[D66] [JD: 136] Horizontal Vertigo: A City Called Mexico

[R.O.]

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  Horizontal Vertigo by Juan Villoro: 9781524748883 |
  PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

Horizontal Vertigo by Juan Villoro


        Product Details

Hardcover | $30.00
Published by Pantheon
Mar 23, 2021 | 368 Pages | 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 | ISBN 9781524748883

4 minutes
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        About Horizontal Vertigo

At once intimate and wide-ranging, and as enthralling, surprising, and
vivid as the place itself, this is a uniquely eye-opening tour of one of
the great metropolises of the world, and its largest Spanish-speaking city.
 
/Horizontal Vertigo: /The title refers to the fear of ever-impending
earthquakes that led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather
than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flaneur, Juan
Villoro wanders through Mexico City seemingly without a plan, describing
people, places, and things while brilliantly drawing connections among
them. In so doing he reveals, in all its multitudinous glory, the
vicissitudes and triumphs of the city ’s cultural, political, and social
history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish
conquest to Mexico City today—one of the world’s leading cultural and
financial centers.
 
In this deeply iconoclastic book, Villoro organizes his text around a
recurring series of topics: “Living in the City,” “City Characters,”
“Shocks,” “Crossings,” and “Ceremonies.” What he achieves, miraculously,
is a stunning, intriguingly coherent meditation on Mexico City’s genius
loci, its spirit of place.



“Villoro recounts his adventures with a mix of irony and empathy, with a
sense of humor and a feeling for the absurd. He is exquisitely attuned
to the capital’s contradictions and nuances, and he knows how to listen
to its inhabitants. There are deeply moving moments in this book.”
*/—The New York Times /Book Review*“One of Mexico’s most celebrated
contemporary writers offers an affectionate exploration of the country’s
capital city. [Villoro] does not shy away from issues of poverty, class,
and gender, and the result is an enthralling, often funny depiction of a
city that “overflowed urbanism and installed itself in mythology.”*
/—The New Yorker/*

“/Horizontal Vertigo/ is the best*/—/*wittiest, wisest, most detailed
and enlightened*/—/*book I’ve read about Mexico City. It is both deeply
personal and scholarly, and most of all humane and humorous – Juan
Villoro’s triumph as a chronicler of Mexican life.”
*/—/Paul Theroux, author of /On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey/*

“The joy of /Horizontal Vertigo/ is that it offers a unique entry into
Mexico City’s “inexhaustible encyclopedia” of people, places and old
traditions, complementing the history books and outperforming the tour
guides… Villoro is so closely identified with Mexico City that it’s
impossible to imagine how one can be known without the other, which is
why his writings consistently employ the communal “we,” as in this
telling statement about the unbreakable bond between Chilangopolis and
chilangos: “What was once a cityscape is now our autobiography.”
*/—The Los Angeles Times/*“Juan Villoro, one of Mexico’s leading
novelists, delivers a contemporary portrait of Mexico City that is as
diverse and labyrinthine as the city itself. In Horizontal Vertigo: A
City Called Mexico, he weaves together voices, styles and disciplines in
a personal and expansive exploration, a flâneur through geography,
history and culture.”
*/—The Guardian/*

“Deeply learned . . . Along his leisurely, illuminating path, Villoro
delivers an essential update of Octavio Paz’s /The Labyrinth of
Solitude/ (1950). He can be both brittle and funny . . . Celebrating
food, wandering through earthquake-struck ruins, reflecting on literary
heroes, Villoro makes an excellent Virgil. An unparalleled portrait of a
city in danger of growing past all reasonable limits.″
*/*/—/*Kirkus Reviews/ [starred review]*“This is a stimulating portrait
of one of the world’s most mind-bending metropolises.″*
/*/—/*Publishers Weekly/*“Villoro applies his witty and incisive pen to
the monster that is Mexico City . . . Villoro’s voice is engaging, and
the subject matter, fascinating . . . An unusual and rewarding read for
all who love or are intrigued by Mexico City.″
*/*/—/*Booklist
/*/
/“This is Villoro’s masterpiece . . . His great achievement in
Horizontal Vertigo resides in his ability to understand and make the
city known through different characters, occupations, and beliefs.
Although many writers have been interested in Mexico City, such as
Carlos Monsiváis and Carlos Fuentes, Juan Villoro finds a new,
postmodern way of portraying the contemporary city.”*/
*—/World Literature Today/*
/ /
/*“One of the ten best nonfiction books of the year. A superheroic
effort to tame the urban chaos that was born of an ecocide: the drying
up of a lake. No city is wilder, more monstrous than Mexico’s capital.
And few writers know it with more precision and passion than Juan Villoro.”/
/*/*—/The New York Times en Español/*/*
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