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You Dreamed of Empires
From a visionary Mexican author, a hallucinatory, revelatory, colonial revenge story that reimagines the fall of Tenochtitlan.
One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés entered the city of Tenochtitlan – today's Mexico City. Later that day, he would meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures.
Cortés was accompanied by his nine captains, his troops, and his two translators: Friar Aguilar, a taciturn, former slave, and Malinalli, a strategic, former princess. Greeted at a ceremonial welcome meal by the steely princess Atotoxli, sister and wife of Moctezuma, the Spanish nearly bungle their entrance to the city. As they await their meeting with Moctezuma – who is at a political, spiritual, and physical crossroads, and relies on hallucinogens to get himself through the day and in quest for any kind of answer from the gods – the Spanish are ensconced in the labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés’s captains, Jazmín Caldera, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the city, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed into the city, and wonders at the risks of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire.
You Dreamed of Empires brings to life Tenochtitlan at its height, and reimagines its destiny. The incomparably original Alvaro Enrigue sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, a restitutive, fantastical counter-attack, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.
One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés entered the city of Tenochtitlan – today's Mexico City. Later that day, he would meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures.
Cortés was accompanied by his nine captains, his troops, and his two translators: Friar Aguilar, a taciturn, former slave, and Malinalli, a strategic, former princess. Greeted at a ceremonial welcome meal by the steely princess Atotoxli, sister and wife of Moctezuma, the Spanish nearly bungle their entrance to the city. As they await their meeting with Moctezuma – who is at a political, spiritual, and physical crossroads, and relies on hallucinogens to get himself through the day and in quest for any kind of answer from the gods – the Spanish are ensconced in the labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés’s captains, Jazmín Caldera, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the city, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed into the city, and wonders at the risks of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire.
You Dreamed of Empires brings to life Tenochtitlan at its height, and reimagines its destiny. The incomparably original Alvaro Enrigue sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, a restitutive, fantastical counter-attack, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.
220 pages, Hardcover
First published October 13, 2022
2862 people are currently reading
48555 people want to read
About the author
Álvaro Enrigue
35 books459 followersEscritor, editor y crítico literario nacido en México D. F. en 1969. Álvaro Enrigue ha pasado su vida entre el Distrito Federal y Washington D.C. Fue durante un tiempo profesor de Literatura en la Universidad Iberoamericana y de Escritura Creativa en la de Maryland. Desde 1990 se dedica a la crítica literaria, y ha colaborado en revistas y periódicos de México y España. A su regreso a México, después de una breve etapa como editor de literatura del Fondo de Cultura Económica, ha pasado a formar parte de la revista Letras Libres.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,183 reviews
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October 19, 2024I'm still processing this novel, but I am glad I read it! Enrigue treats us to a snapshot of a single day in Tenochtitlán, when Cortés met Moctezuma with fateful consequences for the Aztec empire. I've never read a book whose sections were divided into 'before nap,' 'the nap,' and 'after the nap,' but I kind of loved that. It sounds like my average writing day. But I digress . . .
Enrigue himself describes the book's structure as Borgesian, and who am I to argue? It does have a Labyrinthian sensibility, much like the work of Borges. We join the court politicians of Moctezuma and the conquistadors as they scurry through the imperial palaces on a thousand small personal plots within the main plot: Cortés is out for glory and power, though he hasn't the faintest clue what he is doing, while Moctezuma is doing his best to hold a fractious empire together, playing for time until he can get his hands on the Spaniards' horses, which he recognizes could be a game-changer for his whole society. I read one review that called this a sort of 'Mesoamerican West Wing,' and I can see that. We have tightly crafted side conversations, petty struggles and personal grudges playing out around the seat of power. And the emperor himself . . . is he a clever political operator two steps ahead of his enemies, or is he a depressed drug-addict who is only interested in mushrooms and napping? Perhaps both?
The details that bring Tenochtitlán to life are impressively researched and beautifully rendered. Enrigue brings you there and lets you wander through the intoxicating city as it unknowingly faces its doom. Counterbalancing this realism is a surreal, hallucenogenic tone that mimics the psychedelic state in which Enrigue tells us that many Aztecs lived, so that they could encounter the gods in their daily lives. Toward the end of the book (SPOILER) the author breaks the fourth wall when he has his characters dream of the future, dance to 21st century music, and even see the author create them as characters within a novel. The intensity of this psychedelic shift caught me by surprise, but it worked with the ending, which was worthy of Tarantino. (END SPOILER)
If you like historical slices-on-life that bring characters into your imagination as fully realized human beings, and you are interested in pre-Columbian / early Columbian Mesoamerica, this is a great book to try.
Enrigue himself describes the book's structure as Borgesian, and who am I to argue? It does have a Labyrinthian sensibility, much like the work of Borges. We join the court politicians of Moctezuma and the conquistadors as they scurry through the imperial palaces on a thousand small personal plots within the main plot: Cortés is out for glory and power, though he hasn't the faintest clue what he is doing, while Moctezuma is doing his best to hold a fractious empire together, playing for time until he can get his hands on the Spaniards' horses, which he recognizes could be a game-changer for his whole society. I read one review that called this a sort of 'Mesoamerican West Wing,' and I can see that. We have tightly crafted side conversations, petty struggles and personal grudges playing out around the seat of power. And the emperor himself . . . is he a clever political operator two steps ahead of his enemies, or is he a depressed drug-addict who is only interested in mushrooms and napping? Perhaps both?
The details that bring Tenochtitlán to life are impressively researched and beautifully rendered. Enrigue brings you there and lets you wander through the intoxicating city as it unknowingly faces its doom. Counterbalancing this realism is a surreal, hallucenogenic tone that mimics the psychedelic state in which Enrigue tells us that many Aztecs lived, so that they could encounter the gods in their daily lives. Toward the end of the book (SPOILER) the author breaks the fourth wall when he has his characters dream of the future, dance to 21st century music, and even see the author create them as characters within a novel. The intensity of this psychedelic shift caught me by surprise, but it worked with the ending, which was worthy of Tarantino. (END SPOILER)
If you like historical slices-on-life that bring characters into your imagination as fully realized human beings, and you are interested in pre-Columbian / early Columbian Mesoamerica, this is a great book to try.
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January 11, 2024I reviewed this for the LA Times. You can see my full review there: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment...
Spoiler: I loved it. Álvaro Enrigue's You Dreamed of Empires is sharp and also funny.
A quote from the review: "The intricacy of this series of events might have daunted many writers; it’s difficult enough just to portray it accurately and make it comprehensible. Even when someone has done their research — and Enrigue has done it admirably well — the story could easily become ponderous and overblown, a mothballed costume drama. Enrigue’s genius lies in his ability to bring readers close to its tangled knot of priests, mercenaries, warriors and princesses while adding a pinch of biting humor."
Spoiler: I loved it. Álvaro Enrigue's You Dreamed of Empires is sharp and also funny.
A quote from the review: "The intricacy of this series of events might have daunted many writers; it’s difficult enough just to portray it accurately and make it comprehensible. Even when someone has done their research — and Enrigue has done it admirably well — the story could easily become ponderous and overblown, a mothballed costume drama. Enrigue’s genius lies in his ability to bring readers close to its tangled knot of priests, mercenaries, warriors and princesses while adding a pinch of biting humor."
March 28, 2024
Shame on the International Booker for not nominating this (*rings bell: shame! shame! shame!*). The novel tells the fictionalized story of how the Spanish conquistadores around Hernán Cortés entered Tenochtitlán, which was the beginning of the end of the Aztec Empire under king Moctezuma II. Considering the historical facts around the Fall of Tenochtitlán, the whole set-up makes for a psychological chamber play, with two cultures struggling to interpret what is going on around them and the Aztec Empire under duress because of interior and exterior forces - but as this is literary fiction, Enrigue is not forced to follow through with how history played out. Also, until this day, the primary sources for the reconstruction of what happened are Cortes' letters to Charles V and other Spanish "eyewitnesses" - Enrigue, on the other hand, gives the indigenous side equal weight.
