An Aside: The Lacuna in photos

And now for a pictoral trip through Barbara Kingsolver's new novel, The Lacuna. One of the reasons I'd picked the book up is because I'd had such a great time in Mexico City - it's really an amazing town and undeserving of its negative reputation!

We saw this cleansing ceremony taking place on a Sunday morning behind the Cathedral. At the beginning of the book, Harrison's mother drags him along with her as she visits a shaman in the jungle and Kingsolver's description reminded me of the one we'd seen:

The next photo shows the entry to the Casa Azul (no photos allowed inside the house). This was the house that Frida Kahlo grew up in and one of the houses that she and Diego lived in. We never made it to the house in San Angel or Anahuacalli, the weird Aztec temple-house that Harrison mentions in The Lacuna. We were in Mexico City just after Dia de los Muertos and there was a large table set up outside with mementos to Frida and Diego, like this one:

We also went to Leon Trotsky's house, which is only a few blocks from the Casa Azul. The house has such a cloud of sadness hanging over it...I really do think Trotsky has the most tragic story of the 20th century. The first photo is of Trotsky's study where he was murdered by ice pick in 1940. The second photo is of Trotsky's office, where someone like Harrison Shepherd would have worked:

We tried to go see the Rivera murals at the Palacio Nacional but for whatever reason, it was closed that day. So instead, we later went to the Palacio de Bellas Artes and saw some of the other Rivera murals, including Man at the Crossroads, mentioned in The Lacuna. This is the mural that Rivera recreated in 1934 after the Rockefellers tore down the commissioned original in New York City because they didn't like its themes. In the first photo, you can see Lenin between the wings on the right. In the second photo, the man with the white hair is Trotsky.

And then last but not least, a photo of Teotihuacan. In the background you can see the Temple of the Sun. In the book, Frida takes Harrison here to visit her archaeologist friend. During his picnic lunch on the riverbank with Frida, Harrison finds an Aztec figurine of a man.