Nietzsche on His Balcony

December 1, 2016

Published posthumously, this final novel from Mexican master Fuentes opens with the author stepping onto a hotel balcony and spotting Friedrich Nietzsche on the balcony next door. What unfolds is as much philosophical treatise as fiction, with the story loosely grounded by the Loredano family, whose once domineering patriarch is shoved into the attic by brazen son Leo over the weak protests of Leo's brother, Dante. That family power struggle is later mirrored in political struggle, even as other characters appear, from a pedophile murderer to Dorian Dolor, whose name change prompts discussion of the core issue of identity. If we are our history and it's lost, say, through madness, have we any self left? Yet if we carry the predicating weight of our pasts through time, why did the tiger trainer kill his mainstay, the tiger? VERDICT Limpidly translated, this work is masterly but exasperating, penetrating but disjointed, fascinating but sometimes opaque, with Friedrich's numbered intrusions intriguing but not always illuminating. Don't expect Old Gringo, but fans of Latin American literature will surely want to consider.

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