While the Spanish started out on an expedition to serve the interests of slave traders, they get more and more intoxicated by their territorial conquests and a sense of danger and adventure, losing grip on reality. Inside Tenochtitlán, Moctezuma has established a regime that also rests on ruthless power and bloodshed, and where hallucinogenics play an important role. Nevertheless, Enrigue manages to evoke a sense of wonder in the readers, as his atmospheric descriptions of sights, smells and sounds are the real stars of the text - this reader often felt like she had also sipped some of that hallucinogenic chocolate and is now stumbling through an disorienting, dangerous, and captivating landscape and a labyrinth-like palace. On the way, we encounter characters like Moctezuma's sister-wife, an enslaved woman who works as a translator, as well as a shipwrecked friar - mind you, only one of the characters is fully fictional (Caldera). At some point, it feels only natural that the story digresses into the fantastical. Will the Spanish make it out alive of the city?
Time implodes, history spirals, Ramón López Velarde enters a dream, glam rock is playing while Moctezuma gets high on mushrooms and sees Enrigue writing his story. Throughout, the language is modern and vivid. Interestingly, the original title is Tu sueño imperios han sido, so "your dream empires have been", which allows for the twist that our human empires have been dreams all along (and most of them probably fever dreams). The line relates to Pedro Calderón de la Barca's Life Is a Dream, a drama from the Spanish Golden Age, which also features an imprisoned king and questions of fate and the construction of reality.
This - while not quite as good as Binet's Civilizations - is daring, fun, intelligent literature: A fantastical rendering of colonial history, a very dark comedy, and, as every good historical novel, a commentary on the present. Great stuff.
You can learn more about the book on the podcast (in German; translation: Von Königreichen hast du geträumt): https://papierstaupodcast.de/podcast/...
While the Spanish started out on an expedition to serve the interests of slave traders, they get more and more intoxicated by their territorial conquests and a sense of danger and adventure, losing grip on reality. Inside Tenochtitlán, Moctezuma has established a regime that also rests on ruthless power and bloodshed, and where hallucinogenics play an important role. Nevertheless, Enrigue manages to evoke a sense of wonder in the readers, as his atmospheric descriptions of sights, smells and sounds are the real stars of the text - this reader often felt like she had also sipped some of that hallucinogenic chocolate and is now stumbling through an disorienting, dangerous, and captivating landscape and a labyrinth-like palace. On the way, we encounter characters like Moctezuma's sister-wife, an enslaved woman who works as a translator, as well as a shipwrecked friar - mind you, only one of the characters is fully fictional (Caldera). At some point, it feels only natural that the story digresses into the fantastical. Will the Spanish make it out alive of the city?
Time implodes, history spirals, Ramón López Velarde enters a dream, glam rock is playing while Moctezuma gets high on mushrooms and sees Enrigue writing his story. Throughout, the language is modern and vivid. Interestingly, the original title is Tu sueño imperios han sido, so "your dream empires have been", which allows for the twist that our human empires have been dreams all along (and most of them probably fever dreams). The line relates to Pedro Calderón de la Barca's Life Is a Dream, a drama from the Spanish Golden Age, which also features an imprisoned king and questions of fate and the construction of reality.
This - while not quite as good as Binet's Civilizations - is daring, fun, intelligent literature: A fantastical rendering of colonial history, a very dark comedy, and, as every good historical novel, a commentary on the present. Great stuff.
You can learn more about the book on the podcast (in German; translation: Von Königreichen hast du geträumt): https://papierstaupodcast.de/podcast/...
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May 6, 2025I thought about the Greeks while I was reading this book about the Spanish conquistadors arriving in the area we now call Mexico in the year 1520.
And it wasn't only that various details, including the description of the Spanish General, the eagle-eyed Cortés, kept reminding me of John Keats' poem 'On First looking into Chapman's Homer':
It wasn't only that the description of the high-perched palace complex of Tenoxtitlan, into which the Nahua emperor Moctezuma invited the Spanish, made it sound like Mount Olympus, the home of the Greek Gods, and that the emperor Moctezuma felt like a version of Zeus, powerful and unpredictable, and also having an eagle as his main attribute.
And it wasn't only that the architecture of Tenoxtitlan seemed as ordered and geometrically laid out as the Acropolis.
Or that the Nahua manner of welcoming guests felt very Greek in its ritualised ceremony of offering elaborate banquets and gifts. The Greeks had a word for that: 'Xenia'.
Or even the very funny scene between proud Cortés and the equally proud Moctezuma in which they both thought they were speaking a language the other could understand, and which they imagined, in their mescaline-intoxicated state, to be Greek!
No, the big 'epiphany' moment was when I realised that this book observes the Greek Drama unities of time, place, and action perfectly.
It takes place entirely in Moctezuma's palace.
It all happens in the space of one day.
And it has only one principal action.
And, what's more, that 'one principal action' fits with the Greek tragedy convention of 'reversal' or 'peripeteia': a sudden change of fortune for the main protagonist.
But what I really enjoyed was that in this story, the 'one principal action' not only changed the main character's fortune but reversed the course of history. Álvaro Enrigue was having fun here. He made Cortés make a fatal mistake, which happens to be another convention of Greek drama: 'hamartia'.
But the most interesting thing of all is this: in a sort of 'parabasis' or 'step-aside', i.e., a narration outside of the main story that the Greeks sometimes used in their plays, and which in Enrique's book takes the form of a meta-fictional insert (one of several), the author subtly reminds us (the reference is so small it is almost invisible) that another 'principal action', the arrival of smallpox, reversed the other main protagonist's (Moctezuma) fortune. And in any case, Moctezuma had also made a fatal mistake—he wanted their horses so badly that he invited the Spaniards, horses, weapons and all, right into the heart of his palace (echoes of the Trojans), so that, along with the advent of smallpox, this eventually allowed the Spaniards to conquer the whole of the territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a true 'realm of gold', to use Keats' words. And we know that modern day Mexico City is built on top of the ruins of Tenoxtitlan so, alas, there was 'hubris' for proud Moctezuma in real life but it was to 'stout Cortés' that Enrigue delivered the 'hubris' in this cleverly composed fiction.
…………………………
I read this for my real-life bookgroup and it was interesting to hear people's reactions. Some loved it, some disliked it intensely, and some, like me, admired it hugely but had found the reading difficult. This is partly because Álvaro Enrigue chose to include a lot of words in the language spoken in Moctezuma's court, Nahuatl. The words related to the many characters' roles or statuses, and were frequently used instead of their names—and many of their names were already difficult to remember. So the reader had to pay a lot of attention in order to decipher the story—and learn some Nahuatl in the process.
And it wasn't only that various details, including the description of the Spanish General, the eagle-eyed Cortés, kept reminding me of John Keats' poem 'On First looking into Chapman's Homer':
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
It wasn't only that the description of the high-perched palace complex of Tenoxtitlan, into which the Nahua emperor Moctezuma invited the Spanish, made it sound like Mount Olympus, the home of the Greek Gods, and that the emperor Moctezuma felt like a version of Zeus, powerful and unpredictable, and also having an eagle as his main attribute.
And it wasn't only that the architecture of Tenoxtitlan seemed as ordered and geometrically laid out as the Acropolis.
Or that the Nahua manner of welcoming guests felt very Greek in its ritualised ceremony of offering elaborate banquets and gifts. The Greeks had a word for that: 'Xenia'.
Or even the very funny scene between proud Cortés and the equally proud Moctezuma in which they both thought they were speaking a language the other could understand, and which they imagined, in their mescaline-intoxicated state, to be Greek!
No, the big 'epiphany' moment was when I realised that this book observes the Greek Drama unities of time, place, and action perfectly.
It takes place entirely in Moctezuma's palace.
It all happens in the space of one day.
And it has only one principal action.
And, what's more, that 'one principal action' fits with the Greek tragedy convention of 'reversal' or 'peripeteia': a sudden change of fortune for the main protagonist.
But what I really enjoyed was that in this story, the 'one principal action' not only changed the main character's fortune but reversed the course of history. Álvaro Enrigue was having fun here. He made Cortés make a fatal mistake, which happens to be another convention of Greek drama: 'hamartia'.
