Carlos Fuentes is one of the four novelists most closely associated in the public mind with the great "boom" in Latin American Literature from the 1950s to the present. For many critics the term "boom" is misleading because they insist that these countries have always had great writers, and Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Julio Cortazar are only the latest representatives of a great tradition. Some readers may bring to their discussion of Fuentes at least some familiarity with other Latin American writers, past and present. They may have read Mariano Azuela's great novel of the Mexican Revolution The Under Dogs (1916). How have these books changed the attitudes of North Americans to the Latin people of the South? When Americans appear in these novels, their portraits are rarely very flattering. Where the Air Is Clear features two braceros who regularly go to California to work. Manuel Zamacona at one point briefly discusses the traditional hatred most Mexicans feel for the United States. On the basis of these incidents, can Fuentes attitude toward the country where he received his elementary education be detected? His later novels will be much more obviously hostile.

A discussion might include the contrast between the Mexico City of the 1950s and the image the city presents to visitors, today. Is Fuentes too negative in his outlook, or is he all too realistic? Do any current writers view cities optimistically? If cities are the cradle of civilization, is the modern megalopolis still the nurturer of civilization?

1. Where the Air Is Clear is a first novel by an author who had written only short stories. How amateurish does Fuentes seem at this stage of his career?

2. Ixca Cienfuegos's is the voice heard at both the beginning and ending of this book. Do his views of Mexico City and modern Mexico suggest that Fuentes intends him to be more than a man about town?

3. "Magical Realism" is a feature of many of the novels associated with the "Boom." In these books fantastic or supernatural characters and events are carefully blended with the everyday lives of the characters. To what extent is Where the Air Is Clear a novel of magical realism?

4. Is John D. Brushwood on sound critical ground when he insists that Ixca Cienfuegos and Teodula Moctezuma are not successful characters in this novel? Is there a sense in which the novel would be incomplete without them?

5. Fuentes has read and studied most of the masters of modern literature. Some discussion group members may have read Proust's The Remembrance of Things Past. In which sections of this novel might the influence of Proust be detected?

6. Bobo Gutierrez is the entertainer of Mexico City's high society. Why does he view nouveau riche people with contempt? Others advise him to change his attitude. Why?

7. Federico Robles represents for Fuentes living proof of the Revolution's failure. Discuss his character.

8. What era of Mexico's past do Pimpinella de Ovando and her family represent?

9. Why is Norma Larragoiti selected by Teodula Moctezuma and Cienfuegos as an ideal sacrifice? Why does Teodula point triumphantly to the rising sun after she completes her ceremonies after Norma's death?

10. How are the people of the streets of Mexico City presented in Where the Air Is Clear? Why does Fuentes have so many of them die so violently?

11. Manuel Zamacona is a basically shy, inoffensive intellectual who wrestles with the problem of defining what it means to be a Mexican. Why does Fuentes have him killed by an unknown assailant simply because this killer did not like the way Zamacona looked at him?

12. Rodrigo Pola is seen at one point making faces at himself in a mirror. What does this action as well as his behavior elsewhere, at Bobo's parties for example, tell us about him?

13. Why is Roberto Regules an even better example of the viciousness of capitalism in Mexico? What is the position of his family in Part Three, three years later?

14. To what extent is Federico Robles's decision to marry Hortensia Chacon and to become a cotton farmer an act of propitiation?