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Horizontal Vertigo

A City Called Mexico

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Horizontal Vertigo

Written by: Juan Villoro, Alfred MacAdam - translator
Narrated by: Gabriel Porras
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At once intimate and wide-ranging, and as enthralling, surprising, and vivid as the place itself, this is a uniquely eye-opening tour of one of the great metropolises of the world, and its largest Spanish-speaking city.

Horizontal Vertigo: The title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes that led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flaneur, Juan Villoro wanders through Mexico City seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things while brilliantly drawing connections among them. In so doing he reveals, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of the city ’s cultural, political, and social history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City today—one of the world’s leading cultural and financial centers.

In this deeply iconoclastic book, Villoro organizes his text around a recurring series of topics: “Living in the City,” “City Characters,” “Shocks,” “Crossings,” and “Ceremonies.” What he achieves, miraculously, is a stunning, intriguingly coherent meditation on Mexico City’s genius loci, its spirit of place. Americas Mexico North America Ancient History Latin America Mexico Travel
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If like me you are fascinated by Mexico City's chaotic charms and unexpected gems, then you will love Juan Villoro's collection of first person essays. Villoro is an incisive but empathetic observer of the capital's characters, neighbourhoods, politics and history. And all their foibles. Where appropriate, he uses literary allusion to sharpen the humour or irony of so many situations. I personally found it a refreshing update to Octavio Paz's classic Labyrinth of Solitude (1950) - though less ambitious or pretentious than Labyrinth, Horizontal Vertical still manages to get at the heart of the Mexican soul from its necessarily dazziling tangle of perspectives.

Gabriel Porras narrates the book with a charming Mexican accent, which only lends warmth and authenticity to the stories being told.

Great read for Mexico-City-files

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