Bookshot #187: You Dreamed of Empires

Man, I don't know what to think about this book. I want to grade on ever-so-slight of a curve because it was translated from Spanish, but I'm just not that convinced that it would lose that much in translation. We're not talking about ancient Greek or Latin here. It's Spanish. But this book appeared on more than a few 'Best of 2024' lists and for the life of me, I can't understand why.

I'm not opposed to messing around with structure or getting a little weird (see: Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar) but this book was really fucking frustrating to read and there was little to no payoff for the reader who managed to slog through all that frustration. 

We opened in Tenochtitlan, the island capital of the Aztec Empire in 1519. Conquistador Hernan Cortes and his soldiers have arrived in the city, lured on from the coasts by the promise of unimaginable wealth and power ahead of them. They badly bungle the entrance (Cortes goes to hug Emperor Moctezuma and is nearly killed then and there for their troubles) but are welcomed in any way as guests and taken to a royal palace where they have a ceremonial welcome meal with Princess Atotoxitl before being escorted to their quarters in the Palace to wait. 

Moctezuma, for his part, fascinated by the horses that the Spanish have brought with them, eats some mushrooms, gets really high, and promptly takes a nap.

Yes, you read that correctly. The Emperor of the Aztecs decides to take a little trip and then have a little snooze- a lot of people do that in this book and that brings us to this quote from the back of the book:

In You Dreamed of Empires, the incomparably original Alvaro Enrigue sets afire the moment of conquest and reimagines it as a moment of revolution, of restitutive, fantastical counterattack, in a novel so electric and singular it feels like a dream.

Now, I get that blurbs on the back of books are, by their nature, designed to get you, the reader to pick up the book and read it, but this blurb promises something that just simply ain't in this book, But you're expecting it-- so when Moctezuma gets high and takes his nap, I was expecting something else. A dream of a different future, a jumping-off point for an alternate history, a different turning of the proverbial wheel-- I was expecting something. And absolutely nothing happened.

Don't get me wrong: parts of this book are very, very good. I don't want to call the Aztecs 'an alien culture' because their culture is the default from their point of view and it's the Spanish who are the 'aliens' as it were. But Enrigue does an excellent job of conveying just out far away from anything familiar the Spanish actually are. (My sense-- given the extensive note at the beginning on pronunciations is that Enrigue has done his homework here. He might have taken a few liberties here and there, but by and large, this feels well-researched.) 

Speaking of pronunciation: there is a veritable avalanche of Nahuatl names and titles some of the Aztec characters have multiple titles and while the extensive note on pronunciation is very much welcome and necessary, y'all it's a lot. 

It is dream-like, though it stretches to the point where the author drops himself into the narrative at a couple of points throughout the book, which was.... interesting and a little strange.

While Cortes and Company wait, behind the scenes those surrounding Moctezuma are engaged in various power struggles trying to understand what the Emperor is after and what he's going to do about the Spanish. After another nap, a consult with the shaman/high priest, and another round of mushrooms, he's ready to meet them. He listens to Cortes talk about Jesus and then gets him to take a trip with some hallucinogenic cactus because when they do that, they can speak Greek together, so Cortes takes a little trip.

On his trip, Cortes dreams of history as we more or less recognize it. (Conquest, plague, New Spain, mines, etc.) Then he wakes up and as he's coming back from the trip and gathering himself, Moctzeuma gives the order, and a warrior steps forward snaps Cortes' neck, and takes the horses.

And that's the end of the damn book.

Y'all, I was so mad. The moment the back of the book teased. The little breadcrumbs throughout the book. So many mushroom trips and we see nothing after that. I get that the point of this book is not to be an alternate history book in the style of Harry Turtledove, but damn. I feel robbed. We saw nothing of what Moctezuma dreamed about. He didn't see history as we saw it today. 

Is this an easy read? Yes. It's pretty quick. Is this a good book? Depends on your definition of 'good. You can summarize this book (more or less) like this: "A bunch of Aztecs take magic mushrooms, trip balls, and Cortes dies at the end." 

My Grade: ** out of ****. Lots of Nahuatl names, hallucinogenic mushrooms, and a wet fart nose of a payoff for the reader. It's a quick read, but a frustrating one.