Refleja la crisis del protagonista, Jaime Ceballos, a causa de la contradicción profunda entre un estilo de la conciencia cristiana y una cierta adecuación de las relaciones humanas. No hay culpables ni inocentes: en nuestra sociedad todos somos a la vez víctimas y cómplices, dicta el autor a través de estas páginas.

"The Good Conscience" is Carlos Fuentes's second novel. The scene is Guanajuato, a provincial capital in Central Mexico, once one of the world's richest mining centers. The Ceballos family has been reinstated to power, and adolescent Jaime Ceballos, its only heir, is torn between the practical reality of his family's life and the idealism of his youth and his Catholic education. His father is a good man but weak; his uncle is powerful, yet his actions are inconsistent with his professed beliefs. Jaime's struggle to emerge as a man with a "good conscience" forms the theme of the book: can a rebel correct the evils of an established system and at the same time retain the integrity of his principles? [Book Depository]

Las "buenas conciencias" -- o sea, la hipocresía y la autocomplacencia de la burguesía provinciana -- triunfan sobre la juvenil rebeldía de un muchacho idealista en Guanajuato, c. 1946. Fuentes se permite entrar en las cabezas no sólo del muchacho conflictuado, Jaime Ceballos, sino también en las de la gente que lo oprime y lo sofoca (sus tíos, que lo están criando), las dos personas fuera de su círculo social que le muestran otras posibilidades, y del pobre cura Obregón, que resulta ser un hombre más inteligente y complejo de lo esperado. Hay descripciones bellísimas de Guanajuato, de las pasiones y frustraciones de esos burgueses, y de cómo pasa el tiempo en una ciudad de provincia -- como en el capítulo 4, que empieza "Cada año de la vida…" Al final, es un estudio sociológico de un caso inventado pero realista, triste y muy creible y, en muchos momentos, muy conmovedor. ( )

Recounts the fictional history of the wealthy Ceballos family--to the point of entrance of one Jaime who is being raised by his prosperous and hypocritical aunt and uncle. At the same time his timid father lives in the same house but it is the autocratic uncle that rules everything forcing Jaime's real mother out. Uncle Jorge has no real love or affection for anyone or anything except for money and his social standing in the community for which it is necessary for him and his family to make displays of faith to the Catholic church. Jaime struggles and burns against his uncle who he considers insincere and an intruder into his home. He bristles at being manipulated and can't understand why his weak father won't defend himself or why he should be cut off from his mother. His one friend Juan Manuel is an Indian and although intellectually very bright--because he is poor and an Indian he is considered by his aunt and uncle to be beneath him and those two do what they can to drive a wedge between them including using the church and his faith to meet those ends. Eventually the rebellious Jaime must choose the world of the haves or of the have nots and the choices he makes will depend on the proof of his uncle's own hypocrisy when for the first time in his life he and Juan Manuel enter a brothel only to discover on going out the hypocritical tyrant of an uncle. This choice may surprise some people but at least IMO is consistent with human nature.
This is a well thought out short work (148 pages) that moves along at a nice pace. Not hard to read at all. ( )

ANAQUEL DE LA DERECHA, TERCERA GAVETA, DE ARRIBA HACIA ABAJO.