cosmic order of the universe, which in turn disrupts the characters' lives. The narrator notes, ‘‘As long as the Temple of Love was not functioning, people would concentrate their love on themselves, not being able to see beyond their own image in the water's reflection.’’ When the Pyramid's capstone is placed back on its apex, the lost city of Tenochtitlan reappears and merges with Mexico City, and harmony returns. Azucena engineers the return of the capstone through her devotion to the Law of Love.

Anacreonte explains this law, noting that "when a person accumulates hatred, resentment, envy, and anger within, her surrounding aura becomes black, dense, heavy ... To build up her energy level, and, with it, the level of her life, that negative energy must be released'' and, as a result, love will fill her heart. Here Esquivel blends magic realism and New Age philosophy as she explores the novel's dominant theme: the redemptive power of love. The Pyramid of Love and the Law of Love focus attention on forgiveness and acceptance, which bring order and peace.

Esquivel's story is a mix of genres, among them the suspense novel, science fiction, psychoanalysis, and New Age mystical philosophy. In addition to text, she supplies music (a CD is included with the book, with Puccini opera arias and popular Mexican dance tunes to be played at designated moments in the story) and graphic art (to simulate nonverbal transfer of messages). Esquivel tends to keep the styles compartmentalized, rather than blend them into a single fabric. One chapter will be a lecture in metaphysics by the angel Anacreonte, the next a chapter from a suspense thriller, the next the transcript of a therapy session. The memory sequences are likely to blend verbal and nonverbal elements—exchanges between therapist and patient will be enhanced by music and graphic art to create a multimedia effect. The result of all this mixing of genres can be somewhat overwhelming. Critics have both praised and condemned the "razzle dazzle;" Barbara Hoffert has called the effect "at once wildly inventive and slightly silly, energetic and cliched."

On one level, the book is basically a suspenseful story of political intrigue. The American candidate for Interplanetary President has been assassinated, Rodrigo is accused of the murder, Azucena sets out to find and rescue him, and soon she and her neighbors are all being pursued by government agents, under the command of Isabel. The story line involves an underworld peopled with dealers in dead bodies, dangerous flights in run-down interplanetary spaceships, an earthquake, a volcano, and dozens of narrow escapes. This aspect of the book functions primarily to thwart the Divine Plan and to introduce obstacles that delay the inevitable return of the Law of Love.

Science fiction provides the matrix that facilitates development of both plot and theme. Esquivel has said that she chose science fiction because it "allowed me to use a technology that I needed. It occurred to me to invent the instruments that made it possible to recover the past." These instruments include televirtual sets, which bring three-dimensional live action right into one's living room; photomental cameras, which photograph a person's aura and can record and print memories in full color; plant speakers, which allow plants to record their feelings and impressions and serve as witnesses of past events; microcomputers, which may be installed in a person's brain and send out altered memories of former lives; frozen fetus banks, which make possible a surplus of soulless bodies for use in the black market; and Cuquita's slightly outmoded but very useful cybernetic Ouija, which sends out requests to one's guardian angel, someone who has died, or even to an inanimate object and gets faxed messages in return. Regarding physical objects, it is especially useful, for it can print out color pictures of anyone who has ever touched it, a feature that proves especially useful in researching Citlali's spoon that was present at the 1890 rape in which Rodrigo, Isabel, and Citlali were all players.

Psychoanalytic sessions are another component of the narrative. The most significant one is that between Azucena and Rodrigo on the spaceship, in which he learns to release his negative feelings about the various rapes in his former life. Some are self-induced, especially those performed by Azucena, licensed astroanalyst, on herself, with help from a contraband CD obtained from Teo. Music is generally needed to set the memory sequences in motion, and sometimes Esquivel supplies the music for her readers, prompting them to play a particular band of the CD, so that they, too, can hear what the character is hearing. Many of these prompts come just before the color artwork bound in the book, six to eight page sequences of graphic novel pages done by Mexican artist Miguelanxo Prado. The combination of Puccini arias and impressionistic images is often surprisingly effective at communicating both mood and content to the reader.

