[From every page of "Where the Air Is Clear,"] one hears the passionate voice of a man talking of what is of vital concern to him, and illuminating, as with a sequence of almost continuous flashes of lightning, his whole world of feeling and emotion. With the bravery of a young man, Señor Fuentes has cleared all ideas of what a novel ought to be from his mind and has decided, quite simply, to put what it is to be Mexican, and all of Mexico, into his book…. He has accepted himself, and he writes with the freedom of a man who has never for a moment doubted his right to be omniscient in all that concerns characters of his own invention. He has the best of reasons for being sure that he knows all that there is to be known about them, and they repay him...