Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society
The Labyrinth of Solitude: The Other Mexico, Return to the Labyrinth of Solitude, Mexico and the U.S.A., The Philanthropic Ogre (Winner of the Nobel Prize)
A classic essay collection that reads Mexican history and national character through images of solitude, masks, and ritual. It is Octavio Paz's most famous prose work.
Work Information
A poet's inquiry into a nation's self-image, written with unusual lucidity and force.
Moving across history, masculinity, ritual, and solitude, the book draws an intellectual map of Mexico. It stands as a defining work of Paz's prose.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Grove Press
- Published
- 1994-01-12
- Pages
- 398 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 13.46 x 3.05 x 20.32 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780802150424
- ISBN-10
- 080215042X
- Price
- 3873 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Essays & Correspondence/Essays
Octavio Paz has long been acknowledged as Mexico's foremost writer and critic. In this international classic, Paz has written one of the most enduring and powerful works ever created on Mexico and its people, character, and culture. Compared to Ortega y Gasset's The Revolt of the Masses for its trenchant analysis, this collection contains his most famous work, "The Labyrinth of Solitude," a beautifully written and deeply felt discourse on Mexico's quest for identity that gives us an unequaled look at the country hidden behind "the mask." Also included are "The Other Mexico," "Return to the Labyrinth of Solitude," "Mexico and the United States," and "The Philanthropic Ogre," all of which develop the themes of the title essay and extend his penetrating commentary to the United States and Latin America.
The Nobel Prize-winning OCTAVIO PAZ was born in 1914, near Mexico City. His family was forced into exile, which they served in the United States, after the assassination of Mexican president Zapata, in 1919. In 1943 Paz received a Guggenheim Fellowship and he moved to the United States in order to study at the University of California, where he stayed for two years. In 1945 Paz became a Mexican diplomat and moved to Paris, where he would write his masterpiece The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950), a collection of nine essays regarding the Mexican identity. From 1970 to 1974 Paz lectured at Harvard University, where he was made an honorary doctor in 1980. In 1977, Paz was awarded the prestigious Jerusalem Prize for literature and in 1982 he was awarded the Neustadt Prize. It was in 1990 that Paz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for “impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity.” Paz died of cancer in 1998.
Reviews
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Un gran libro y para extranjeros conocer a Mexico es de gran utilidad
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I've always wanted to read about my own culture, and having moved overseas I've wanted to return to some Mexicanese of some sorts, and this has definitely allowed me to reflect on the culture I was born into and at the same time question a lot of my current beliefs.
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Work of art
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''The captive Elements and the ancient Laws of the Earth break loose Like maddened horses. And then a desire to return To chaos rises incessantly. There is much To defend, and the faithful are much needed.'' - Hölderlin (26) Laws need 'faithful defenders'. Chaos does not. ''The faithful are much needed because there is ''much to defend''. . . . But exile, expiation and penitence should proceed from the reconciliation of man with the Universe. Neither the Mexican nor the North American has achieved this reconciliation.'' (26) Paz is here expressing religio/philosophical ideas. These are not ecomonic/political concerns. Takes some adjusting. Great! ''What is even more serious, I am afraid we have lost our sense of the very meaning of all human activity, which is to assure the operation of an order in which knowledge and innocence, man and nature are in harmony. If the solitude of the Mexican is like a stagnant pool, that of the North American is like a mirror.'' (27) Mirror only reflects what is already there. Can't give anything more. Paz consistently provides comparison; Mexican/American, etc.,etc.. Effective teaching method. ''We have ceased to be springs of living water.'' (27) (Probably Biblical reference to Jeremiah's warning to apostate Jews . . . ‘Because my people have done two bad things: They have abandoned me, the source of living water, And dug for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns, that cannot hold water.’) Paz received Nobel prize for this work. Comes from deep within his soul. Heartfelt, insightful, torn from anguish and love. Astounding! Chapters - The Pachuco and other extremes Mexican Masks The Day of the Dead The Sons of La Malinche The conquest and Colonialism From independence to the revolution The Mexican Intelligentsia The present day The Dialectic of Solitude Paz starts with a psychological/philosophical explanation of the Mexican mind. For example . . . ''Past epochs never vanish completely, and blood drips from all their wounds, even the most ancient. Sometimes the most remote or hostile beliefs and feelings are found together in one city or one soul, or are superimposed like those pre-Cortesian pyramids that always conceal others.'' (12) Paz then adds a fascinating footnote . . . ''In our history there are many examples of this superimposition: the neofeudalism of the Porfirio Díaz regime, using positivism to justify itself historicaly; Antonio Caso and José Vasconcelos, the intellectual initiators of the revolution, using the ideas of Boutroux and Bergson to combat positivism; socialist education in a country at least incipiently capitalist. These apparent contradictions all demand a new examination of our history and also our culture.'' (12) Think of the breadth of reading and depth of insight revealed in this paragraph! This work includes the essay - ''Mexico and the United States''. . . ''In 1917 the October revolution in Russia kindled the hopes of millions' in 1979, the word ''gulag'' has become synonymous with Soviet socialism. The founders of the socialist movement firmly believed would put an end not only to the exploitation of men but to war' in the second half of the twentieth century, totalitarian ''socialism'' have enslaved the working class by stripping it of its basic rights. . . . The ideological wars of the twentieth century are no less ferocious than the wars of religion of the seventeenth century.'' (374) Many scholars have now made the same connection. ''When I was young, the idea that we were witnessing the final crisis of capitalism was fashionable among intellectuals. Now we understand that the crisis is not of a socioeconomic system but that of our whole civilization.'' (374) ‘Crisis of civilization’! Who can doubt it? ''The sickness of the west is moral rather than social and economic. . . . But the real, most profound discord lies in the soul. The future has become the realm of horror, and the present has turned into a desert.'' (374) ‘Moral sickness’! Why? ''The empty place left by Christianity in the modern soul is filled not by philosophy but by the crudest superstitions.'' (375) What ‘crude superstitions’? Well . . . nationalism, racism, materialism, scientism; i.e. - ‘worship of abstract nouns’. This edition has no bibliography or index. (See also, ''Portrait of Mexico'', by Diego Rivera/Bertram Wolfe; ''The Revolt of the Masses'' by Jóse Ortega y Gasset. Fascinating!)
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An interesting read, if a bit reductive and over-negative about the Mexican identity. A professor of mine criticized some Mexican schools' decision to have high school students read it--he thinks they are too young and will internalize negativity and become desolate of their heritage/history. Even still, I found this book extremely transformative and enjoyable. I bought a copy in the original Spanish for my father.