But the most interesting thing of all is this: in a sort of 'parabasis' or 'step-aside', i.e., a narration outside of the main story that the Greeks sometimes used in their plays, and which in Enrique's book takes the form of a meta-fictional insert (one of several), the author subtly reminds us (the reference is so small it is almost invisible) that another 'principal action', the arrival of smallpox, reversed the other main protagonist's (Moctezuma) fortune. And in any case, Moctezuma had also made a fatal mistake—he wanted their horses so badly that he invited the Spaniards, horses, weapons and all, right into the heart of his palace (echoes of the Trojans), so that, along with the advent of smallpox, this eventually allowed the Spaniards to conquer the whole of the territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a true 'realm of gold', to use Keats' words. And we know that modern day Mexico City is built on top of the ruins of Tenoxtitlan so, alas, there was 'hubris' for proud Moctezuma in real life but it was to 'stout Cortés' that Enrigue delivered the 'hubris' in this cleverly composed fiction.
…………………………
I read this for my real-life bookgroup and it was interesting to hear people's reactions. Some loved it, some disliked it intensely, and some, like me, admired it hugely but had found the reading difficult. This is partly because Álvaro Enrigue chose to include a lot of words in the language spoken in Moctezuma's court, Nahuatl. The words related to the many characters' roles or statuses, and were frequently used instead of their names—and many of their names were already difficult to remember. So the reader had to pay a lot of attention in order to decipher the story—and learn some Nahuatl in the process.
February 29, 2024
Shallow are the actions / Of the children of men / Fogged was their vision / Since the ages began
Psychedelic, quasi-historical, lightly-metafictional, blood-spattered, febrile, culture clash between the Aztec rulers and the Spanish conquistadores. Delectable.
Psychedelic, quasi-historical, lightly-metafictional, blood-spattered, febrile, culture clash between the Aztec rulers and the Spanish conquistadores. Delectable.
Want to read
March 23, 2025an alternate timeline in which europeans didn't conquer the americas sounds like exactly what i want to be reading right now
March 19, 2024
My rating reflects the fact that my pea-brain struggled to penetrate this narrative, rather than the quality of the book itself. I could see while reading that this is clever writing. I normally love a fever-dream-like story like this. But at the moment I found this, coupled with a complex cast of characters a bit difficult to keep track of. Lots to appreciate if you have the mental bandwidth (which I presently do not).
November 27, 2022
Este es el hipotético encuentro, novelado de la forma más ingeniosa posible, entre los castellanos-caxtiltecas y Moctezuma en Tenochtitlan... y me lo creo mucho m��s que todas las clases de historia que he recibido en mi vida.
Con una narración ágil y moderna, nos cuenta una escena histórica que funciona como un mecanismo de relojería; cada elemento está puesto con una función. Tiene pasajes divertidos, otros duros y otros muy evocadores que me hacen querer saber más sobre los personajes, sobre todo los mexicas, aunque sé que es muy difícil.
Poco diálogo y mucho de psicología de personajes, no entréis en ella buscando una crónica de la "conquista", ni una reivindicación de los nativos porque en este relato no hay buenos ni malos: recuerda más a una historia de ciencia ficción de primer contacto; nos sitúa en una ciudad impresionante al borde de una crisis política y religiosa a la que, de pronto, llegan unos extraños.
A Enrigue hay que leerlo, es refrescante y tan explosivo como Moctezuma.
Con una narración ágil y moderna, nos cuenta una escena histórica que funciona como un mecanismo de relojería; cada elemento está puesto con una función. Tiene pasajes divertidos, otros duros y otros muy evocadores que me hacen querer saber más sobre los personajes, sobre todo los mexicas, aunque sé que es muy difícil.
Poco diálogo y mucho de psicología de personajes, no entréis en ella buscando una crónica de la "conquista", ni una reivindicación de los nativos porque en este relato no hay buenos ni malos: recuerda más a una historia de ciencia ficción de primer contacto; nos sitúa en una ciudad impresionante al borde de una crisis política y religiosa a la que, de pronto, llegan unos extraños.
A Enrigue hay que leerlo, es refrescante y tan explosivo como Moctezuma.
August 20, 2024
I think I found my book of the year already. This has everything I love in literary fiction: an intelligent and original take on a perplexing history, presented in a bold, thrilling and slightly experimental narrative, with a cast of unbelievable characters that bring the story to life in a way non-fiction can't. And the brilliant twist at the end just lifted it from 5 to 6 stars.
The year is 1519, the place is Tenoxtitlán (now Mexico City) and the subject matter is the famous encounter between the conquistador Hernan Cortes (a boorish opportunist) and the Aztec tlatoani Moctezuma. I was familiar with the basic, tragic facts, but it's now a month since I finished it and I still can't get my head around the fact that this really happened...
In a sense this is a first contact novel, two completely different cultures meet each other after thousands of years of isolated development, and afterwards nothing will be the same.
I also liked that the perspective is as much Aztec as it is Spanish, so we get a good bit of politics and palace intrigue in this completely alien, but at the same time completely human culture. The Mexica empire is experiencing various internal crises, and the tactical question how to deal with the arrival of the Spanish (risk or opportunity?) is one that Moctezuma - often high on drugs, giving the book a psychedelic quality too - seems to be taking wholly alone, to the desperation of his advisors and his wife/sister. The latter also secretly negotiates with the famous interpreter La Malinche, in an attempt to avoid the fall of the empire.
I am sure Enrigue has taken liberties that will have historians raise their eyebrows, but he has told an amazing story.
The year is 1519, the place is Tenoxtitlán (now Mexico City) and the subject matter is the famous encounter between the conquistador Hernan Cortes (a boorish opportunist) and the Aztec tlatoani Moctezuma. I was familiar with the basic, tragic facts, but it's now a month since I finished it and I still can't get my head around the fact that this really happened...
In a sense this is a first contact novel, two completely different cultures meet each other after thousands of years of isolated development, and afterwards nothing will be the same.
I also liked that the perspective is as much Aztec as it is Spanish, so we get a good bit of politics and palace intrigue in this completely alien, but at the same time completely human culture. The Mexica empire is experiencing various internal crises, and the tactical question how to deal with the arrival of the Spanish (risk or opportunity?) is one that Moctezuma - often high on drugs, giving the book a psychedelic quality too - seems to be taking wholly alone, to the desperation of his advisors and his wife/sister. The latter also secretly negotiates with the famous interpreter La Malinche, in an attempt to avoid the fall of the empire.
I am sure Enrigue has taken liberties that will have historians raise their eyebrows, but he has told an amazing story.
June 4, 2023
when somebody puts what's happening to us now in a book, he said, they'll think it's more chivalric romance bullshit.mexican author álvaro enrigue's latest full-length, written during the plague years, is a hallucinatory historical humor novel — a playful psychedelic reimagining (complete with a new ending!) of the infamous meeting between aztec emperor moctezuma and spanish conquistador hernán cortés.
it's hard to imagine a writer having more fun than enrigue must have had when composing each of you dreamed of empires (tu sueño imperios han sido)'s resplendent pages. set in the aztec floating capital city of tenochtitlán in late 1519, enrigue's story teems with vivid detail and description. but it's his characters that steal the show, and how! irreverence, indolence, and an impressive quantity of psychoactive mushrooms and cacti synergize to dazzling effect, like a hummingbird's gorget refracting the sunlight.
plying the reader with a heady dose of comicality, enrigue is the trip sitter reframing imperialist conquest as an irresistibly lively tale of jocular iridescence. you dreamed of empires is far out fiction at its finest.
these are days of blood and shit.
*translated from the spanish by natasha wimmer (enrigue's sudden death, bolaño, vargas llosa, restrepo, nona fernández, giralt torrento, et al.)
April 25, 2024
https://www.instagram.com/p/C2fTETJLa...