Music is the primary sensory element in The Law of Love, capable of breaking through barriers in one's subconscious. It appears first in the opening chapter in the hands and voice of Teo, the Divine Singer of ancient Tenochtitlan, who was Citlali's childhood hero. He would "dance small gods on the palm of his hand. These clay gods he had shaped would speak, wage war, and sing in the voices of conches, rattles, birds, rain, thunder, all of which poured forth from the prodigious vocal cords of this man." Citlali never forgave Rodrigo for his refusal to intervene when Teo was accused of idolatry and his hands and tongue cut out to prevent further performances. But Teo continues as the patron saint of music throughout the book, reappearing in the twenty-third century as the dealer in the "Music to Cry For" booth at the black market in Tepito, which supplies Azucena with the CD she needs to get in contact with her former lives. He refuses to take money for it, saying that no one can sell what isn't his.

The authorities, too, recognize the power of music, and so the Director of Public Health requires citizens to present, before purchasing any CD, a certified letter from an astroanalyst stating that the holder would not be running any risk by listening to the music in question. On rare occasions, when uncovering memories is crucial and a CD player not available, the human voice can serve as a poor substitute, as when Cuquita belts out "At Your Mercy" to help the group recover memories associated with the spoon. In general, however, the popular songs included on the CD are much less integrated into the narrative than are the opera arias, and having to stop reading to listen to these danzones by Liliana Filipe is more distracting than helpful, lovely though the songs may be.

One final component, New Age mysticism, is introduced mainly through direct lecture, usually on the part of Azucena's angel Anacreonte or, on occasion, Isabel's demon, Mammon. These two angels fill in all we need to know about the workings of this Universe in long chapters of metaphysical discourse spaced throughout the text. This direct approach can be tedious at times, as pointed out by a number of critics, but it certainly eliminates any confusion or ambiguity about the major theme of this book.

Readers are likely to have strong opinions about the Law of Love promoted in this book and about the success of various techniques employed by Esquivel in telling her story. Spiritualism and mysticism are important elements here that should prompt interesting discussions. The diversity of writing styles and the combined use of words, music, and graphic art are also worth exploring.

1. Do you accept Esquivel's Divine Love as the best of all possible worlds? Which aspects of her universe do you find most appealing? Which are less so? Is her construct meant to be taken as her manifesto of how the world should be?

2. One critic has labeled the plot of The Law of Love "impossibly complicated and silly." Another praises its "inventive twists" and feels it keeps readers "in excellent spirits." How enjoyable, interesting, and effective do you find Esquivel's plot?

3. Isabel, Azucena, and Citlali are the central figures of this book. All are female. What strengths does each possess? How do they relate to each other? Does the book take a stance about women, judging by how these three are presented?

4. None of the male characters is developed in any depth, not even Rodrigo. Why do you think this is so? What roles do men play in this book? Are we meant to draw contrasts between male and female, masculine and feminine?

5. Esquivel says reincarnation appeals to her because "it's a big consolation . . . to believe that atrocities will not go unpunished," that the evil murderers and corrupt politicians will be forced to make things right. Does evil receive its due punishment under her Law of Love?

6. With reincarnation, people never really die. Yet Esquivel opens her book with: "When do the dead die? When they are forgotten. When does a city disappear? When it no longer exists in the memory of those who lived there. And when does love cease? When one begins to love anew. Of this there is no doubt." How would you explain these perspectives in light of the book as a whole? Are they in line with the handling of memory throughout the story? Is it sometimes better to forget, to let things die? Is there such a thing as finality even in reincarnation?

7. To what extent do the arias and tunes on the CD enhance your understanding and enjoyment of Esquivel's book? What would be lost if the CD were not included?

8. What is the effect of the graphic novel segments? Do they increase your understanding or enjoyment of the book? Justify their inclusion.

9. Is the futuristic society presented in The Law of Love a likely outcome of our present civilization? Which details seem particularly apt? Do any aspects seem unrealistic? Why did Esquivel project her narrative into the twenty-third century? Are we meant to take this as a warning?

10. Are you satisfied by the "happily ever after" ending of the book? Would you have reshaped the ending in any way?

The Law of Love, set in twenty-third century Mexico but traveling backward through time to that of the Spanish conquistadors in the early 1500s, sets out to restore equilibrium to a civilization that has lost its focus. The prevalence of cultural clashes, violence, corrupt politics, and egotism are suggestive of our own century, and Esquivel aims to set right what has gone amiss. Human intentions are good, she would say, but people are easily distracted by the temptations and frustrations of daily life, so that they lose sight of what is really important—Love. In this book, ordinary human love is a stepping stone to Love with a capital L. Divine Love is always at work in the universe if only we allow ourselves to find it.

