On Mexican Time: A Home in San Miguel

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Summary: On Mexican Time
Review: Mr. Cohan and his wife's slow journey from up-tight Angeleans into more introspective, sensitive people, living a slower, much more people-involved type of life was a delight. Taking 14 years into account, the journey was more than worth it.

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Summary: Shallow, exploitive.
Review: Mr Cohan elitism and rip-off of Peter Mayle's fine love of France and his experiences there, is a palid and shallow look at a small Mexican town that deserves better. All the book is, is a thinly (and shallow)disguised look at Mr Cohan himself. And any deeper I would not wish to read. Mr Cohan displays no real knowledge of Mexico or her people, nor does he display much love for this country which he dares to try to show us. As a Mexican I am disgusted with the book. As one who visits San Miguel regularly, I am shocked with Mr Cohan's vacuous take on such a multi-layered town. To learn more about Mexico, skip this book.

Rating:
Summary: Delightful vision of a new life
Review: Listening to this on tape in my car, I wanted to pack up immediately and begin to live my new life in Mexico. I love stories of people who choose to live differently, particularly when they make that choice later in life. I was fascinated by the mention of his wife weaving art from her hair, and occasionally wished while listening to this that there were more detail about how they made their livings in such a different locale. But I absolutely now must visit San Miguel de Allende and see this place for myself.. . . which is why if I ever escape to the perfect idyllic town, I don't think I would ever write a single word about it!

Rating:
Summary: falling in love with the mirror
Review: This book is quite a feat. In it, Mr. Cohan demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of almost every important aspect of Mexican culture: the language, the Mexican people, and Catholicism. One would at least expect his editor to correct his misuse of Spanish (for example, the type of traditional Mexican song is a "corrido," not "corrida," which is actually a different word). At times, his description (which is annoyingly self-congratulatory) of his "immersion" in Mexican culture is laughable. For example, during his first week, he proudly informs us that he has stopped shaving and now wears huaraches instead of shoes (even though his feet are bleeding). Wow! He's in sooo deep. The reader should be suspicious of how Mr. Cohan was able to fall in love with Mexico while speaking virtually no Spanish. As somebody who is fluent in Spanish, has travelled extensively in Mexico, and has a number of Mexican friends, I can assure you that it is impossible to have any authentic understanding of Mexico and Mexicans without a command of Spanish. One must be able to interact extensively with the people and their culture, and that means conversations at an adult level (not baby talk in beginning Spanish), reading local newspapers, watching local television, listening to local radio, overhearing converstions on the bus, etc. Mr. Cohan simply fell in love with his own projected, idealized notion of what he thinks Mexico is. It never dawns on Mr. Cohan that he has brought with him to Mexico the shallow, narcissistic consumerism from which he thinks he has escaped. It is not coincidental that much of Mr. Cohan's and his wife's early activity in Mexico consists of shopping. In an early passage of the book, he bursts with enthusiasm about his wife's having bought a blouse "literally of the back" of a humble local woman. It is also important to point out that San Miguel is a very touristy town with a large number of gringos who have helped turn it into more of a boutique than a typical Mexican town. This book is totally false, light-weight and dilettantish, and could be taken seriously only by someone who knows nothing about Mexico.

Rating:
Summary: A New Kind of Travel Writing
Review: What I really liked about this book was that it seemed to move beyond the typical post-colonial gringo-goes-somewhere-and rhapsodizes-about-the natives. Cohan lived there for many years before he took up his subject, and it shows. He starts out as a romantic voyeur but as the book goes on his experiences deepen and he manages to convey those realistically and yet lyrically. Mexican-U.S. relations are among the most charged on the planet. On Mexican Time is an enchanting book, yes, but it's doing some serious cross-cultural business at the same time.

Rating:
Summary: Sometimes fiction is truer than reality
Review: I agree with those who have not been totally charmed by Mr. Cohan's book. For a much more rewarding reading experience concerning Mexico, check out David Lida's "Travel Advisory". It's short stories mainly about foreigners in Mexico that are much more insightful and fun than Mr. Cohan's slight book.

Rating:
Summary: On Mexican Time
Review: As a longtime friend of both San Miguel and Provence, I must agree with the blurb that Cohan equates to Mayle...but only in terms of strong egos and weak apologies for peddling the innocence of their newly beloved countries. Cohan's sophomoric blather, more like assigned reading for High School Spanish 101 than the work of an aged Stanford author,is repetitive,tiringly repetitive and flowery, often self-contradictory and overly righteous...like so many other gringos who, Cortez-like, imagine to discover a virgin and proceed to gloat over its deflowering.

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Summary: pretentious and elitist
Review: This should be under the fiction section. Senor Tony's take on life in the glitzy resort town of san miguel de allende is self-serving, delusional and inaccurate. I won't even go into the lofty professorial tone he oozes like the stink off of ripe cheese. If you know nothing about Mexico, you'll love this book.

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Summary: ON MEXICAN TIME........ A TREASURE!
Review: I loved ON MEXICAN TIME. I lived in San Miguel de Allende from 1984-94 and only left for health reasons. I adored living there. From the first page to the last, Tony Cohan transported me back to that miraculous place. Cohan writes so beautifully and brings the streets of San Miquel alive. I could hear the traffic on the cobblestones and the birds in the Jardin and feel the warm sun of summer and freezing temperatures of winter and see the azure skies I miss so. It was with sadness that I finished the last page. I wanted more! My children gave me a gift certificate from Amazon.com for Christmas and I bought the book with it and I must say this was the best gift I have received in an age. Mr. Cohan has but scratched the surface on the eccentrics of San Miguel. I hope one day to write a book of my own that will tell the tale of my spiritual awakening (not to Christianity but to a Buddhist perspective)and all the guardian angels I met along the way and how my ten years there very nearly ended but eventually saved my life. Thank you Tony Cohan for a jewel of a book...

Rating:
Summary: ON MEXICAN TIME........ A TREASURE!
Review: I loved ON MEXICAN TIME. I lived in San Miguel de Allende from1984-94 and only left for health reasons. I adored living there.From the first page to the last, Tony Cohan transported me back tothat miraculous place. Cohan writes so beautifully and brings the streets of San Miquel alive. I could hear the traffic on the cobblestones and the birds in the Jardin and feel the warm sun of summer and freezing temperatures of winter and see the azure skies I miss so. It was with sadness that I finished the last page. I wanted more! My children gave me a gift certificate from Amazon.com for Christmas and I bought the book with it and I must say this was the best gift I have received in an age. Mr. Cohan has but scratched the surface on the eccentrics of San Miguel. I hope one day to write a book of my own that will tell the tale of my spiritual awakening (not to Christianity but to a Buddhist perspective)and all the guardian angels I met along the way and how my ten years there very nearly ended but eventually saved my life. Thank you Tony Cohan for a jewel of a book! END