recent reading: Mexican Gothic

[lotesse]

An interesting book, with strong, solid atmospherics and plot twists, that draws heavily from an archive of my favorite things. From Jane Eyre to Bluebeard/Fitcher's Bird to Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, not to mention all of the CPG/Yellow Wallpaper references, this felt like a tissue of allusion made up of texts I've loved and studied. Reading MG was like dancing a reel with a series of familiar, well-practiced steps, kinetic but known, feet falling fast in the right and established positions. What would it have been like to read without already knowing those texts so well? Honestly, that's hard to imagine.

Do I regret that the hetness of the book meant that the enervated white man was saved as the lover, and not the mummy of the indigenous woman? Yes. Tbh, would have been better if lesbians. Big NBC Hannibal energy, would have landed even better if more queer. But beautiful, intricate, hurtling. Such pretty horror/gothic imagery!

Comments

[rmc28]

Heh, I read it without knowing most of the references and thought it was great. (I basically only know Jane Eyre and the Yellow Wallpaper from cultural osmosis, and had to go look up Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz just now).

I really liked Moreno-Garcia's Ignyte-nominated Gods of Jade and Shadow and I backed an Indiegogo by her to publish a translation of a Dracula retelling novella and so have ended up on her author mailing list which is always interesting. (Have I read the novella, and the other books I got from that campaign? of course not, they're in the giant ebook tbr ...)

My library has a bunch more of her books (this is how I picked up Mexican Gothic) so I am slowly working my way through them.

[lotesse]

That's so interesting, how different, and yet similar, the work is for different readers. Thanks for linking to your review! Sor Juana is a huge fave of mine, both her poetry and her feminist apologetics.

I should read Gods of Jade and Shadow, too :)

[theteaisaddictive]

i bought this on kindle during one of the sales, extra excited to read now! disappointed, as you say, that it's sadly heterosexual, but once i'm done reading the locked tomb series this will be next up!

[lotesse]

I haven't read TLT yet, lol! my partner loved them, though. Great how there's always something more to read :)