[lit-ideas] How to Become a Gaucho in an Easy Lesson
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:57:00 EST
-- and fail in the attempt.
Helm:
"Well, I enjoyed the story and laughed out loud at several points. Maybe I
wouldn’t enjoy a story which made equal fun of the American cowboy."
The thing is that one cannot _really_ decide to _become_ a gaucho like that.
It's an ethnic thing, and Señor Pereda is _bound_ to be at most a 'rancher'
(estanciero), but not a 'gaucho'.
It is true that the ranch-owners would like to see themselves as 'gauchos'
but that was I would think in a figurative way.
The real gauchos I meet are a closed circle and do not really accept
outsiders.
I'm less sure if this work with 'cowboys', too.
The aimlessness of it all was fun. Susan Wilkinson wrote a sort of
historical romance on that which she titled, "Sebastian's Pride" -- with
Sebastian
Hamilton as this English peer (or something) who settles in the pampas, and
quoting Martin Fierro, "his pride was his freedom", becomes 'native'.
I don't like the 'going native' trope, though, when the native is never
allowed to 'go civilised' unless in the ridiculous way Jemmy Button does that
in
his "Life and Times".
I wonder what's Spanish for unsufferable. I don't use 'insufrible' too much,
as I don't really know what it can mean.
Cheers,
JL
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