Not that the plot has that far to go. At school, Josué teams up with a fellow student known only as Jericó. These self-identified twins’ fortunes travel together along an intimate and complex intellectual path, then diverge into eccentric approximations of “good’’ — Josué, who studies law and works for a high-tech industrial magnate — and “evil’’ — Jericó, who enters politics and makes a pathetic attempt to foment a political coup.
Fuentes’s association with Charles Dickens was critically established with his 1989 novel “Christopher Unborn’’ (narrated by a developing fetus), whose prologue, echoing “David Copperfield,’’ is titled “I Am Created.’’ Dickensian elements abound in “Destiny and Desire.’’ There are unseen benefactors, fortuitous mentors, manipulated fortunes, innocents bootstrapping their picaresque way through a life overrun with colorful but one-dimensional iconic characters, recurring coincidental reunions, intersecting fates, and strongly foreshadowed revelatory family relationships. Similarities end with the devices, though. Where Dickens offered justice, Fuentes resolves things with grim violence, cynical betrayals, and heavy-handed ironies.
The novel’s overpowering characteristic, though, is neither its story line nor its characters, who, as defined solely by Josué, often act without clear or typical motivations. Even the theme of the book defies focus as the chapters navigate a jumble of arguments — personal aspirations vs. inevitability, Catholicism vs. Protestantism, Latin vs. North American, and, for good measure, economic deconstructions of Mexican politics and history.
