This article is from the April 2000 The Mexico File
newsletter.
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Book Review
Life in Mexico
by Frances Calderon
Life in Mexico is reviewed by two
different readers, Gale Randall and Michael Thompson.
Gale Randall is a Palo Alto‑based travel writer who has traveled
extensively in Mexico. Some of
her articles can be found on mexconnect.com . Michael Thompson is a Mexico
File subscriber from San Antonio, Texas.
Life in Mexico
by Frances Calder�n de la Barca. Berkeley: University of California Press,
548 pages; $18.95 paper. (This book can be ordered through Barnes and Noble, www.bn.com)
Gale Randall�s Review
Frances (Fanny) Calder�n
de la Barca was the Scots‑born wife of Don Angel Calder�n de la Barca,
the first Spanish minister, in 1839, to a newly independent Mexico. The couple
met and married in New York City during his stint as Spanish minister to the
United States and hers as a Staten Island school teacher. Life in Mexico,
drawn from Fanny's letters to her family and her two extant journals, is her
account of their experiences and travels in Mexico during the period
1839‑1842.
Arriving in Mexico City by
stagecoach from Puebla and Vera Cruz on Christmas Day, 1839, the Calder�n de
la Barcas were at once courted by the local political and social elite of the
day: "For the last few days our rooms have been filled with visitors, and
my eyes are scarcely yet accustomed to the display of diamonds, pearls, silks,
satins, blondes, and velvets, in which the ladies have paid their first visits
of
Fascinated by Mexico's
convents, Fanny visits several, witnessing the investiture of young
novitiates, which she finds to be the saddest event she will ever observe.
"What does she lose?" she asks. "A husband and children?
Probably she has seen no one who has touched her heart. Most probably she has
hitherto seen no men ... none but her brothers, her uncles, or her
confessor." On the education
of Mexican women, she writes: "Generally speaking ... the Mexican Senoras
and Senoritas write, read, and play a little, sew, and take care of their
houses and children. When I say they read, I mean that they know how to read;
when I say they write, I do not mean that they can always spell.... If we
compare their education with that of girls in England, or in the United
States, it is not a comparison, but a contrast."
In their travels about the
countryside, by diligence and on horseback, often transporting their beds en
route, the Calder�n de la Barcas visit the Real del Monte silver mines near
Tepenacasco, sugar plantations and caves in the Cuernavaca area, and Morelia
and Patzcuaro, staying in haciendas along the way. They visit La Gavia,
Hacienda de Goycoechea, presently Mexico City's popular San Angel Inn
restaurant, and Cocoyoc, now a famous resort hotel near Cuernavaca. Warmly
received at these vast establishments, Fanny observes: "The house, which
is in fact intermittently used as an occasional retreat during the summer
months, is generally a large empty building, with innumerable lofty rooms ...
containing the scantiest possible supply of furniture." At first
regretting the lack of true English‑style abodes in Mexico, she soon
becomes accustomed to the haciendas, departing the country she has grown to
love on the note: "experience has taught us that they [the houses] are
precisely suited to this climate of perpetual spring." Life in Mexico
is especially fascinating to read in tandem with the contemporary Casa
Back in the United States,
Fanny is urged by their friend and historian William H. Prescott to publish
her memoir. The 1843 American edition was an immediate success; a partial
translation of her letters which appeared in Mexico City, however, was less
well received and it wasn't until the 20th century that a complete
Spanish translation appeared. Recognized today as the classic it has become, Life
in Mexico is a must read for any serious student of Mexican history.
The Calder�n de la Barcas
eventually returned to Madrid, where Don Angel served as Senator in the Cortes.
After his death Fanny became the tutor and governess to Queen Isabella II's
daughter and in 1876, in recognition of hers and Don Angel's service to Spain,
was made a marquesa, dying at court in 1882.
(Casa Mexicana by Tim Street‑Porter. New
York: Stewart, Tabori and change; $27.50 paper. Gardens of Mexico
by Antonio Haas. New York: Rizzoli International; $50.)
� 2000 Gale Randall
Michael Thompson�s
Review
On board the ship
"Jason" off the coast of Veracruz.
Yesterday evening the
wind held out false hopes...the rain ceased, the weather cleared, and �hope,
the charmer,� smiled upon us. The greater was our disappointment
when...the most horrible rolling [again] seized the unfortunate Jason, as if
it were possessed by a demon. Finding it impossible to lie in my
hammock, I stretched myself on the floor; where during a night that seemed
interminable, we were tossed up and down, knocked against the furniture, and
otherwise maltreated.
