Sliced Iguana: Travels in Mexico - Softcover

Isabella Tree

3.33

76 ratings by Goodreads

9781845114961: Sliced Iguana: Travels in Mexico

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1845114965 ISBN 13: 9781845114961

Publisher: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2007

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Behind the facade of sombreros and tequila, tourist traps and holiday resorts, there lies a very different Mexico. In Sliced Iguana, Isabella Tree explores a town that is the heart and lifeblood of the Americas, a country of extremes and contradictions. In a land so markedly shaped by machismo, she finds a town controlled by arm-wrestling matriarchs and party-mad transvestites and in war-torn Chiapas she discovers shamans worshipping Mayan gods inside Catholic churches and conducting exorcisms with the aid of Pepsi. At a graveside vigil on the Night of the Dead, she encounters the last delicate vestige of a pre-Columbian cult that elsewhere has morphed into an Americanised Halloween. With a group of Huichol Indians, perhaps the last truly autonomous tribe in the entire American continent, she participates in rituals using peyote, the hallucinogenic cactus, to bring rain to the drought-stricken sierra and appease the forces of Nature so recklessly abused by the conquistadors and their successors.

Through her narrative, Isabella Tree threads the brightly coloured history of Mexico and tells the stories of the people that have defined its fractured past and will shape its future - kings and conquistadors, politicians and rebels, shamans and priests, mestizos and indigenous Indians. This is a story of Mexico like no other, capturing the essence of its psyche and illuminating the struggles and hopes of a people and a country on the cusp of change.

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Review:

When future generations assess which foreign countries have had the greatest influence on prominent writers in the 20th century, Mexico is certain to figure prominently. Graham Greene, Jack Kerouac, Malcolm Lowry, Gabriela Mistral and Octavio Paz all found the contradictions that thrive in Mexico rich food for their creative imaginations. Yet, in spite of the fact that it is the world's 14th biggest country, and possesses an immense ethnic diversity, most of us who have never been there tend to think of Mexico as one, more or less uniform, place.

In Sliced Iguana acclaimed travel writer Isabella Tree sets out to put the record straight. Embarking on a series of journeys to different corners of the country, she experiences the many different faces of the patchwork: eating Casta�eda's famous peyote cactus with the Huichol people, visiting the rebellious Indians of Chiapas, and then partying in a region which stands against the overbearing Latin machismo--Juchit�n, where over two thirds of the men are transvestites.

Tree writes with an impressive erudition about the conquistadors and the indigenous peoples whose lives they shattered forever. She has a connoisseur's eye for colonial architecture, and her observations are often perceptive and thought-provoking. Although the dialogue between herself and the people she meets is a little thin, her writing is sharp and illuminating, and this is likely to be among the best travel books published this year. --Toby Green

Review:

'Here is a book that goes some way towards throwing light on Mexico's multicultural mix and its rich and bloody history... It's clear she's having enormous fun, but she is also attempting something serious here: to engage with and understand something of Mexico's indigenous culture and its survival into the 21st century. Tree's second travel book confirms the promise of Islands in the Clouds: she is an accomplished traveller and a fresh and rewarding writer.' -- Anthony Sattin, Book of the Week, The Sunday Times

'An excellent, highly readable account of this huge, fascinating country. Tree deftly intercuts her personal experience with a fluent precis of the region's tragic past and its cultural origins. Her readings of Mesoamerican civilisation and history are unerringly secure.' -- The Guardian

'Her talent for picking apart a country before sewing it back together is remarkable. Brilliant, funny, gripping, sensitive. The warmth and wit of Sliced Iguana will ensure that Mexico is never underestimated by gringos again.' -- The Times

'Everything about Isabella Tree's [Sliced Iguana] is as bright and fresh as a desert dawn. Wide-eyed and sharp-penned, she explores not the backwater myth but a fast-evolving semi-continent... Tree mixes her erudition with ebullience. Such a relief to meet a travel writer who actually has fun.' -- Independent

'Masterly and moving... Sliced Iguana combines solid factual foundations with real insight and is an honourable contribution to the literature of this most baffling and beguiling of countries.' -- Katie Hickman, Literary Review

'Entertaining, erudite... with infectious enthusiasm. Sliced Iguana makes an intriguing introduction to the world of the indigenous people of Mexico.' -- Daily Telegraph

'Wry, perceptive, intelligent and irreverently funny... the best of travel writing. Wonderfully successful.' -- Times Literary Supplement

'I was as hooked as if I'd been reading fiction. The magic of Tree's writing is that she takes us with her on the journey. By the end of her story, I was ready to book my plane ticket.' -- The Traveller

'A fine example of what travel writing can achieve when it's done well. With a sense of wonder and excitement [and] packed with exotica, crammed with reflections and insights, Sliced Iguana shows just how much more there is to Mexico than tequila and chillies.' -- Daily Mail

'An eccentric heroine.' --Best Travel Book, 2002, Marie Claire

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