Highly recommended for all bookstores and public libraries. With Instinto, he seems to be reverting to the mysterious thematics reminiscent of his classic novela Aura (Noonday, 1962) instead of pursuing the historic detail characteristic of recent works like Los a?os con Laura Diaz (Alfaguara, 2001 The Years with Laura Diaz, Farrar, 2000). Fuentes's prose is more elegant than ever.

As he wanders through this inferno, Gabriel sees his reflection in unadorned mirrors.

As Gabriel and Inez begin their romance under the falling bombs of the German Luftwaffe in wartime London, their walks on the beach and odd conversations allow Fuentes to express a haunting view of hell as both destination and an inevitable description of today's world. He writes, 'El muerto no sabe lo que es la muerte, pero los vivos tampocos' (The dead don't know what death is, but neither do the living). The real rewards of this work, however, come from Fuentes's labyrinthine reflections on the conductor's oblivious worldview in the face of destiny and death. The romantic plot at the heart of the novel, which brings the arresting opera singer Inez Rosenzweig into the life of world-renowned conductor Gabriel Atlon-Ferrara, is nothing short of poetic in both language and scope.

In this slim new novel, Fuentes, Mexico's unofficial ambassador and author of the recent book Los cinco soles de M?xico: Memoria de un milenio (The Five Suns of Mexico: The Memory of a Millennium, see p.48.), takes an introspective turn away from politics to explore the philosophical mysteries of death and love.

Instinto de Inez by Carlos Fuentes