News from the Empire — Fernando del Paso
On May 28th, 1864, Austrian archduke Maximilian of Habsburg and archduchess Charlotte of Belgium arrived to the port of Veracruz to rule as emperor and empress of Mexico during the period known as the Second Mexican Empire. By June 1867, however, Maximilian had been shot dead and Charlotte had lost her mind.
In News from the Empire, del Paso transports us to this era with the help of historical characters like Maximilian, Napoleon III, or Benito Juárez, and fictional characters that portray the misery of the time and the brutality of events such as the siege of Puebla. But not everything is tragedy, because the author has a very subtle sense of humor that comes to light once in a while. However, the protagonist of this tale is undeniably Carlota (the assimilated name of Charlotte), with monologues that go on for pages and pages, which del Paso himself describes in an interview as “the voice of tenderness, of resentment, of hatred and frustration, of desire, of passion, of ambition, of greed, and it is my own voice too.”
Maximilian and Carlota, like many royals, spent their lives surrounded by tragedy. Carlota counted Marie Antoinette on her genealogical tree no less, who was decapitated during the French Revolution. Carlota’s mother died when she was ten years old and her brother Leopold was responsible for millions of deaths after enslaving the population of the Congo. On Maximilian’s side, things do not get much better. His brother, the Emperor of Austria Franz Joseph, married the empress Sissi, who was known as the most beautiful queen of Europe. Their only son, the heir-apparent Crown Prince Rudolf, committed suicide and Sissi died after being stabbed by an Italian anarchist while travelling in Geneva. Misfortune followed this family through the end, when the assassination of Franz Ferdinand detonated the First World War and caused the end of the greatest royal house in the history of Europe.
This is the first book I read by Fernando del Paso and it took a little time to get used to his style. The author worked making advertisements for TV and radio for a long time, which he describes as a very educational yet very restrictive job, therefore, when writing his novels, he did not abide by any rules. In News from the Empire, he goes from monologue to dialogue, sometimes using punctuation and sometimes not, from epistolary style to verses from a song to a manual of ceremony protocol, weaving still relevant discussions along the way such as racism in Mexico or the universality of human atrocities: “I do not believe there is a people, or a race which has the doubtful privilege of being owner of the monopoly of the barbarian,” says one of the characters. Towards the end of the book he starts to emerge as a historian more than a novelist, one that is not only interested in portraying history but in analyzing and interpreting it.
Del Paso spent two years researching before starting to write the novel, which is made evident by the impressive amount of historical facts that are mentioned in it. The book is a treasure trove of fun facts: did you know that Benito Mussolini was named after Benito Juárez because his father admired him? (the irony), or that Karl Marx was very much dismissive of Mexicans? “All the vices of the Spaniard: grandiloquence, blustering, and quixotism, are present in the Mexican people, but without the reliability of the Spanish people” (words from he who fought for the equality for all workers). Del Paso lived 14 years in London and 7 in Paris, and while living in those cities he learned a great deal not only about Europe, but about the relationship between Mexico and Europe, and that is what he wrote about: a novel about the history of Mexico, a novel about the history of Europe, and a novel about the history of Mexico and Europe. Sometimes you learn more about your home when you are outside of it.
Many have wondered how and why things turned out so bad, so fast for Maximilian. Probably, as Octavio Paz put it, it was an anachronic attempt at a solution to the environment of uncertainty after Mexico won its independence. An idea destined to fail. Or maybe it is what Carlota imagined by del Paso says to Maximilian in one of her monologues:
“What you transmitted Max, what you infected everyone with, was your bad luck. Your incredibly bad, awful, damn bad luck.”
News from the Empire is a thrilling work of historical fiction by the hand of an expert you wish you could call to bombard with questions. It is a novel that has so much to say that it is best to read slowly so you don’t miss anything. It is one of those books that inspires you to read more and return to it with an expanded appreciation.
This review was originally published in Spanish in Cuaderno Reciclado