A vivid and hallucinatory reimagining of the meeting between Hernan Cortez and Emperor Moctezuma. Playful and surreal, You Dreamed of Empires is a slow-motion collision course of ambition, colonialism, religion, and revenge. With prose that is as candid and engaging as it is fluid, this novel looks at history from a new angle; gives a breath of justice and dark humor to an empire that is often portrayed in pop culture but seldom truly understood or shown with good intentions. Fun and fascinating, with a serious call out to the centuries long harm done to cultures and nations due to colonialism at its core.
A vivid and hallucinatory reimagining of the meeting between Hernan Cortez and Emperor Moctezuma. Playful and surreal, You Dreamed of Empires is a slow-motion collision course of ambition, colonialism, religion, and revenge. With prose that is as candid and engaging as it is fluid, this novel looks at history from a new angle; gives a breath of justice and dark humor to an empire that is often portrayed in pop culture but seldom truly understood or shown with good intentions. Fun and fascinating, with a serious call out to the centuries long harm done to cultures and nations due to colonialism at its core.
Read
June 4, 2024Historical fiction isn't really my jam and neither are names, I'm terrible with fictional characters' names. This book had both the historical fiction and a lot of names. I've probably mashed like 10 characters into 2 from not being able to remember who's who. In other words, I wasn't the right audience for this book. There are some really wild scenes in there and I can see why it came highly recommended, therefore I'm just not going to rate it since I have no idea how to fairly do so.
July 4, 2025
In 1519 Hernan Cortes arrived in Tenochtitlan to meet with Moctezuma II. In this novel, Alvaro Enrigue reimagines the goings-on of this meeting and the surrounding events of that fateful day. He combines realism and surrealism in a playful style that felt like a drug trip at times, reflected in Moctezuma's own reliance on magic mushrooms and cactus. As his kingdom is threatened from the outside, Moctezuma must navigate the diplomacy of meeting with the Spaniards and securing the legacy of the Aztec empire.
Enrigue plays with time and language, even inserting himself at one point into the novel and breaking the fourth wall for the reader. He's less concerned with historical accuracy and more with playing around in the sandbox of 'what ifs' to look at how the entire country of Mexico might have had a different history had the results of this pivotal meeting between Cortes and Moctezuma come out differently.
While I struggled at the start of this novel, the farther in I got the more invested and intrigued by the characters and their machinations I became. In ways it felt like Game of Thrones: with multiple players all doing their own things but watching how the novelist moves them around like chess pieces until we get to the final stand-off between the 2 lead characters. It's more playful and subtle than a true fantasy book, but in a way it's a fantasy all its own in that it takes something real and writes into it a dream, a question of how the world could be if things were slightly different.
Enrigue plays with time and language, even inserting himself at one point into the novel and breaking the fourth wall for the reader. He's less concerned with historical accuracy and more with playing around in the sandbox of 'what ifs' to look at how the entire country of Mexico might have had a different history had the results of this pivotal meeting between Cortes and Moctezuma come out differently.
While I struggled at the start of this novel, the farther in I got the more invested and intrigued by the characters and their machinations I became. In ways it felt like Game of Thrones: with multiple players all doing their own things but watching how the novelist moves them around like chess pieces until we get to the final stand-off between the 2 lead characters. It's more playful and subtle than a true fantasy book, but in a way it's a fantasy all its own in that it takes something real and writes into it a dream, a question of how the world could be if things were slightly different.
February 27, 2024
EDIT: Full review on INSTAGRAM.
Is it too early to call my favorite book of the year? Full review to come but this exceeded all my expectations.
SECOND READ: I enjoyed it even more than I did the first time.
Is it too early to call my favorite book of the year? Full review to come but this exceeded all my expectations.
SECOND READ: I enjoyed it even more than I did the first time.
January 27, 2024
I've been on a lovely roll with books lately, and Álvaro Enrigue's You Dreamed of Empires is keeping my winning streak going. You Dreamed of Empires is an imaginative recounting of single day: the day when Hernán Cortés met Moctezuma. Since actual accounts of that event are pretty much nonexistent, Enrigue gives himself permission to create his own truth about that day. This works well in two ways.
First, it means readers, even if they know the "standard" story of Moctezuma and Cortés, don't have any sort of certainty. Enrigue will take his tale in the directions he chooses, which means a) this book continually surprises and b) it offers an interesting thought experiment of ways this meeting might have played out. Second, as the novel progresses, the narrator becomes more active. What begins as fairly straightforward story becomes richer as it probes the various chains of action that could have been possible.
You Dreamed of Empires was written in Spanish, and I so wish my Spanish were good enough that I could read it in the original. I kept experiencing tantalizing glimpses of what the Spanish must have read like. The good news is that the translation is brilliant. This is a book that makes use of voice, and Natasha Wimmer lets that voice expand in wonderful ways as the book progresses.
You dreamed of empires can be a quick read, but move through it slowly enough to let yourself savor it. Enrigue makes use of a good bit of Aztec vocabulary, which can make some monolingual readers feel a bit panicky. Read the introduction to the book (presented as a letter from Enrigue to Wimmer). Pay attention to both suggestions about pronunciation and also to Enrigue's notes on why understanding all this vocabulary does/doesn't matter. I tend to read at speaking speed, saying the words aloud in my head as I move along. This means I'm limited in terms of reading speed, but it has the benefit of letting me "hear" as my eyes move across the page. Finding my ways to pronounce those words (I did try my best to follow Engrigue's suggestions) and encountering them over and over again made the book seem accessible in a way it otherwise might not have.
Whether you buy it from your local independent bookseller or request it from your local library, this is a book you should keep an eye out for. I don't know quite how to say this, but I'll give it a go: beyond the story, the act of reading this text is transformative in ways that can carry over into the reader's viewing of the world.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
First, it means readers, even if they know the "standard" story of Moctezuma and Cortés, don't have any sort of certainty. Enrigue will take his tale in the directions he chooses, which means a) this book continually surprises and b) it offers an interesting thought experiment of ways this meeting might have played out. Second, as the novel progresses, the narrator becomes more active. What begins as fairly straightforward story becomes richer as it probes the various chains of action that could have been possible.
You Dreamed of Empires was written in Spanish, and I so wish my Spanish were good enough that I could read it in the original. I kept experiencing tantalizing glimpses of what the Spanish must have read like. The good news is that the translation is brilliant. This is a book that makes use of voice, and Natasha Wimmer lets that voice expand in wonderful ways as the book progresses.
You dreamed of empires can be a quick read, but move through it slowly enough to let yourself savor it. Enrigue makes use of a good bit of Aztec vocabulary, which can make some monolingual readers feel a bit panicky. Read the introduction to the book (presented as a letter from Enrigue to Wimmer). Pay attention to both suggestions about pronunciation and also to Enrigue's notes on why understanding all this vocabulary does/doesn't matter. I tend to read at speaking speed, saying the words aloud in my head as I move along. This means I'm limited in terms of reading speed, but it has the benefit of letting me "hear" as my eyes move across the page. Finding my ways to pronounce those words (I did try my best to follow Engrigue's suggestions) and encountering them over and over again made the book seem accessible in a way it otherwise might not have.
Whether you buy it from your local independent bookseller or request it from your local library, this is a book you should keep an eye out for. I don't know quite how to say this, but I'll give it a go: beyond the story, the act of reading this text is transformative in ways that can carry over into the reader's viewing of the world.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
July 29, 2024
It was a huge country: ravines, mountains, deserts, jungles.
But it was a country of purest suffering too.
I added the line break for emphasis, channeling Paz and seasonal football grief as we reimagine the Conquest, how globally improbable and shattering. It is literally shocking how an incredibly organized society could fall, not necessarily to yahoos with pistols and bibles but most effectively could fall to smallpox and famine to then tumble as a biological afterthought. This is a Borges dream, a fleeting flash of nocturnal fever from an overly spiced sauce. Offerings are to be made and the ritual peace is precarious. It is certainly worth people’s time, if nothing else giving us indeed a West Wing of the Aztecs.
But it was a country of purest suffering too.
