On The Plain Of Snakes

When I came to Las Vegas and became a teacher I had a lot of students who were of Mexican ancestry. I was fascinated with their culture, and wanted to learn more about the country. But I haven't visited. It seems that there are two Mexicos--the place where tourists go, at resorts, and the real country, which is one of danger and poverty. After reading Paul Theroux's book, On The Plain Of Snakes, I feel like I've been there.

Despite repeated warnings not to, Theroux is determined to drive into Mexico."What I intended was a jaunt from one end of Mexico to the other, the opposite of a downfall, which is a dégringolade; rather, a leap in the dark, driving away from home, to cross the border and keep going until I ran out of road." But first he travels the length of the border, criss-crossing from one country to another, hearing stories about those who crossed. In almost every place he visits, he talks to someone who was in the U.S., but came back. "The Mexican border is the edge of the known world, only shadows and danger beyond it, and lurking figures—hungry, criminal, predatory, fanged, fanatical enemies—a malevolent and ungovernable rabble eager to pounce on the unwary traveler."

Theroux is never accosted by criminals, but is shaken down by police. He also shares the grim statistics--more than 200,000 have been murdered or disappeared since 2006. The drug cartels are responsible. As Theroux visits he encounters citizens who are angered by the murder of forty-three students, taken off a bus and butchered.

Once into Mexico proper, he visits Monterey, where there is much industry, and Mexico City, where he teaches a class and makes friends with the students. They visit a shrine to the cult of Santa Muerte: "The altar was set like a stage, scattered with the paraphernalia of death—skulls, bones, coffins, and wilted flowers—and a six-foot skeleton of Santa Muerte in a bright white wedding dress and tangled veil, holding her scythe in one hand and a globe in the other. A black wig was tipped sideways on her skull, and at her back a pair of four-foot wings, the Angel of Death dressed as a ghoulish bride."

He then spends much time in Oaxaca (one problem with this book is that there are no maps, so I couldn't get a sense where he was) and small villages nearby, which are deep in poverty. One town doesn't really use money, they pay for things with hats that they make.

Finally he visits far southern Mexico, and meets Zapatistas, who are indigenous rebels fighting the government. Theroux is very sympathetic to their cause.

There are digressions along the way, such as literary criticism of Mexican writers and those who have written about Mexico, such as B. Traven. He doesn't think much of Carlos Fuentes, Mexico's most famous author.

At times I felt the book dragged on a bit, and included a bit too much conversation with locals that started to feel repetitive. But it made for some fine vicarious travel experiences. :But it is easy in Mexico to leave the main road, take a side road, turn into a narrow track, and wind up in the past, and the past often seems like an underworld."