The Awakening of Latin America Page 13

The first thing you must do to beat

  the odds is to discover who

  provides the meals that come to you.

  Protect this source, and you can eat.

  But while old Vizcacha is convincingly depicted, Fierro and Cruz are less so, and their sons are weaker characters. Moreover, there is something jarring here, for the author states that 10 years have gone by, while the story gives the impression that it was much longer.

  When the novel ceases to be a novel and becomes true poetry, the tailcoat that Calixto Oyuela mentioned when criticizing the work appears many times, but my main criticism is that it is too subjective; I don’t think that a gaucho would investigate his impulses like that, even though the author’s rigorous analysis has broken down the vocabulary perfectly.

  I don’t know what occurred

  within my thoughts just then.

  The proud Indian again

  with all his hatred stirred,

  shot me a look. Enough: no word would

  pierce so far in men.

  But, in any case, these poetic nuances, which fall intermittently on the popular aspects, help to solidify the book.

  In the two parts there is a clear allusion to two different periods: of Sarmiento, the scorned man of the people, who denied everything related to gauchos, and Avellaneda, the man of culture, who paid homage to the substratum of Argentine society living on the pampas.

  The most false note struck by the book is the moment in which Fierro sums up his feats and apologizes for them in the same way that José Hernández— but not the protagonist—would. Time and the political situation have made Hernández-Fierro, now an old man, forget the anguished cry of rebellion:

  He has no sons or wife,

  no sponsor and no friend.

  No one will him defend;

  all are his masters now.

  So, like the ox, he’ll bow,

  accept his fate—and plow.

  To conclude, in such straitened circumstances:

  For him who must live so,

  his torment never ceases

  but with his pride increases.

  By doing as he should,

  he’ll make his master good.

  If not, he’ll fall to pieces.

  Fierro’s tragic rebellion has been polished and turned into restrained advice for his sons and for Cruz’s son. He recognizes that gauchos have unenviable lives, and, at the end, he says:

  The eagle has its nest;

  for the tiger, a jungle waits;

  the fox has cave and mates.

  Only gauchos have no home

  and, to live, must roam

  with most uncertain fates.

  And he recommends:

  The poor man is what’s left

  when bad luck fortune blights,

  and no one really fights

  to defend him and his spouse.

  A gaucho should have house,

  and school and church and rights.

  In the last verse of the poem, he apologizes to anyone whom his attacks may have offended:

  The memory’s a virtue,

  a skill among the first.

  All those who think I’ve cursed

  them here should think again:

  though painting living men,

  I’ve left out all the worst.

  In any case, Hernández achieves his objective of describing the gauchos’ way of life in the feudal society that tyrannized them and of depicting the desert, its courageous Indians and the struggle for survival.

  Perhaps, if Sarmiento had governed in the second period, that change wouldn’t have occurred.

  (first part)

  I know the chiefs protect

  the Christians over there

  and terms of “brother” share

  when they do pleasing things.

  Take what the future brings.

  Why should we dwell on care?

  (second part)

  Charitable Indians?

  Go find some, if you will.

  Their prisoners fare ill

  from treatment most unjust.

  They’re sly; filled with distrust;

  though brave, revengeful still.

  However, it should not be forgotten that Fierro’s original exclamation, calling his friend Cruz to the desert, was the fruit of anguish over past misfortunes, while the second was after he had had his experiences in the desert. In any case, Roca’s barbarous campaign was fast approaching, and preparations had to be made.

  Fierro gave a sad but colorful account of the desert and his life there, filled with urbane observations about the king of the desert, man and his resources...

  The birds and beasts and fish

  survive in a thousand ways;

  but man, who on the others preys

  and eats them all just to supply

  his wants, can cry—

  and, thus, true sentiment betrays.

  Martín Fierro blunders through this second verse and winds up his song in the improvisation competition against the black man with some advice to his children. With the advice, he throws in the towel. Man should be honest, good, a hard worker, etc.—not rebellious. Fierro is old and resigned, but one wonders: in their day-to-day lives, didn’t the gauchos aspire to the same goals as Fierro? If so, the part of the poem that is most open to criticism is redeemed, and, in addition to the argument for poems about gauchos, Martín Fierro would be an artistic instrument of protest in the deliberate defense of a defeated class.

  1. José Hernández (1834-86) was an Argentine politician, journalist and poet, best known for his epic poem, Martin Fierro, about the life of the Argentine gaucho.

  Obras escogidas [Selected Works]

  by Enrique Gómez Carrillo1

  Professor Edelberto Torres has made an excellent selection. Above all, the first article, “Evocación de Guatemala” [Evocation of Guatemala], is like a portrait of the future. Its pages exude an exhausted charm, such as arose from the stagnant atmosphere of his old aunt’s living room, and this is the impression left by Gómez Carrillo’s prose.

