“HORIZONTAL VERTIGO, A City Called Mexico” By Juan Villoro, translated by Alfred MacAdam, 350 pp. Pantheon
“A Chronicle of Mexico City and Its Multitudes” is the title of a review by Rubén Gallo for the New York Times*. And so he goes, “Mexico City, a vast megalopolis of over 20 million, founded 500 years ago and erected on what was once a lake bed, is above all a place of contradictions: It is home to some of the world’s richest billionaires as well as to Indigenous migrants who live on the streets; it is one of the most progressive capitals in the Americas (same-sex marriage was legalized over a decade ago and businesses are required by law to display notices stating they do not discriminate based on race, gender or handicap) and also a place where, on average, five people are murdered every day. It boasts more museums than Paris (over 150) as well as tens of thousands of illiterate residents.”
In another review for the Los Angeles Times by Rigoberto González, titled ” Mexico City through the eyes of its leading novelist flaneur”** the reviewer writes that Villoro “…gathers his most incisive essays, chronicles, and personal memories in an attempt to tackle a singular challenge: How does one comprehend the most populous city in North America, with its rich history, complicated economy, and multivalent culture? Each person who experiences it has his or her own interpretation of what the city is, and Villoro’s is as striking as the iconic urban center.”
While Gallo highlights that the book allows the reader to travel from a “…postapocalyptic” megalopolis in the 1980s to the global city of the 2020s, Villoro’s book is like a time machine. In its pages, the reader revisits a place that is no longer there: an urban center where the avenues were once jammed with VW bugs; a city where the secretaries of government officials would send an email, then phone the recipient to make sure it had arrived…”, González writes that Villoro navigates such charged subjects as poverty, nationalism, and corruption and explains that the specter of a natural disaster such as earthquakes still hovers over the city, particularly when other calamities also are mismanaged.
The book is a great combination of journalism with literature, not surprising considering that Villoro is both one of Mexico’s most celebrated contemporary writers, and an accomplished journalist.
*https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/books/review/horizontal-vertigo-mexsico-city-juan-villoro.html
**https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-03-18/review-mexico-city-through-the-eyes-of-its-leading-novelist-flaneur