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June 07, 2006
Things that Make Me Giggle
I picked up a new book last night, but had to put it down after just 3 pages. Supposedly, Juana Manuela Gorriti was the female Argintinian writer of the 1800s, and her collection of fiction entitled Dreams and Realities promised to provide "a generous dose of swashbuckling adventure and romance".
Her short stories tell of homelessness and nomadic yearnings, taking the reader from the Peruvian highlands, where Spanish colonizers plot to rob the treasures of the Incas, to the Argentine capital city plagued by sinister political intentions. Her later fictions move from Chile to scenes of the California Gold Rush.
Covering the wide landscape of the Americas, Gorriti tracks the spirit of nineteenth-century adventurers and dandies, nation builders and soldiers who participate in the conflicts of settlement in a new and lawless land. Women are the protagonists here, mediating episodes of civil strife as they voice their despair about the treachery of fortune seekers in Latin America in the years following Independence from Spain.
Dreams and Realities offers a sampling of Gorriti's stories, showing the range of her commitment to political fiction drawn in the romantic style. Originally published in four volumes under the titles Suenos y realidades and Panoramas de la vida, her works deal with the tyranny of the Rosas regime, the mediating role of women, and the clash of European and indigenous cultures.
Wow--that sounds pretty amazing, I said to myself. And yet, when I started her first story, I was immediately swept back to those poor 1930s movies where the dialogue is laughably full of exposition. To demonstrate, I give you page 2:
"Rosa! My love!" he said. "I have never seen you as beautiful as you are right now; never have your eyes shone with such divine fire, nor has your voice ever sounded more magical to my heart."
[So far, so good. A little cheesy, but full of swashbuckling potential, no?]
"And yet, you are about to leave me. You say all this, but are ready to abandon me to the unbearable persecutions of the hateful Ramirez--who, armed with the approval of my father, of whome he is a friend and colleague, insolently considers me his future property, completely ignoring my wishes. But I shall make them learn the strength of my will, which they ignore. For even if you abandon me, I shall fight this terrible battle on my own; my courage shall not fail me. Go on then, keep to yourself that fateful secret that you refuse to confide to your beloved, and which--since it impedes you from asking my father for the hand of his daughter, who has already given you her heart--might, for all I know, be some tie that binds you to another..."
[Aye, que problema! And then, on the next page...]
"Rosa! My angel! Do not increase the horrible grief that fills me hear with your tears. Oh! I have been postponing the moment when I must destroy your heart with the weight of my secret, but the hour has arrived...So be it!"
[Drumroll, please.]
"Do you wish to know who this Hernan is, the man whom you met at the bullfight as you sat next to the viceroy? This Hernan de Camporeal, educated with the sons of the great men of Spain, is a descendent of the exiled race, which all of you, especially your father, look upon with so much scorn, having dethroned it and enriched yourselves with its wealth. The man who loves you--the proud daughter of Judge Osoria, the man whom you prefer over the powerful and magnificent Judge Ramirez, is the son of an Indian woman. The man who loves you is an unfortunate soul who does not possess anything in this world, though his feet tread upon the treasures that his forefathers confided to the depths of the earth to keep them from the sanguinary greed of their tyrants."
Yes, it continues in this vein for at least the next 2 pages, at which point I put it down with a giggle and a roll of my eyes. Maybe I'm not the swashbuckling, adventure-seeking, Spanish treasure hunting reader I though I was. Or maybe it's all just lost in translation.
