El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City by John Ross
Mexico and the history therein has always been pretty fascinating to me. My experiences in Mexico are probably much like many other gringos this side of the border, having been to most of the resort spots and very few of the rural and historical locales. I must say though, I learned more about Mexico growing up in San Diego on the border of Tijuana and from all my Hispanic friends than I did on any of those trips or in any classroom. Some of those all night, school night trips to the clubs in TJ taught me some things I can’t repeat here since my mom and dad read this, nor do I really want all of you knowing either. And that school trip to Ensenada where el gordo befriended Karl and I, I was forced to eat two disgusting sandwiches (thanks to Karl), our host mother used “milk” as a euphemism for the alcohol Karl and I reeked of and Laura’s abandonment of her cigarettes in a tampon box will most likely always remain the most important history of Mexico for me.
But this book is not an all encompassing history of Mexico. Instead is more specific, it examines the history of one of the largest cities in the world, Mexico, D.F. When you think of Mexico City what do you think of? The first things that pop into my head are enormously large in size and population, traffic, smog and danger. I hadn’t really ever considered the history of the city though and how it came to be so crowded. Well, John Ross has taken it upon himself to tell us in El Monstruo.
Honestly, this book did not grip me the way I was hoping it would. Somehow I actually found myself just reading the words on the pages at times without really paying any attention to what they were saying. At times I found it too broad and at others too dense. Of course I can understand that writing style to a degree given that Mexico City has a longer history than of those in the United States. And I do I completely and utterly respect the work that Mr. Ross put into writing this book yet I can’t exactly tell you that you should go read it.
It’s pretty clear to me that Ross used his background in poetry and infused it into this history lesson. By breaking up each chapter in smaller, sometimes single page sections, the book seemed somewhat disjointed and confusing. While I found this to make the book more difficult I’m sure there are those out there who like and benefit from this style.
From what I gathered from this book, Mexico City has had a non-stop battle with the social welfare of it’s inhabitants. Ross goes to great lengths to demonstrate the rough path citizens of this great city have taken to get to where they and it are now. His populist view is sprung on the reader again and again as he outlines the rural versus urban idealism between different factions of the city. To aide him in expressing what he is trying to get across he interviews patrons of La Blanca, a restaurant/cafe that Ross lives near. By doing so he demonstrates the variety of personalities and stories that make up this enormous city and in many cases is suggestive of his view of the city.
From wars, massacre’s, assassinations, revolutions and natural disasters the city has been through more in any given century than any of our US cities in a given decade. For that alone it must be regarded not only as “El Monstruo” but also magnificent. Although I didn’t love Mr. Ross’s telling of the city’s history it has more than incited in me a desire to visit Mexico City. I want to take it all in as he described it. I want to go there and see it’s living history and create my own words for it (it’d probably come out looking like a children’s book but who cares). Don’t let the skull on the cover fool you, I’ve seen plenty of other rad looking skulls out there that won’t give you a headache or put you sleep, my recommendation is to either head to TJ for a night on the town or head straight to Mexico City itself.