The book opens with cruel violence, as Rodrigo, one of Cortes's officers, brutally slays the newborn son of Citlali, a lovely woman of the noble family of Tenochtitlan. He receives Citlali as his servant in payment for his military valor, rapes her on the site of the Temple of Love, and marries his Spanish fiancee, Isabel, whose newborn son Citlali deliberately drops (and kills) in retaliation for Rodrigo's slaying of her own son and for repeatedly raping her. Rodrigo, in turn, kills Citlali for her crime, causing Isabel to die of shock at Rodrigo's going mad and murdering Citlali. Rodrigo then kills himself in despair at having lost what he loves most in life—Citlali.

These wrongs set in motion a complex sequence of events through numerous reincarnations that allow the tragic figures to atone for their wrongs against each other and achieve peace and love. The most wronged of all is Azucena, who appears in the original story as Citlali's brutally murdered infant son, is murdered again as an infant by Isabel in a later life, and is destined, ultimately, to restore to the world the Law of Love.

Another important social issue derives from Esquivel's deep concern about the direction of our society. In a 1993 interview with Claudia Loewenstein she expressed disappointment at how "all our efforts have turned around the economics of things—we're looking to get money at all cost." In another interview, with Robert Dahlin, she worried that "we're facing an existential crisis because all of a sudden we're realizing that production is irrational, that ecologically we're destroying the planet, that we're mounting ridiculous wars for economic purposes." In a 1996 interview for El Pais, she spells out her concerns and her hopes in greatest detail:

I don't know if it [reincarnation] exists, but it's very hopeful for me to think that it does. To think that those corrupt politicians, this bunch of murderers, will not go without being punished. That hope gives me peace. We live at a time when human rights are disdained and there is absolutely no punishment for that. It's a big consolation for me to believe that atrocities will not go unpunished. Hell has a problem: There's no opportunity to learn there. If you make a mistake, it's for all time. Reincarnation allows for making things right.

Aside from the need of individuals to atone and reform, society as a whole needs to set some priorities. Esquivel singles out for special criticism our tolerance of bureaucracy, our enslavement to computers, and our class and ethnic prejudices, Azucena's futuristic society, while technologically advanced, is even more plagued by long lines and red tape than ours. She fidgets in line one Thursday waiting for authorization for a new job that will bring her to Rodrigo only to be faced with a "Closed" sign and told to return on Monday. To make matters worse, this is a society where impatience will be recorded and punished, so "she had to bite her lip so she wouldn't scream obscenities; shut her eyes so they wouldn't release the daggers she wanted to bury in the woman's throat; clamp her feet together so she wouldn't kick the window to smithereens." Computers of the future may be more sophisticated than ours, but they still make mistakes and are open to sabotage. How else can one explain the disappearance of Rodrigo, Azucena's twin-soul, from all records? As the clerk explains, "I mean he doesn't exist. I've searched all the files under Embodied and Disembodied, and he doesn't show up on any list." Computers know everything, can locate a person from nothing more than a single drop of blood or a hair, and can detect everyone that person has ever been in contact with. Technology has all but eliminated violent crime, it is true, but in the hands of evil people, it also makes possible the erasure of memory, of past lives, of a person's essence.

Class and ethnic tensions are also still with us in the future, that is until the reign of the Law of Love. People are either Evos or non-Evos, and there is no way to rise into the higher class. As an Evo, Azucena exhibits a certain superiority over ordinary folk like Cuquita, her landlady. Esquivel also highlights the difficulty of communication between cultures at the very opening of the book, a clash that isn't mended until the very end. Citlali and Isabel live together in Rodrigo's house, but

Isabel continued to live in Spain, Citlali in Tenochtitlan. . . . Neither of them could recognize herself in the eyes of the other. Neither of the two shared a common landscape. Neither of the two could understand what the other said. And this was not a matter of comprehension, it was a matter of the heart, for that is where words acquire their true meaning. And the hearts of both were closed.

This gulf exists on a societal level as well as a personal one, as symbolized by the constant tension between the ancient ruins of the Aztec city and the Spanish city that obliterated it. The pyramid is always trying to topple the house; the native and European have never really come to terms with each other. It takes a divine act, the restoration of the Temple of Love at the end, to bring them together.

