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Or rather, what I’ve just recently finished reading.

For the first entry on what I am, or in this case was, reading –or falling asleep to, then angrily flipping through in an attempt to find my spot without ruining the next chapter– I bring you Aztec, by Gary Jennings.

I hope to keep a running list of books I’m reading, how I like them at that particular point in time and whether, by the end, I’d recommend them to anyone else. Clearly, I’ve already arrived at that end point with Mr. Jennings’ fine work so we’ll have to skip what I hope to be the typical process and just talk about whether I’d recommend his book… but first, the basics.

A historical fiction, Aztec is a self-describing title delving into the past to explore the culminating power of the Aztec empire, its subsequent fall and all of the events leading up to it through the post-fall perspective of Mixtli, a native ‘Mexica’. Instead of overexposing aspects of the story, I’d prefer to talk about how this, albeit fictional, novel brought me down a path toward greater understanding and interest in what is one of the lost, truly great civilizations on this earth!

Perhaps the more fledging or intrepid minds among you has already managed to explore the subject beyond your primary education, but I had not. Certainly there have been exhibits, permanent or temporary, that I’ve seen throughout the years that never quite propelled me down the path of self-education. Whether this was simply an issue of timing, a museum’s seemingly infinite subjects to learn about or the fact that the mesoamerican history was always obscured by the fact that so little was known about them. Aztec, as it turns out, provided an informed and overwhelming amount of world-building on the bones of lost cities and, many times, events which allowed me to plant two feet firmly in a world I needed to know more about.

Ignore the fact that those aspirational, if equally brutal, Egyptians built the first of their Great Pyramids roughly 4000 years before the gleaming capitol of the Aztecs’, Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs, and really all of mesoamerica, are one of the greatest societies to evolve in isolation of the traditional Eurasian powers. These were fully formed cultures that grew up in parallel to those of Europe – with customs so debased and barbaric in one regard (human sacrifice and ‘Flowery Wars’) while so progressive in others (daily bathing, public & private toilets and comparatively spectacular hygiene) – that were wiped out in one of the more devastating examples of cultural imperialism (and unintentional biological warfare)… Not that I’m endorsing the survival of the human sacrificing bit.

Now, I’m no anthropologist, hell I’m not even all that smart, but what this book did was address that rant about the absence of insight into a culture that existed then vanished by providing a griping, well written story to entertain, enlighten and propel me to further education on the subject.

Chances are I’d still sound pretty ignorant trying to lead a museum tour, but as a friend of mine pointed out – I might just get away with not sounding like an ass at the next cocktail party.

And after all, isn’t that the point of all this?

 

Verdict: Highly Recommended

Cover Image: Copyright Gary Jennings and Forge Publishing.

 

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