Carlos Fuentes, The Old Gringo

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. 

My question for the Class is: How did you view the relationship between The Old Gringo and Harriet? Did you view it as more paternal or romantic?

María Luisa Bombal, The Shrouded Woman

The Shrouded Woman is my favourite book I have read in this course so far. I usually find myself as a reader drawn to stories about romance and heartbreak. I was waiting for a book like this to be read during this course, and I was not disappointed. María Luisa Bombal gave an interesting first-person narrator of a dead woman, Ana María. I found the book easier to follow than the last two texts despite the narrator being dead, the story was smooth as people came to see her and to see the significance each individual had on her. 

I was drawn to Ana and Ricardo's relationship. In the beginning, it seemed like the stereotypical first love. She was drawn to him even though she was intimidated by him. He was a type of "fascination" to her (160). Her love for Ricardo was a drug. No matter how many different men like Fernando and Antonio came into her life, nothing felt the same as Ricardo. She was chasing for a love that only Ricardo could fulfill. 

Ana is shown as helpless to the act of love. Her first love Ricardo did not want anything to do with her after his trip from Europe. She also watched everyone in her family lose their chance for love. She could not have Ricardo, her brother was in love with Elena but married to someone else, and her father lost her mother and was now alone. Loneliness is a strong emotion felt throughout the text, which no one in the family could deal with. Ana carries on continuing to be alone and ends up as a sideline character in her own life.

I found it very upsetting and powerful in the story when Anna says, "why must a women's nature be such that a man has always to be the pivot of her life? Men succeed in directing their passions to other things. But the fate of so many women seems to be to turn over and over in their heart some love sorrow while sitting in a neatly ordered house, facing an unfinished tapestry"(226). I have seen many women including myself grow up with a perfect fairy-tale idea of love. It made me sympathize with Ana that she has spent her entire life finding validity in men. Given the time, I don't blame her. Women were seen as incomplete without a man. Even when Ana was not happy with her relationship status with Antonio and went to see a lawyer, she was shut down because "Antonio is the father of [their] children; that there is steps a lady cannot take without lowering herself" (228). She was trapped and had no way out without reflecting it poorly on her societal status. It makes me feel more fortunate to be a part of a time where women don't give into gender stereotypes and are not seen as incomplete without a man.

My question for the class is: Do you agree with the lengths and sacrifices Ana went through for love?