I added the line break for emphasis, channeling Paz and seasonal football grief as we reimagine the Conquest, how globally improbable and shattering. It is literally shocking how an incredibly organized society could fall, not necessarily to yahoos with pistols and bibles but most effectively could fall to smallpox and famine to then tumble as a biological afterthought. This is a Borges dream, a fleeting flash of nocturnal fever from an overly spiced sauce. Offerings are to be made and the ritual peace is precarious. It is certainly worth people’s time, if nothing else giving us indeed a West Wing of the Aztecs.
January 22, 2024
What an extraordinary book. This is not a book I would usually read as I never seem to enjoy 'historical' novels but as Natasha Wimmer was the translator I wanted to give it a go. This book seems to be dividing opinion everywhere amongst reviewers and I think it is especially relevant to praise it in light of the New York Times review which likened the characters and cities names to 'elite anti-depressants of the sort', and clearly doesn't appreciate it's masterful mix of comedy and paranoia.
You Dreamed of Empires is a fictional account of, in short, the colonization of what is now Mexico City. Or is it? We follow a group of captains, led by Hernán Cortés, who enter the city of Tenochtitlán to meet with it's emperor Moctezuma. The emperor is politically and spiritually paralysed by his obsession with magic mushroom induced hallucinations and the conquistador's horses. The book itself is small on the action and political drama - instead the book revels in the slowness of a chess game where we wonder who and what move will be played next, and how long the precarious peace is going to lay in the balance as the captains make themselves suspiciously comfortable in the emperor's city.
There is a cast of witty characters, including the emperor's sister and wife, and Marina who is one of the captain's translators. I felt immediately sucked into this story as the setting and characters were so arresting, and despite the surreal structure of the story which includes various dreams and hallucinations, was really excited to find out how Enrigue was going to end his strange tale. The end of the book was like a jaw drop moment and something I really didn't see coming. For me, it really hammered home unreliability of the reality that we as readers witnessed through the entire book. It feels like only at the end do we learn our lesson not to trust any of the dream-like sequences or conversations that we are eavesdropping on, and the climax comes so quickly it left me truly stunned.
I really see this novel on the International Booker longlist for 2024 and I hope it makes it on there. It will not be a book for everyone and even in it's review in the Guardian the reviewer confessed that it was hard to keep up with the story at times due to it's shifting nature. But it's such an addictive and unique experience and Enrigue's way of both reclaiming a narrative and solidifying his own Cortázar-like canon with-in Mexican writing. I loved it!
You Dreamed of Empires is a fictional account of, in short, the colonization of what is now Mexico City. Or is it? We follow a group of captains, led by Hernán Cortés, who enter the city of Tenochtitlán to meet with it's emperor Moctezuma. The emperor is politically and spiritually paralysed by his obsession with magic mushroom induced hallucinations and the conquistador's horses. The book itself is small on the action and political drama - instead the book revels in the slowness of a chess game where we wonder who and what move will be played next, and how long the precarious peace is going to lay in the balance as the captains make themselves suspiciously comfortable in the emperor's city.
There is a cast of witty characters, including the emperor's sister and wife, and Marina who is one of the captain's translators. I felt immediately sucked into this story as the setting and characters were so arresting, and despite the surreal structure of the story which includes various dreams and hallucinations, was really excited to find out how Enrigue was going to end his strange tale. The end of the book was like a jaw drop moment and something I really didn't see coming. For me, it really hammered home unreliability of the reality that we as readers witnessed through the entire book. It feels like only at the end do we learn our lesson not to trust any of the dream-like sequences or conversations that we are eavesdropping on, and the climax comes so quickly it left me truly stunned.
I really see this novel on the International Booker longlist for 2024 and I hope it makes it on there. It will not be a book for everyone and even in it's review in the Guardian the reviewer confessed that it was hard to keep up with the story at times due to it's shifting nature. But it's such an addictive and unique experience and Enrigue's way of both reclaiming a narrative and solidifying his own Cortázar-like canon with-in Mexican writing. I loved it!
April 8, 2024
In 2016 I read Sudden Death, in Natasha Wimmer's translation of Álvaro Enrigue's original, which I found both intriguing, with its odd blend of real, deduced and purely imagined history, where the reader is not clear which of the three applies at any one time, but ultimately a little disappointing.
You Dreamed of Empires for me has some of the flaws of that work without being quite as innovative - a worthwhile read, and one many clearly love, but an author I think that is not for me.
Sudden Death touched on the encounter between Hernán Cortés and the emperor Moctezumain the latter's city of Tenochtitlan, commenting "there are few better illustrations of how a whole host of people can manage to understand absolutely nothing, act in an impulsive and idiotic way, and still drastically change the course of history."
You Dreamed of Empires expands on this point. The Cercasian blind spot at the novel's centre is why Moctezuma allowed Cortés's troops to enter the city of Tenochtitlan safely - but Enrigue's novel closes down the speculation to give an answer, and a rather banal one at that - he was obsessed with their horses.
The first 65% or so of the novel is a little too standard historical fiction - in Sudden Death I commented on the "dates and places and people at times a little too regurgitated", and there there is a lot of exposition in the characters' thoughts that seems designed for the reader rather than themselves, or rather for the author to demonstrate his research.
There is a bravura injection at that two-thirds point, where Enrigue imagines what would have happened if one of Cortes's senior leaders (an imagined character) had explored the city in disguise and seen the parts European did not reach, but it soon reverts to the rather tangled tale of the different factions on Moctezuma's side.
A more meta-fictional approach comes in a sequence where Moctezuma, in a temple, first listens to strange music which is actually a T-Rex song (the connection passed me by) and then briefly sees the author himself writing the novel in New York.
And the novel's end takes it cue from Borges' El milagro secreto - given an alternative approach to an alternative history .
But for me it was all a little sporadic and didn't redeem what at times was quite a dull story.
You Dreamed of Empires for me has some of the flaws of that work without being quite as innovative - a worthwhile read, and one many clearly love, but an author I think that is not for me.
Sudden Death touched on the encounter between Hernán Cortés and the emperor Moctezumain the latter's city of Tenochtitlan, commenting "there are few better illustrations of how a whole host of people can manage to understand absolutely nothing, act in an impulsive and idiotic way, and still drastically change the course of history."
You Dreamed of Empires expands on this point. The Cercasian blind spot at the novel's centre is why Moctezuma allowed Cortés's troops to enter the city of Tenochtitlan safely - but Enrigue's novel closes down the speculation to give an answer, and a rather banal one at that - he was obsessed with their horses.
The first 65% or so of the novel is a little too standard historical fiction - in Sudden Death I commented on the "dates and places and people at times a little too regurgitated", and there there is a lot of exposition in the characters' thoughts that seems designed for the reader rather than themselves, or rather for the author to demonstrate his research.
There is a bravura injection at that two-thirds point, where Enrigue imagines what would have happened if one of Cortes's senior leaders (an imagined character) had explored the city in disguise and seen the parts European did not reach, but it soon reverts to the rather tangled tale of the different factions on Moctezuma's side.
A more meta-fictional approach comes in a sequence where Moctezuma, in a temple, first listens to strange music which is actually a T-Rex song (the connection passed me by) and then briefly sees the author himself writing the novel in New York.
And the novel's end takes it cue from Borges' El milagro secreto - given an alternative approach to an alternative history .
But for me it was all a little sporadic and didn't redeem what at times was quite a dull story.
March 14, 2023
Novela arriesgada y poco conservadora la de Alvaro Enrigue, con una imaginación desbordante por cierto. Eso es lo que más me ha gustado de la novela con mucha diferencia. Otros aspectos interesantes son lo bien documentada que está, así como la mezcla de hechos históricos con un toque simpático y hasta de humor fino que incorpora el autor: los nombres de los sacerdotes, algunas conversaciones o pensamientos de los protagonistas son muy buenos y divertidos.
La propuesta del final o esa para-historia alternativa que da, también es muy buena.
La trama, sin embargo, aun siendo buena, bajo mi punto de vista está falta no ya de contenido, sino de movimiento, me parece que tiene poca chicha a pesar del punto histórico y culminante que trata y del tratamiento novelado y alternativo que le da. Hace un derroche de imaginación por dotar de personalidad a personajes históricos como Moctezuma o Hernán Cortés, inventando otros, etc. Quiero decir con esto que a pesar de la narración minuciosa en un espacio temporal muy corto, y a pesar de buscar ese estilo y formato claramente por Enrigue, a mi se me ha hecho un poco densa y lenta esa minuciosidad en las descripciones de personajes y estancias que hace el autor, ese discurrir de todos de una habitación a otra, a la alberca, etc.
