jennings's

1980 bestsellerAztec.

Plot summary

The narrative takes us to a time one generation after the Conquest, when the magnificent Aztecempire has fallen beneath the brutal heel of the invadingSpaniards.But one proud Aztec,

Tenamaxtli,refuses to bow to the foreign conquerors - and secretly begins to recruit from among

the struggling survivors of the Conquest, an army of insurrection. On his courageous quest he

finds high adventure, passionate women, unlikely allies, bright hope, and bitter tragedy. Drivenby his dream of restoring the lost glory of the Aztec empire he will come to threaten theseemingly invincible power of mighty Spain. Until now, Tenamaxtli's rebellion has been little

remembered, perhaps because it shed no glory on the men who would write the history books,but on its outcome depended the future of all North America.

This article about a 1990s novel is astub.You can help Wikipedia byexpanding it.

Copyright Information

This article is distributed under theCreative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.For

information on the contributors, please see theoriginal Wikipedia article.

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