Volume 2, Number 9 · June 11, 1964
Mortal Longings
By Al Alvarez
The Death of Artemio Cruz
by Carlos Fuentes
Farrar, Straus, 256 pp., $4.95
Report on Bruno
by Joseph Breitbach
Knopf, 288 pp., $5.95
Both Carlos Fuentes and Joseph Breitbach are concerned with the realities of power. At that point their similarities cease. One is ornate and romantic, the other purse-lipped and, only by contrast, classical. One is modern, in a faintly slick, eye-catching way, the other old-fashioned and flat as milk. One treats politics as a language of feeling, the other as a calculus of manipulation. Neither has a very high opinion of his subject. For both, political life is a process of dehumanization, a compensation for inner failure, warping, and splitting.
Review, 1479 words
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