Otra cuestión que se me hizo un poco árida y que sin quererlo rompe el ritmo narrativo fueron los nombres de los personajes en función de quien los nombrara, si los mayas o los conquistadores; ríete tú de los nombres y patronímicos rusos en comparación con estos.
La propuesta del final o esa para-historia alternativa que da, también es muy buena.
La trama, sin embargo, aun siendo buena, bajo mi punto de vista está falta no ya de contenido, sino de movimiento, me parece que tiene poca chicha a pesar del punto histórico y culminante que trata y del tratamiento novelado y alternativo que le da. Hace un derroche de imaginación por dotar de personalidad a personajes históricos como Moctezuma o Hernán Cortés, inventando otros, etc. Quiero decir con esto que a pesar de la narración minuciosa en un espacio temporal muy corto, y a pesar de buscar ese estilo y formato claramente por Enrigue, a mi se me ha hecho un poco densa y lenta esa minuciosidad en las descripciones de personajes y estancias que hace el autor, ese discurrir de todos de una habitación a otra, a la alberca, etc.
Otra cuestión que se me hizo un poco árida y que sin quererlo rompe el ritmo narrativo fueron los nombres de los personajes en función de quien los nombrara, si los mayas o los conquistadores; ríete tú de los nombres y patronímicos rusos en comparación con estos.
February 18, 2024
Based on this book and Sudden Death, I'm ready to claim Enrigue as one of my favorite authors of a type of historical fiction I've come to love - one that combines a 'you are there' feeling with its exact opposite -the awareness that all we have of history are markers to endlessly interpret and misinterpret. And that leads to a kind of historical fiction writing that I think of as 'quantum entanglement fiction', where reader, author, and characters occasionally fall into wormholes where we can all play together outside of time, and maybe even come up with a provisional truth or two. And I love Enrigue's particular brand of Einstein's "spooky action at a distance" - it has warmth and humor, but never sugar coated, never sanitized. Some other books that do this for me - Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin; To Calais, in Ordinary Time by James Meek, Nobber by OIsin Fagan; Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann; Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Riva Galchen. I love that it is such an international list, although heavily Western. I've got to look for this kind of historical fiction from Africa and Asia.
June 30, 2024
This fanciful and hallucinatory reimagining of the history of the Aztec Empire is quite good in places. I do think the more one knows about what really went down when Hernando Cortes reached Moctezuma and Tenoxtitlan, the more one is likely to appreciate how Enrigue has transformed it. By playing with drug-induced states, dreams and nightmares, aspirations and fears, and the complications introduced when important information is mistranslated, it is almost possible to believe this could all have been true.
On the downside, there is a great deal of repetition. This is most notable regarding details of architecture, social order, and ritual sacrifice. (Yes, yes, I get it. Noble warriors and other victims are led up an intimidating stone staircase, beheaded, dismembered, and then tossed back down said staircase.) Enrigue's style is also heavy on ribaldry. At times this feels more like a telenovela or prurient miniseries than a literary chimera. Just as with the novels of Rabelais, sometimes that choice of tone elevates the proceedings and sometimes it cheapens it.
3.5 stars
On the downside, there is a great deal of repetition. This is most notable regarding details of architecture, social order, and ritual sacrifice. (Yes, yes, I get it. Noble warriors and other victims are led up an intimidating stone staircase, beheaded, dismembered, and then tossed back down said staircase.) Enrigue's style is also heavy on ribaldry. At times this feels more like a telenovela or prurient miniseries than a literary chimera. Just as with the novels of Rabelais, sometimes that choice of tone elevates the proceedings and sometimes it cheapens it.
3.5 stars
March 7, 2025
The following is a rather long post which is in three parts:
1. A 'Preface' (for want a better word) where I comment on the term 'Magic Realism' as used to describe works of literature like 'You Dreamed of Empires'.
2. My comments/review on 'You Dreamed of Empires'.
3. A referral to a review from The Nation of April 2024 by Lucas Iberico Lozada which I posted before reading this novel, which I shouldn't have even though I gave full credit.
Part 1. 'Magic Realism' - I loathe this term and firmly believe it should be banished from every reviewers vocabulary not because I am unaware of its roots or history but because it has become a cliche used to describe novels by Latin American authors or about Latin America written in Spanish (again I am aware that 'Latin America' is not monolingually Spanish but bear with me). It is now used in the way the terms 'naturally athletic' or 'natural rhythm' were used not to recognise but diminish the skills and achievements of, usually black, but many other 'ethnic' (i.e. not white northern European) peoples as well. It placed everyone from Jesse Owen to Michael Jackson into a 'genre' category that reduced their brilliance to a second degree accomplishment. The knee jerk way novels like Enrigue's and many others are labelled is a racist denigration of their work into a 'genre' that is never recognised as equal to 'real' literature by 'white' canonical authors like Joyce or Proust. That many of those who use this term are unaware of their instinctive racism is no more relevant or excusable then the equally unacknowledged racism of sports commentators who in the past used to attribute the skills and successes of black athletes to breeding programmes under slavery.
Part 2. What is my opinion of this novel? It is astounding and should be read by anyone who has even a minimal interest in understanding what happened in the clash between 'Old' and 'New' worlds (and I am perfectly aware of how loaded those terms are. I am simplifying otherwise this review would never end). Is it 'magic realism'? If you take the term to mean a novel which 'portrays fantastical events in an otherwise realistic tone' it is, but also isn't. The entire story of Montezuma and Cortes is history, but a history too fantastical to be understood except through fiction. Enrigue relates these 'fantastical' historical truths in a realistic manner but this is also brilliant, imaginative, fiction; there are elements of the metaphorical presaging of the future but I read this as no more requiring special categories than Joyce. Personally I rather loved the image of Montezuma high on a vision quest shimming to 1970s pop music but would have preferred it was the Sex Pistols not Marc Bolan (he was always to hippy dippy for my musical tastes no matter how much he enthralled my budding sexuality). But compared to 'Terra Nostra' by Carlos Fuentes 'You Dream of Empire' by Enrigue is almost traditional in its narrative. I mean this as no insult, you can ignore Marc Bolan and lose nothing of this novel's brilliance, and drugged dreams are a thin patina to create 'magic realism' descriptions. For me, aside from my loathing of the term magic realism, I think it is descriptively poor and almost misinformation. I think it does a disservice to this novel and many others because it allows readers to ignore the very important truths that novels such as this are attempting to convey.
I loved and adored this novel as much as 'Sudden Death', also by Enrigue, and I hope to read many more of his novels.
Part 3. For the Review from 'The Nation' by Lucas Iberico Lozada, April 2024 see: https://www.thenation.com/article/cul... it is a more conventional review but one I greatly respect and perhaps may be more useful than mine.
1. A 'Preface' (for want a better word) where I comment on the term 'Magic Realism' as used to describe works of literature like 'You Dreamed of Empires'.
2. My comments/review on 'You Dreamed of Empires'.
3. A referral to a review from The Nation of April 2024 by Lucas Iberico Lozada which I posted before reading this novel, which I shouldn't have even though I gave full credit.
Part 1. 'Magic Realism' - I loathe this term and firmly believe it should be banished from every reviewers vocabulary not because I am unaware of its roots or history but because it has become a cliche used to describe novels by Latin American authors or about Latin America written in Spanish (again I am aware that 'Latin America' is not monolingually Spanish but bear with me). It is now used in the way the terms 'naturally athletic' or 'natural rhythm' were used not to recognise but diminish the skills and achievements of, usually black, but many other 'ethnic' (i.e. not white northern European) peoples as well. It placed everyone from Jesse Owen to Michael Jackson into a 'genre' category that reduced their brilliance to a second degree accomplishment. The knee jerk way novels like Enrigue's and many others are labelled is a racist denigration of their work into a 'genre' that is never recognised as equal to 'real' literature by 'white' canonical authors like Joyce or Proust. That many of those who use this term are unaware of their instinctive racism is no more relevant or excusable then the equally unacknowledged racism of sports commentators who in the past used to attribute the skills and successes of black athletes to breeding programmes under slavery.