  It is a great lesson. Only the cries of the people’s souls went down in posterity—the vigorous cries of Rubén Darío and Pablo Neruda. The harmonious, rhythmic, light voice of the great chronicler enchanted the readers of his time and probably made him more famous than the powerful men of his generation. But then came death and with it oblivion.

  The lyrical aspect of his prose now seems to be summed up in the too glossy portrait of his aunt when she was young, in the aforementioned living room.

  A subtle dust rises from his prose that, when stirred, contains miracles of time cushioned in a gentle, drowsy boredom.

  This work should be read when one is feeling nostalgic—if possible, while sitting by the fireside warmed by a good blaze while the rain beats down outside, just before going to bed...

  1. Enrique Gómez Carrillo (1873–1927) was a Guatemalan writer, literary critic and diplomat, best known for his chronicles, which were characterized by modernist prose.

  Martí: Raíz y ala del libertador de Cuba

  [Martí: Roots and Wings of the Cuban Liberator]

  by Vicente Sáenz1

  This is a small portrait of the liberator, with heavy quotations, giving an idea of the clear and elegant thought of the revolutionary poet.

  One could not say it is a masterpiece, but that is not its function either. Simply, the author is overwhelmed by Martí’s words, which are sufficient in themselves to clarify the concepts discussed. The author limits himself to ordering them more or less chronologically, up to the time of Martí’s death.

  If the booklet has something to offer, it is the final comparison with certain run-of-the-mill contemporary politicians.

  To describe Rómulo Betancourt or Haya de la Torre as equals of Martí is an insult to the man who lived in the belly of the beast and knew its entrails, though they were not nearly as black and pestilent then as they are now. The book would be much better without this fina
l invocation.

  1. Costa Rican Vicente Saenz’s biography of Cuban independence leader José Martí was published in 1953.

  Breve historia de México [Brief History of Mexico]

  by José Vasconcelos1

  Seldom has an internationally renowned man so deeply and hypocritically betrayed everything he had said he was fighting for at one time in his career.

  The Breve historia... is anything but history. Rather, it is an avalanche of insults against everything indigenous. It assumes an all-encompassing attitude that conceals its meek submission to foreigners in supposed hatred of them.

  The author sets out from the supposition that the Aztecs were a nation of idolatrous barbarians and that God did well in punishing them but, merciful in the end, sent them the finest, bravest, best and wisest conquistadors in the world—the Spaniards—whose chief, Cortés, was the archetype of those qualities.

  All the problems that arose later on stemmed from two basic sins: the betrayal of mother Spain (by becoming independent of her) and the persecution of Catholicism (the only true religion).

  Vasconcelos chooses concepts of Spengler’s (and not that philosopher’s most original ones) to apply his concepts of the superior man to the Spanish model.

  The work is anti-historical because it is polemical and does not always tell the truth. Most especially, it contains such nonsense as that of supporting Maximiliano against Juárez (who Vasconcelos considered a representative of foreigners). Moreover, it is nasty and antinationalistic. It is the product of a narcissistic, resentful mentality that disguises its personal failure in a hatred of the growing greatness of isolated individuals. Its underlying theses are many years out of date, and they are presented in a ridiculous way.

  In short, it is a work that defines its author as a traitor, a resentful person in love with himself and a shallow philosopher in what must be recognized as his civic bravery in denouncing the economic abuses of the hierarchs of the Mexican revolution.

  1. José Vasconcelos was a major figure in the Mexican revolution of 1910 and Mexico’s first minister of education.

  Trayectoria de Goethe [History of Goethe]

  by Alfonso Reyes1

  Here, one of the purest Latin American souls approaches the work of one of the greatest talents of humankind. And the approach, though not irreverent, is not made on his knees. Reyes looks back coolly at his Germanic model over the century and a half that has passed since Goethe’s time and points out the defects in his character—defects that were particularly lamentable in his indulgence of the powerful, to whom Goethe the adviser always submitted his apparently enlightening opinion.

  The book guides us through several emotional stages, ending with “the last peaks,” after which, following his long and serene life, the poet entered immortality. The work is a good beginning for learning, with intelligent guidance, about Goethe, the teacher of teachers, the poet, painter, scientist and statesman, whose many-sided genius was crystallized in Faust.

  1. Alfonso Reyes (1889–1959) was a leading Mexican humanist. His book on Goethe was first published in 1954.

  La rebelión de los colgados

  [The Rebellion of the Hanged]

  by Bruno Traven1

  Bruno Traven is a strange character about whom not even his editors know much. It seems that he writes in English and is a foreigner. I’m commenting on him because of the contribution that his books of adventures have made to Latin American popular novels.

  [The Rebellion of the Hanged] is a bit of historical and social reality placed in the framework of unreal characters—unreal because their language and psychology are strange for Indians.

  It is obvious that the author is either alien to Mexico or alien to the social class he is describing, but his sympathy for the oppressed is clear, and he does not bother to hide it. The final chapters are more of a revolutionary statement (with many anarchistic details) than a novel.

