For this week, I read The Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes. I was excited to read this book because when I was examining the notes for which texts to read it was stated this book was "the closest we have here to a romance if that's your thing." Romance is definitely my thing when it comes to the novels I choose to read. However, although The Old Gringo did have a love story it also had other themes that overshadowed the romance, like the concepts of power, war, revolution and so on. Overall, I did enjoy the story. It was an easy read by how few words were on each page, but that could just be the PDF I used to read the book. But even with that, I felt Fuentes had put a lot of repetition to add importance to the dialogue to get us readers thinking throughout the novel.
The book's narrative is framed as a collection of memories belonging to Harriet, who "sits alone and remembers." The Old Gringo and Arroyo are shown in a complicated love triangle with Harriet Winslow, an American who had come to Mexico as a teacher for the children. I did not like Arroyo's intentions with Harriet for all the wrong reasons instead of connection like she and the old gringo had. He was only trying to pursue Harriet to get back at the old gringo for betraying him and was the only way to hurt him instead of killing the man. After all that, the two men inevitably die as they cross the frontier of their differences, the old gringo killed by Arroyo, who was also shot by Villa for overstepping his boundaries of power.
The relationship between Harriet and the old gringo is confusing for me because for the old gringo Harriet was his love interest. Then with Harriet, I was unsure how she viewed the old gringo. Harriet agrees to the relationship with Arroyo so she could protect him. And she buries him under her father's name, so I was unclear on how Harriet viewed the old gringo if she saw him as someone, she could pursue a love relationship with or saw him as she cared about him as an older guardian relationship.
Hi Diya! I really enjoyed your post and I agree that the relationships in the book were pretty all over the place. At first I found that Harriet saw the old man as a father figure as she confided in him and he provided her with a familiarity/comfort of being American. I also think she wanted to fill the space of her father that died in Cuba. However I think the old man saw her in a more romantic way which did make me uncomfortable at some times because he was 71 and she was 30...
ReplyDelete-Anna V :)
Great post, Diya! I see some more good tags (to add to the three that you have) from what you have to say here: repetition, revolution, betrayal, memory...
ReplyDeleteHi Diya!
ReplyDeleteI definitely felt that the relationship between Harriet and the old gringo was a more paternal relationship than romantic, but it was a bit disturbing that their relationship was suggested to be romantic. I felt that from Harriet's view, she felt the old gringo was more of a father figure to her and the old gringo viewed the relationship more romantically.
Hi Diya! Thank you for your blog, I enjoyed reading it! I personally their relationship a little bit disturbing. The old gringo started off loving Harriet as a lover, but said he loves her as a daughter at the end. Both are 'loving' but the love behind them are really different. Which makes me find it slightly disturbing. I think Harriet's love for the Gringo may be more of a parental love as she lack of a father figure in her life and confused the feelings between those two.
ReplyDeleteHi Diya, I enjoyed reading your blog this week! I think Harriet and the Old Gringo's relationship could have been either a romantic or a parent/child relationship, but once Arroyo started to pursue Harriet their relationship became more like family.
ReplyDeleteHi Diya! I was also drawn to this book because of the mention that it would be the "closest to a romance". Although once I started reading about this romance, I was also confused about their relationship. As for your question my opinion on their relationship definitely switched throughout reading, but I would say initially it felt more parental.
ReplyDelete