This work is of interest from a historical view perspective. The campaign encompasses actually 2 endeavors: first the obvious historical independence of Latin America from Spain and the division of the new found territory into separate countries. The second quest is for the mental, physical, psychic and sexual maturation of the protagonist: Baltasar Bustos. Oddly enough, Fuentes decides to tell the tale from semi-omniscient third-person perspective, even though the person telling the tale could not have had this capacity nor the foresight or insight to really tell the tale from this perspective. From a psychoanalytic perspective, it seems that Fuentes wants to tell the tale from an "objectified first person view" (It is the most personal diary of the main character, the inner workings of his mind and his struggle with himself and his place in the world, but there is also a barrier of third person objectivity to make the reading not as deep and intruding as it rightfully should be). I feel that Fuentes has done it well from a psychoanalytic sense... Narratively, it's just bad.I really have no interest for this second quest that I mention. It's just an oddity for me, Fuentes has horrible narrative skills. He jumps from one environment to another in a dream like fashion (what I mean by this is that, exactly like in dreams, the transitions make absolutely no sense at all. One moment your at your junior high school and the next your in a dingy house... what happened in the middle? Make some sense for god's sake!)My real interest in the book is the historical one. Up until the day I read the book I had this odd concept that the first nation to achieve Independence from Spain was Mexico. My notion was so far from the truth that it embarrasses me. I thought the independence of Mexico started the whole wave for Latin America. Argentina and Mexico both started at the same time and Argentina reaches the goal in 5 years time leaving Mexico to fight for another 5 years!! At least I can trust the truth of this to Fuentes, since he is Mexican, and if he was biased, he would be so in favor of Mexico. This is really the only reason why the book merits a 4 star rating.