  The action takes place on a ranch in southern Mexico in the period just before the revolution of 1910. The workers were terribly oppressed, and each of the three brothers who owned the ranch tried to outdo the others in terms of brutality. Finally, the workers rebelled and used their machetes to kill first one of the brothers and then the other two and all of the overseers. The book’s title comes from the owners’ custom of hanging the workers who didn’t fulfill their daily quota by their hands, feet and even testicles.

  At the beginning of the rebellion, the lives of the less important employees were respected, but at one point, after workers who had deserted and lived for months hiding out in the wilderness returned and were assigned guard duty, these workers quickly killed men, women and children.

  Then the column set out for more heavily populated areas, and that is where the book ends.

  It can hardly be called a novel, since the portrayal of individual characters is very weak, but the general actions of the rebellious masses are depicted brilliantly, and the general picture of the arbitrary actions of the owners, which are well known by anyone who has explored Latin America, is precise.

  1. B. Traven (1882-1969) was the pen name of a writer who lived most of his life in Mexico.

  Biografia del Caribe [Biography of the Caribbean]

  by Germán Arciniegas1

  The Caribbean is a neuralgic area in Latin America today and has also been one in the past. It was the place where the most powerful bands of pirates— both Drake’s freebooters and those of the United Fruit Company—had their headquarters.

  This is a historical parallel, the essence of which the author does not try to explain. For him, the entire Caribbean is developing in accordance with inexplicable laws and passing from one set of hands to another in interminable wars in response to the greed of various monarchs.

  Economics, the leitmotiv on which the history of the Caribbean countries turns, is diluted with unimportant ironies, with anecdotal demonstrations of a very profound culture and with lively, well-handled Spanish.

  The historical sequence is shown by the appearance of a naval power that replaces another naval or land power that is in decline, and, though the catastrophe of the period—the terrible threat posed by US imperialism— is mentioned on occasion, this is done with affected, tangential phrases, referring only to things that are already almost part of history, such as the seizure of the Panama Canal.

  The author has phrases of courteous compliance for the adventurer who, acting as a plenipotentiary, forced the government of Panama at pistol-point to sign a contemptible agreement, and, though he emphasizes Theodore Roosevelt’s gangster-like acts, his fine, contemptuous and gentlemanly sarcasm disappears when it comes to those who chopped up his homeland.

  Arciniegas had the intelligence and, above all, the culture for writing a great work on the subject, but he failed to do so because he placed his knowledge only at the service of himself.

  1. Germán Arciniegas (1900–99) was a Colombian essayist and historian.

  Mamita Yunai

  by Carlos Luis Fallas1

  This book was written by a worker as his entry in the competition for best Latin American novel of 1940. The Costa Rican jury, “considering that this account could not be considered as a novel, disqualified it.” This appears in the note ending the book as a kind of colophon, and from a technical point of view maybe the jury was right, because this story is not a true novel. But it is a vital account written in the depths of the forest, and it basks in the warmth of “welcoming” Mamita Yunai, the United Fruit Company, whose tentacles drain the vitality of the people of Central America and others in South America.

  The story is clear, dry and simply written. The first part describes the narrator’s vicissitudes overseeing some elections, with all the dirty tricks that were played, until he returns to Limón and meets an old friend along the way. This meeting leads into the flashback of the second part: his adventures on a banana plantation and the injustice and robbery of the company until one of his coworkers tries to kills a tútile [guard], an Ita
lian in the pay of La Yunai, and goes to prison.

  The third part, a kind of epilogue in the form of a dialogue between the two, describes their lives in the intervening period, ending with the two men going their separate ways: the author who narrates in first person the struggles for political demands, and his friend who goes to the “Yunai” banana plantations.

  There is no doubt that the main character is the author, and he is right not to mix himself up with the people he’s writing about. He sees them suffering, he understands and sympathizes, but he does not identify with them. He is witness rather than actor. He knows the places he is writing about and it is clear he has considerable experience of them. The psychology of his coworkers and the anecdotes he includes fit well with the text, though there are times when the latter seem a little out of place in the story.

  As always with this kind of novel, there is no psychological complexity in the characters, in particular in the “machos” (gringos), who are like “bad guy” cardboard cutouts.

  When his recriminations become howls just for effect, he falls into the commonplace of Latin American novels, but the book is, above all, a notable and vivid document describing the outrages of the company and the “authorities,” and the wretched lives of the railway workers (on the railroad lines), to whom the book is dedicated.

  1. Carlos Luis Fallas Sibaja (1909-66) was a Costa Rican author and political activist, who led the 1934 banana workers strike. His most famous work, Mamita Yunai [Little Mother “United”] denounces the exploitation of their workers by the United Fruit Company.

  Canto General

  by Pablo Neruda1

  When time has smoothed over these political events a little and has equally, ineluctably, given the people their definitive victory, this book of Neruda’s will appear as the greatest symphonic poem of the Americas.