Part 2. What is my opinion of this novel? It is astounding and should be read by anyone who has even a minimal interest in understanding what happened in the clash between 'Old' and 'New' worlds (and I am perfectly aware of how loaded those terms are. I am simplifying otherwise this review would never end). Is it 'magic realism'? If you take the term to mean a novel which 'portrays fantastical events in an otherwise realistic tone' it is, but also isn't. The entire story of Montezuma and Cortes is history, but a history too fantastical to be understood except through fiction. Enrigue relates these 'fantastical' historical truths in a realistic manner but this is also brilliant, imaginative, fiction; there are elements of the metaphorical presaging of the future but I read this as no more requiring special categories than Joyce. Personally I rather loved the image of Montezuma high on a vision quest shimming to 1970s pop music but would have preferred it was the Sex Pistols not Marc Bolan (he was always to hippy dippy for my musical tastes no matter how much he enthralled my budding sexuality). But compared to 'Terra Nostra' by Carlos Fuentes 'You Dream of Empire' by Enrigue is almost traditional in its narrative. I mean this as no insult, you can ignore Marc Bolan and lose nothing of this novel's brilliance, and drugged dreams are a thin patina to create 'magic realism' descriptions. For me, aside from my loathing of the term magic realism, I think it is descriptively poor and almost misinformation. I think it does a disservice to this novel and many others because it allows readers to ignore the very important truths that novels such as this are attempting to convey.
I loved and adored this novel as much as 'Sudden Death', also by Enrigue, and I hope to read many more of his novels.
Part 3. For the Review from 'The Nation' by Lucas Iberico Lozada, April 2024 see: https://www.thenation.com/article/cul... it is a more conventional review but one I greatly respect and perhaps may be more useful than mine.
February 26, 2024
Reading an Alvaro Enrique novel is a unique experience. His books are playful, satirical, hilarious and experimental. I first came across his work with 'Sudden Death' almost ten years ago. This new novel isn't as dizzying as that one, but it is just as much fun. Earlier this year I read Buddy Levy's book on the conquest of Mexico, so it felt appropriate to read this on the heels of brushing up on my history. Enrique doesn't stick to historical accuracy, but it helped to have those events fresh in my mind when reading it. It helps appreciate the satire a little more.
My personal favorite moment in the novel; when Moctezuma goes on an epic mushroom trip and starts dancing to T. Rex's 'Monolith'. That'll give you an idea of the tone of this novel. If that makes you think this novel might be too silly, it's not. It's high quality satire that manages not to lose its focus. It reminded me of what Tarantino did with 'Inglorious Basterds'. Solid four stars.
My personal favorite moment in the novel; when Moctezuma goes on an epic mushroom trip and starts dancing to T. Rex's 'Monolith'. That'll give you an idea of the tone of this novel. If that makes you think this novel might be too silly, it's not. It's high quality satire that manages not to lose its focus. It reminded me of what Tarantino did with 'Inglorious Basterds'. Solid four stars.
February 8, 2024
This was a book that I read. Mostly I walk away feeling like I just wasn't smart enough to ~get~ it. I could mostly track who was who and who was doing what. I could not track why, though. As in WHY are we spending so much time focusing on these random situations. I know it is labeled as a fever dream of a book, but I honestly think it should have leaned in more. Because mostly it was a boring mundane. I am sure all of these events were to coalesce into that climactic meeting at the end. And we were to understand why this and that was so important earlier. But like I said, was just not smart enough to get WHY it had to be so boring in the lead up.
I don't think it was a waste of time to read, though. I really enjoyed the idea if not the execution. And I would like to see more fiction exploring and reimagining this specific time period and meeting. I will certainly be thinking about it more now.
I don't think it was a waste of time to read, though. I really enjoyed the idea if not the execution. And I would like to see more fiction exploring and reimagining this specific time period and meeting. I will certainly be thinking about it more now.
January 28, 2024
One of the most ridiculous disorganized messes I’ve ever encountered. Author was going for Monty Python but ended up with bad Quentin Tarantino (an oxymoron).
This is a novel” about Moctezuma, who isn’t the monumental figure we’ve heard about but a magic mushroom guzzling slob who sleeps a lot when not ordering human sacrifices.
But Moctezuma does take time out to think about “the laws of the mother#%^ing Gods” while another character stays calm even though “he was about to lose his sh*t.” I swear that’s what is written.
Farting, balls-grabbing and other dumb things that teenage boys might enjoy are the order of the day. And oh, there are, yes, the conquistadors.
I can’t believe I read the same book as the reviewers who think it’s genius. Actually I can’t believe we’re on the same planet.
This is a novel” about Moctezuma, who isn’t the monumental figure we’ve heard about but a magic mushroom guzzling slob who sleeps a lot when not ordering human sacrifices.
But Moctezuma does take time out to think about “the laws of the mother#%^ing Gods” while another character stays calm even though “he was about to lose his sh*t.” I swear that’s what is written.
Farting, balls-grabbing and other dumb things that teenage boys might enjoy are the order of the day. And oh, there are, yes, the conquistadors.
I can’t believe I read the same book as the reviewers who think it’s genius. Actually I can’t believe we’re on the same planet.
June 30, 2025
One of the boldest, strangest, most powerful books I have ever read. This reminded me of Glorious Exploits how the style, edged in humour, lured us into a false sense of security. It reminded me of THAT scene in Sinners, how Enrigue had such a clear, concise vision of what he wanted to achieve. This is the story of Cortes entering the Aztec capital, it is the story of history and the future, but not as we know it.
Please read it!
Please read it!
February 9, 2025
Chronicling a single day in 16th Century Tenochtitlan of the Aztec Empire (modern Mexico City) when Conquistador Hernan Cortes is presented to Emperor Moctezuma II and switching perspectives between different individuals involved in the meeting, this mystical and often enchanting tale reads like a fever dream. It showcases the rich and vicious indigenous culture of the ancient Colhua. Surprisingly funny, with characters moving in a haze induced either by delusions of grandeur, religious fervor, magic mushrooms or psychoactive cacti, it manages to traverse a deft tightrope between historical accuracy and magical realism.
Surrender yourself to the narrative. From the appearance of 70s rock music, breaking the fourth wall, Moctezuma's obsession with horses, and reciting the lines of a rosary prayer in between visualizing the massacre of healthy Mayan nobles so their fat can be gathered for boot grease, the experience is surreal but vastly rewarding. The indigenous depiction here is not subservient and inferior, but rather complex and rich. It paints the sweeping beauty of Mehxicoh-Tenoxtitlan with its grand temples, maze-like palaces, and sophisticated social caste system. For once it doesn't worship the colonialists but rather sees them as dirty yokels needing taming like little dogs. And while history tells us it didn't end well for them, the alternative perspectives offered in this book are vastly more interesting than your usual colonialist point of view.
Surrender yourself to the narrative. From the appearance of 70s rock music, breaking the fourth wall, Moctezuma's obsession with horses, and reciting the lines of a rosary prayer in between visualizing the massacre of healthy Mayan nobles so their fat can be gathered for boot grease, the experience is surreal but vastly rewarding. The indigenous depiction here is not subservient and inferior, but rather complex and rich. It paints the sweeping beauty of Mehxicoh-Tenoxtitlan with its grand temples, maze-like palaces, and sophisticated social caste system. For once it doesn't worship the colonialists but rather sees them as dirty yokels needing taming like little dogs. And while history tells us it didn't end well for them, the alternative perspectives offered in this book are vastly more interesting than your usual colonialist point of view.
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October 8, 2024I never really got into this, which is disappointing because I loved the author's previous Suden Death. This one reimagines Hernán Cortés and Moctezuma and in a way that I (and Wikipedia, for that matter) don't remember. That aside, the names, with all those Xs, proved a challenge, as did the casual use of the pronoun he. Who he?
