[D66] [JD: 136] HORIZONTAL VERTIGO | Los Angeles Times review

[R.O.]

latimes.com
<https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-03-18/review-mexico-city-through-the-eyes-of-its-leading-novelist-flaneur>



  Review: Juan Villoro's "Horizontal Vertigo" on Mexico City - Los
  Angeles Times

Rigoberto González
7-9 minutes
------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the Shelf

Horizontal Vertigo: A City Called Mexico

By Juan Villoro, translated by Alfred MacAdam
Pantheon: 368 pages, $30

/If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission
from Bookshop.org, <https://bookshop.org/a/7748/9781524748883> whose
fees support independent bookstores./

In January 2016, Mexico’s capital, the Federal District, officially
changed its name to Mexico City
<https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2021-01-20/covid-19-is-crushing-mexico-citys-food-scene-and-the-culinary-energy-that-has-made-it-so-thrilling>,
though it had long been called that. Short of becoming the 32nd state of
the nation, it is as close to a state as it can be, exercising political
autonomy and ratifying its own constitution. Among the politicians and
intellectuals enlisted to draft this document was one of the country’s
most celebrated contemporary writers, Juan Villoro
<https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-legendary-mexican-publishing-house-fce-celebrates-80th-birthday-20140904-story.html>.

Born and raised in Mexico City, Villoro has been writing about his
beloved home for decades. “Horizontal Vertigo
<https://bookshop.org/a/7748/9781524748883>*: *A City Called
Mexico”//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.

 

(Victor Benitez / Pantheon)

Men holding effigies ride the metro in Mexico City after a commemoration.

Since the title refers to a sprawling landscape that builds outward and
not skyward, Villoro maintains a ground-level view of what he calls
“Chilangopolis” — /chilango
<https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-10-31-mn-4446-story.html>/
being the slang demonym for a Mexico City resident. As a /chilango/, he
offers firsthand insights into a bittersweet mode of life that many have
come to accept, enjoy and even take pride in. He delivers that reality,
however, with unabashed humor: “Our version of Popular Mechanics would
have to be called Popular Apocalypse,”**he writes, noting how
/chilangos/ have come to expect tragedies like earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions, along with travesties like water shortages and pollution.

Though Villoro navigates such charged subjects as poverty, nationalism
and corruption, his writing comes most alive when he highlights the
assortment of Mexico City icons (some famous, some unheralded heroes) in
his “City Characters” section. Here he profiles Paquita la del Barrio
<https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-xpm-2013-mar-08-la-et-ms-paquita-la-del-barrio-honored-before-saturdays-nokia-concert-20130307-story.html>,
whose brazen songs “terminate once and for all the conventions of a
chaste Mexico” that shuns independent and sexually liberated women. But
also worthy of praise are the street vendors and tire repairmen whose
vulcanization stations “stay open more in the manner of a cave than a
business,” because they’re a failing enterprise in a city where supply
exceeds demand. Villoro values that surplus in human rather than
economic terms. In Mexico City, “There are a lot of us, but no one feels
superfluous.”

Keeping a sympathetic eye focused on Mexico City’s underdogs, Villoro
includes a compelling portrait of Tepito
<https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-c1-mexico-tepito-20140721-37-story.html>,
a neighborhood demonized as a haven for thieves and dealers of a variety
of contraband. Villoro instead calls it “a symbol of the struggle to
survive,” “a bastion of frenetic labor, except that they work in a
different way there.” He casts a similar light on the street economy,
the lifeblood of the city, whose purveyors advertise their products with
sound — the whistle of the sweet potato cart and the distinctive cries
of the tamale seller as they zigzag through residential areas.

Villoro’s compassion for the various groups that make up his community
infused his work on**Mexico City’s constitution. He took part in, among
other issues, the matter of cultural rights — protecting the traditions
and ceremonies of Indigenous and other ethnic groups — but the
constitution as a whole is renowned for its attention to progressive
issues involving the rights of women, the LGBTQ community, strolling
vendors and informal workers.

Villoro doesn’t delve too deeply into politics, but he doesn’t miss a
chance to criticize one specific leader. The government of Miguel de la
Madrid
<https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-xpm-2012-apr-02-la-me-miguel-de-la-madrid-20120402-story.html>,**president
during the 1985 earthquake, “was slow to ask for aid because it did not
want Mexico to be seen as a dangerous place on the eve of the World Cup
of 1986.” Like many other residents who aided in grass-roots relief
efforts, Villoro has neither forgotten nor forgiven.

The specter of that natural disaster still hovers over the city,
particularly when other calamities also are mismanaged. See “Diary of an
Epidemic”: A chronicle of the 2009 swine flu outbreak
<https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-apr-26-fg-mexico-swineflu26-story.html>,
the essay offers another harsh (and timely) lesson in how a government’s
ineptitude can jeopardize the well-being of its people when they need it
most. More deaths were recorded in Mexico than in any other part of the
world.

As a counterweight to the solemn pieces, Villoro includes beguiling
accounts on lighter topics, such as the popularity of lucha libre
<https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-09-18/out-of-work-mexicos-luchadores-struggle-to-get-by>
wrestling. The primordial fight between good and evil is appealing
because, in contrast to the complications of the real world, the good
guy always wins. And no one can resist the theater of it all, complete
with a villain whose “wages are outrage; his bonus booing.”

Then there’s the widespread obsession with extraterrestrial life.
Villoro speculates that the popular narrative of alien abduction for the
purpose of cloning is akin to “being given another destiny.” Abduction
itself “represents a personal transcendence.” And not to be missed is
the annual zombie march, “quite at home in Chilangopolis.” Its
philanthropic goal is to collect food for the needy; therefore it’s an
invasion of emissaries — the living dead. All these fantasy narratives
are metaphors for the everyday paradoxes of Mexico City, reality side by
side with daydreams. A thick skin and a lively imagination are necessary
to survive. However, Villoro asserts, “We [/chilangos/] like the city
more than we like the truth.”

Alfred MacAdam’s translation is generally superb, though there is the
occasional awkward word choice. The Mexican boxer Jose “Mantequilla”
Nápoles
<https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-mar-04-sp-lopez4-story.html>,
for example, is translated to “Butter Nápoles” (which sounds odd,
particularly for those familiar with this internationally renowned
pugilist), and “humor blanco” becomes “white humor,” which nowadays
carries a markedly different implication than “lighthearted humor.”
Thankfully, these instances are few and will be noticeable only to
bilingual readers.

 

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. Those expecting more personal stories about Villoro himself will
have to find them wandering among the patriotic landmarks and the
pirated music for sale on the busy sidewalks: 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.”

/González is a distinguished professor of English and director of the
MFA program in creative writing at Rutgers-Newark, the State University
of New Jersey./

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