The Review of Contemporary Fiction
Inez by Carlos FuentesChristopher Paddock
Carlos Fuentes. Inez. Trans. Margaret Sayer Peden. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002. 150 pp. $18.00.
Inez is a puzzling little book, even for Carlos Fuentes, writer of such ambitious and complex novels as The Death of Artemio Cruz and Terra Nostra. Besides the fact that his latest novel is in no way interested in defining the Mexican identity—something Fuentes has so brilliantly wrestled with throughout his writing career—it renders itself so subtly ambiguous at times that it’s difficult to judge how good it really is. With Inez Fuentes attempts to fuse two disparate story strains. The first begins and ends with the fictional composer Gabriel Atlan-Ferrara, at age ninety-three, reflecting on mortality, his legacy, and his drawn-out affair with the diva Inez Prada. It is an affair that develops over the course of almost forty years, fueled by ulterior motives on both sides. The second strain comes together through intermittent chapters, and it is strikingly different from the first in setting (the prehistoric era) and voice (second-person narrative). But vague similarities between characters, direct references of language (the first utterances are the words sung by the demon choir in Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust, a piece that virtually defines the relationship between Gabriel and Inez), and the fact that the strain appears in the novel at all compel one to search for a connection. Ultimately, it is implied that both strains are projections of a romantic but senile Gabriel when his caretaker, “Dicke,” chastises him for his foolish musings. The final chapter starts the prehistoric strain anew, from its beginning, simultaneously suggesting death and renewal, a powerful ending given Gabriel’s preoccupations. There is no doubt that Fuentes displays true virtuosity in this novel, but one must wonder whether some of the intertextual details could have been better contextualized. Still, Carlos Fuentes has been writing for close to seventy years. Perhaps more time will reveal the full genius of this book. [Christopher Paddock]