Still, I learned things:
An enemy who is constantly shitting is an enemy who can't hide his tracks.
And there was this morsel:
Today I woke up thinking I was the cihuacoatl of the great Mehxicoh-Tenoxtitlan, he said, and now I feel like an old drunk who woke up naked in a canal.
. . . . which resonated.
Still, I learned things:
An enemy who is constantly shitting is an enemy who can't hide his tracks.
And there was this morsel:
Today I woke up thinking I was the cihuacoatl of the great Mehxicoh-Tenoxtitlan, he said, and now I feel like an old drunk who woke up naked in a canal.
. . . . which resonated.
February 4, 2024
This book wasn’t for me. I do not know if it is the translation or the original writing that made it a difficult read. The names were unpronounceable and long, and not only that, most characters were called not one name, but at least three different names, all unpronounceable. To say that it made it hard to follow is an understatement. There was some humor, camp, satire, farce; however, it was too hard to really decipher. Thankfully it was a shorter book so I made myself finish. I didn’t get the point of the book.
January 22, 2024
In You Dreamed of Empires, Enrique reimagines the meeting of two cultures and two leaders - Moctezuma of Tenoxtitlan, and Hernando Cortes of Spain. Much of our contemporary understanding of the "Aztecs" - a misnomer according to Enrique, rather than being an "Aztec Empire" it was more accurately a diplomatic web of city states, including Mexica, Tenocha, etc. - is subverted. Cortes and his garrison of hapless Europeans, mannerless and ignorant, frequently mislaid with diarrhea from the hot foods, and arrogant about their inevitable conquest belie our Western Euro-centric hagiography of the conquistadors and missionaries, and particularly the aggrandizement of Western culture over conquered cultures.
The purpose of the novel reveals itself to be just this subordination of "History" - in the novel, the history that we live in today is but the dream of a conquistador. When history is penned by the victors, what can we understand from official history besides that culture's dreams? To recall the title - "You Dreamed of Empires", it is clear that the "You" can only be the Europeans. In fact, the book mays quick work of cancelling the Western idea that the "Aztecs" comprised an empire at all, nor did thier culture seem to prize the idea of such an unwieldy and impractical thing. What Moctezuma does dream of are the "giant deer" or "cahuayos" - horses - that the Europeans have brought with them, and which inform the policy toward the foreigners.
The horses are an interesting symbol of the emperor's dreams and aspirations. For they are at once a symbol of the European conquistadors' power, but at the same time the spoils of their interactions with other "inferior" cultures - namely the nomadic peoples of Asia.
Throughout the novel, the official history of Eurocentrism is put at odds with the realities of their expeditions and the hodgepodge accretion in their culture of other cultures. The Europeans do not appear to be at home anywhere. Much of what defines their "superiority" - gun power, horses - are borrowed from other cultures which they have deemed inferior based largely on being hethenistic non-Christians. However the confrontation with Moctezuma and Cortes centers largely on the Christian religion, which at every turn the emperor finds facsimile in local mythology. Martyrdom: check, immaculate conception: check. What actually differentiates the Europeans and their religion is a sickly sort of materialism - their God is Man, the forces of Nature are mere windowdressing for Man's History.
What historical European supremacy and Christianity have in common is a kind of singularity, a self-apotheosis, a fierce but toxic individualism and materialism. In the cultures and customs of Moctezuma's Tenoxtitlan, of Japan's Shintoism, of Asia's Buddhism, there is a decentralized Divinity, man is not at the center but rather Self is at the periphery, amid a miasma of forces, Divinity parcelled out to all living and unliving things, there is a sanctity and religiosity of all things. Among the conquistadores, all is earthly. Even their Christianity appears to lack real spirituality, but is rooted rather in iconography (Cortes and his men endeavor to replace all the religious figures in the main temple with Christian icons). While the story of Jesus moves Cortes to tears, he does not seem interested in the morals and philosophy of Christianity, in fact much of his actuals are contrary to Christian ideals - so what does he actually believe in?
To be sure there is religious ambivalence on both sides, Moctezuma and his court are often at odds with the priests and their divinations and guidance. The princess is repulsed by the priests covered and cloying with sacrificial blood, and when the priests admonish against an attack at this time, it is undercut by the priests' own admission that the calendar does suffer from some mathematical compounding of rounding errors - followed by a joke concerning yet discovered fractions.
However, if the Tenochca are experiencing their own modern distancing from religious absolutism, there remains and honor to their foundations and principles, which still inform daily and political life. Among the Europeans there is not clearly much spiritual concern beyond what is nakedly terrestrial, intertwined with power and empire.
Overall this was a great novel to start off the year. The latter half in particular shone with imagination and ideas, while the first half rendered the land of Moctezuma and the conquistadors in gritty realism. The novel self-consciously positions its events in the shadow of modernity, while simultaneously casting that reality's singularity in doubt - what if History is but a dim labyrinths of someone's dream of empire?
The purpose of the novel reveals itself to be just this subordination of "History" - in the novel, the history that we live in today is but the dream of a conquistador. When history is penned by the victors, what can we understand from official history besides that culture's dreams? To recall the title - "You Dreamed of Empires", it is clear that the "You" can only be the Europeans. In fact, the book mays quick work of cancelling the Western idea that the "Aztecs" comprised an empire at all, nor did thier culture seem to prize the idea of such an unwieldy and impractical thing. What Moctezuma does dream of are the "giant deer" or "cahuayos" - horses - that the Europeans have brought with them, and which inform the policy toward the foreigners.
The horses are an interesting symbol of the emperor's dreams and aspirations. For they are at once a symbol of the European conquistadors' power, but at the same time the spoils of their interactions with other "inferior" cultures - namely the nomadic peoples of Asia.
Throughout the novel, the official history of Eurocentrism is put at odds with the realities of their expeditions and the hodgepodge accretion in their culture of other cultures. The Europeans do not appear to be at home anywhere. Much of what defines their "superiority" - gun power, horses - are borrowed from other cultures which they have deemed inferior based largely on being hethenistic non-Christians. However the confrontation with Moctezuma and Cortes centers largely on the Christian religion, which at every turn the emperor finds facsimile in local mythology. Martyrdom: check, immaculate conception: check. What actually differentiates the Europeans and their religion is a sickly sort of materialism - their God is Man, the forces of Nature are mere windowdressing for Man's History.
What historical European supremacy and Christianity have in common is a kind of singularity, a self-apotheosis, a fierce but toxic individualism and materialism. In the cultures and customs of Moctezuma's Tenoxtitlan, of Japan's Shintoism, of Asia's Buddhism, there is a decentralized Divinity, man is not at the center but rather Self is at the periphery, amid a miasma of forces, Divinity parcelled out to all living and unliving things, there is a sanctity and religiosity of all things. Among the conquistadores, all is earthly. Even their Christianity appears to lack real spirituality, but is rooted rather in iconography (Cortes and his men endeavor to replace all the religious figures in the main temple with Christian icons). While the story of Jesus moves Cortes to tears, he does not seem interested in the morals and philosophy of Christianity, in fact much of his actuals are contrary to Christian ideals - so what does he actually believe in?
To be sure there is religious ambivalence on both sides, Moctezuma and his court are often at odds with the priests and their divinations and guidance. The princess is repulsed by the priests covered and cloying with sacrificial blood, and when the priests admonish against an attack at this time, it is undercut by the priests' own admission that the calendar does suffer from some mathematical compounding of rounding errors - followed by a joke concerning yet discovered fractions.
However, if the Tenochca are experiencing their own modern distancing from religious absolutism, there remains and honor to their foundations and principles, which still inform daily and political life. Among the Europeans there is not clearly much spiritual concern beyond what is nakedly terrestrial, intertwined with power and empire.
Overall this was a great novel to start off the year. The latter half in particular shone with imagination and ideas, while the first half rendered the land of Moctezuma and the conquistadors in gritty realism. The novel self-consciously positions its events in the shadow of modernity, while simultaneously casting that reality's singularity in doubt - what if History is but a dim labyrinths of someone's dream of empire?
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