Esquivel borrows eclectically from a number of traditions, which she uses as needed to create her own genre. The suspense thriller, science fiction adventure, psychoanalytic dialogue, and metaphysical discourse are all reflected here, but none predominates.

Esquivel's two novels—Like Water for Chocolate (1989; see separate entry) and The Law of Love—each reflect what was paramount in her own life at the time of her writing them. The first novel, drawing heavily on her childhood and traditions, weaves fantasy and reality into a unique story of love. The second, drawing heavily on her growing mysticism and search for equilibrium, preaches a gospel of Love that goes beyond the human sphere. Even though love is the central focus of both, the two books could not be more different.

Both emphasize and value the past, but what constitutes the past is not the same. In Like Water for Chocolate, past means childhood, earlier experiences from this life. In The Law of Love, with the introduction of reincarnation, the emphasis is on former lives, as many as 14,000 of them. Getting in touch with one's past is even more fundamentally different. In Like Water for Chocolate, the stimulus for memory is always sensory. The process is involuntary, with certain smells not only invoking past memories but also controlling one's present actions, as with the oxtail soup or the onions or the roses. In The Law of Love, on the other hand, past lives are recovered only with technical assistance—CDs, cybernetic Ouijas, and other devices. More significant is that it is always a deliberate process. A character will think, "I need to get in touch with my past life" and conclude, "I had better listen to music now." In the earlier book, the chain of events produced by a smell is 100% emotion based; in the latter, reason is always mixed in with emotional responses, and the person is always in control.

Like Water for Chocolate is a novel of magical realism, in which the real world exists side-by-side with the unexplainable. The boundaries between these worlds are fluid, and multiple levels of existence operate simultaneously. The ability to move from one to another is part of one's existence and the world makes such movement possible. The Law of Love, on the other hand, posits nothing that is unexplainable by the laws of science. All the razzle dazzle is man-made, based on man's knowledge of physics, biology, and other areas of study. We may not have all of these gadgets and techniques as yet, but all of them seem within the range of scientific development. There are not multiple worlds here, but only one, and that is ruled by Divine Love, the universal force of peace and harmony. Everything fits, and everything is explained.

Love is the ultimate goal of both books, but again, the terms are different. Tita and Pedro's love is presented as the ultimate human condition. The true union of two people, body and soul, generates heat and light that seem almost too much for this world, but that is where love is meant to thrive. Esquivel gives us a glimpse of Divine Love in the tunnel Pedro and Tita enter at the end. To "light all one's matches at once" is clearly viewed in this book as a risk, however, beautiful though it may be. Such ecstasy means death, and Tita hesitates before embracing it. Clearly there is no coming back, although she "will go on living as long as there is someone who cooks her recipes." Love between humans in The Law of Love lacks such power. Passion between a man and a woman is good only because it puts them in touch with the divine and makes them more ready to embrace the Law of Love. The concept of the twin-soul, which is divinely ordained, puts love between individuals totally out of their hands. The ultimate goal, in fact, is the union and harmony of all individuals in that Divine Love, a condition achieved at the end when "bodies forgot knife wounds, bullet wounds, gashes, kicks, torture, blows, and opened their pores to caresses and kisses. Tear ducts prepared to shed tears of joy; throats to sob with pleasure; mouth muscles to trace the broadest of smiles; heart muscles to expand and expand until they gave birth to pure love."

Sources
Cardwell, A. Scott, review, in Salon [online].

Hoffert, Barbara, review, in Library Journal, January, 1996, p. 81.

Houston, Robert, "Karma Chameleons,'' in New York Times Book Review, November 17, 1996, p. 11.

Review, in Kirkus Reviews, My 1, 1996, p. 917.

Pizzichini, Lilian, review, in Times Literary Supplement, October 18, 1996, p. 23.

Seaman, Donna, review, in Booklist, August 19, 1996.

Further Reading
O'Neill, Molly, ‘‘At Dinner with Laura Esquivel: Sensing the Spirit in All Things, Seen and Unseen,’’ in New York Times Book Review, March 31, 1993, pp. C1, C8.
In this interview Esquivel discusses the magical nature of food and the ‘‘spiritual underpinnings of modern daily life.''