As I try to avoid books with an excess of erotica, it was difficult for me to read about the Mexican myth of Quetzalcoatl while having to read through intimate scenes. Esquivel details elicit scenes between Malinalli and Hernan Cortes and later scenes between her and Cortes' soldiers and finally multiple scenes between Malinalli and her Spaniard husband Jaramillo. While the first half of the novel showed plot development, the second half was as much about Malinalli translating for the Spaniards as it was about the Spaniards conquests of the "girl woman". Becoming a slave to the Spaniards, Malinalli felt honored to be in their presence.
As she learned from the Spanish, their g-d sacrificed himself for his people rather than having people sacrificed. As she heard of the Spanish arrival on Mexican soil, she lauded them solely because their g-ds did not require humans to be sacrificed. Even as a child, Malinalli possessed a high level of understanding, believing in the cruelty of sacrifice, desiring to put an end to the practice. Malinalli was brought up by her paternal grandmother after her father was offered as a human sacrifice to the Aztec g-ds.
The tale of Malinalli, Cortes, and Jaramillo brought to light a chapter of Mexican folk lore from a native perspective that often isn't studied in history classes.
Even though I enjoy Hispanic culture a great deal, Mexican mythology is not a subject I have studied in depth so I was able to learn from this slim novel. I am not a fan of mythology and this story pushed me to read outside of my comfort zone. This year I am participating in a classics bingo and I read Malinche by Laura Esquivel for my mythology square. The two fall passionately in love, but Malinalli gradually comes to realize that Cortez's thirst for conquest is all too human, and that for gold and power, he is willing to destroy anyone, even his own men, even their own love. When Malinalli meets Cortez she, like many, suspects that he is the returning Quetzalcoatl, and assumes her task is to welcome him and help him destroy the Aztec empire and free her people. But he was determined to return with the rising sun and save her tribe from their present captivity. When her father is killed in battle, she is raised by her wisewoman grandmother who imparts to her the knowledge that their founding forefather god, Quetzalcoatl, had abandoned them after being made drunk by a trickster god and committing incest with his sister. Malinalli's Indian tribe has been conquered by the warrior Aztecs. This is an extraordinary retelling of the passionate and tragic love between the conquistador Cortez and the Indian woman Malinalli, his interpreter during his conquest of the Aztecs.
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