Mme. Frances Calder�n de la Barca,
Such was Frances Calder�n
de la Barca's account of her arrival off the coast of Mexico as detailed in
her delightful book entitled Life in Mexico. I enthusiastically recommend it
to anyone interested in Mexico or who simply enjoys reading period novels. It
was a best-seller in its time, and even though it was written over 160 years
ago, it is just as entertaining, witty, amusing and informative now, as it was
then.
Born Frances Erskine
Inglis, the author belonged to a distinguished Scottish family. After her
father's death, she moved, with her mother, to the United States. There, she
met and married a Spanish gentleman named Don Angel Calder�n de la Barca. A
short time later she accompanied him on a two-year assignment to Mexico where
he served as the Spanish Ambassador until 1842. Her story is an insightful
account of her adventures there during that time.
The book is unusual in that
it is compiled from a series of letters the author wrote to friends and family
back home. In these letters, she describes what life was like for her in a
country and culture very different from her own. Her account touches on numerous
subjects ranging from fashion to politics; from unspoiled wonders of nature to
the scourge of highway bandits. She paints vivid portraits of individuals she
encountered and places she visited. Through her writing, she conjures up a
romantic world in the mind of the reader. Places, sights and sounds come alive,
especially for anyone who has been to Mexico. In fact, part of the pleasure of
this book is derived from being able to identify those things which still ring
true, those things which may prompt the reader to nod and say to himself, �As�
es M�xico.�
For example, she describes
the sounds of street vendors selling their goods:
�There are an
extraordinary number of street cries in Mexico... performed by hundreds of
discordant voices, impossible to understand at first... �Mantequilla�
(Butter)... �Cecina buena� (Good spiced pork)... ��Hay
cebo-o-o-o-o?�(Do you have kitchen scraps? cries the woman at the front
door)... ��Tejocotes por venas de chile?� (Does anyone want to trade their
fruit for my chiles?)... ��Gorditas de horna caliente?� (Gorditas, hot from
the oven.).� Even today when one goes to a local mercado the same types of
cries, whether sing-song or melodic, plaintive or strident, can still be heard.
The book does have its
idiosyncrasies, however. For example, the author occasionally goes into great
detail, quoting long political speeches verbatim or presenting transcribed
newspaper articles that go on for pages. She also describes what women were
wearing in minute detail. The reader can skim through or skip over these
passages entirely with no loss to the story. Another quirk about the book is
that the author, with rare exception, avoided using the names of then-living
personages. Rather, she just used their title and first initial. As a result,
the reader encounters frequent references to the likes of Madame A_____, Mr.
B_____ or Don M_____l del C_____o. Even her husband, she refers to simply as
C_____. This presents quite a contrast with much that is printed today in which
the concepts of privacy and decency appear to be unknown.
Of course, being the wife
of a diplomat allowed her to move in a select circle. She had access to people
and places that those of a lesser station in life would have been forbidden at
the time. While many of her stories describe the social life of the elite, other
parts deal with things of a more general, down to earth nature. Of particular
interest are descriptions of her visits to places ranging from convents to
gambling houses; from the halls of government to asylums for the insane. She
also tells of visits to places of architectural, historical or scenic interest,
both well-known and obscure.
But the best part of the
story is the way she tells it. She writes in a simple, straightforward manner,
yet she has a painterly quality with words that conjure up vivid images of what
she saw and experienced. She describes a world of faded grandeur and crumbling
ruins, a world extremely old, even in her own time. In one passage, she compares
the architecture of Mexico, which was �built for eternity,� with the
wood-frame houses in the United States, �which will never make fine ruins,�
and keenly contrasts the easy-going nature of the Mexican people with the
�wide-awake republic farther north.�
But more than anything
else, Frances Calder�n de la Barca paints a portrait of the Mexico of our
dreams. She tells of a Mexico as it was long ago; of a Mexico that
perhaps, deep in our hearts, we wish still existed. She paints romantic
images of a time and place not yet plagued by overpopulation, ecological
stress, drug trafficking or the concept of globalization. She takes us
by the hand and leads us up to the roof of her home in Mexico City for a
view of the urban landscape of her day, and as �the sun sets behind the
snow-crowned mountains with a bright fiery red, covering their majestic
sides with a rosy glow, while great black clouds come sailing along like
the wings of night; ... then is the hour for remembering that this is
Mexico, and in spite of all the evils that have fallen over it, the
memory of the romantic past hovers there still.