Carlos fuentes the old gringo. Carlos Fuentes 2022-10-23
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Carlos Fuentes was a Mexican novelist, short story writer, and essayist who is considered one of the most important and influential figures in Latin American literature. His novel "The Old Gringo," published in 1985, is a classic work that explores themes of identity, memory, and history in the context of the Mexican Revolution.
The story follows the character of Harriet Winslow, a middle-aged spinster from New England who travels to Mexico in the 1920s to teach at a girls' school. Along the way, she meets an old gringo named Ambrose Bierce, a journalist and soldier of fortune who has come to Mexico to fight with the revolutionaries.
As the novel unfolds, it becomes clear that Bierce is a complex and mysterious figure, and his true motives for coming to Mexico are slowly revealed. Through his interactions with Winslow and other characters, Bierce comes to embody the contradictions and ambiguities of the Mexican Revolution, as well as the larger struggles of Latin America to come to terms with its tumultuous past.
One of the key themes in "The Old Gringo" is the way in which history shapes our understanding of the world. Bierce, as a gringo, represents the outsider's perspective on the Mexican Revolution, and his encounters with the country's culture and history force him to confront his own preconceptions and biases. Similarly, Winslow's journey to Mexico leads her to question her own identity and the values she has inherited from her privileged upbringing.
Another important theme in the novel is the idea of memory and its role in shaping our sense of self and our place in the world. Bierce, as an old man nearing the end of his life, is haunted by his past experiences and the choices he has made. His encounter with Winslow and the Mexican Revolution prompts him to confront his own mortality and the legacies he will leave behind.
Overall, "The Old Gringo" is a thought-provoking and beautifully written novel that offers a poignant exploration of identity, memory, and history. Through its complex and nuanced characters and its rich and evocative setting, it offers a powerful meditation on the human condition and the ways in which the past shapes our present and our future.
The Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes
. She had a past. I came across an old style copy in a used book store. That being said, after reading Fuentes's Crystal Frontier and being powerfully moved, The Old Gringo fell a bit short. Retrieved May 17, 2012. Carlos Fuentes came to Houston a few weeks back and I drove in to see him. An editor will review the submission and either publish your submission or providefeedback.
Retrieved May 16, 2012. So, an odd experience, one might say; this very oddness makes the book weirdly compelling. I was very surprised that I liked it as much as I did. And at times the reader really can't be blamed for wondering what is really happening, the narrative is so subjective. Retrieved July 26, 2012. He was pretty much as I'd expected.
You can help us out by revising, improving and updating thissection. In the end, the incompatibility of the two countries or, paradoxically, their intimacy claims both men, in a novel that is, most of all, about the tragic history of two cultures in conflict. The plan for the cycle first appeared as a page in the Spanish edition of his satirical novel In 1992 he published The Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World, an historical essay that attempts to cover the entire cultural history of Spain and Latin America. After crossing the Mexican border, Bierce went missing, so Fuentes imagines what might have happened to him afterward. Nevertheless, there are few wasted words, and the novel reads like a tale from an old master.
FREE The Old Gringo PDF Book by Carlos Fuentes (1985) Read Online or Free Downlaod
The year was 1913 and Mexico was a place of unrest. Later in his youth, Arroyo murdered his father. Had the photo of the movie which I kept making the connection to even though I never saw the movie. The book also seemed rather clichéd in its presentation of the Wild West Wild Mexico, that is and the full complement Clint Eastwood heroes, villains and right hand men. His book became a companion of my young adulthood, confirming my own less than positive attitude about things as diverse as military life, patriotism, and so-called family values in America.
This book is so good it gave me a boner. For that very reason. State Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation closely monitored Fuentes during the 1960s, purposefully delaying — and often denying — the author's visa applications. Somewhat McCarthyesque int his regard, but without the attention to gore. Through this voyage to the stark deserts of Mexico, questions of Mexican and US national identity are tackled alongside the individual stories that give them shape, meaning and purpose. The characters are extremely well-wrought: Bierce referred to only as the "Old Gringo" throughout the novel is a tough-minded but disenchanted victim of a life of tragedy; Harriet Winslow is a tough-minded American schoolteacher facing abandonment issues; and Tomas Arroyo is a swaggering icon of one of Pancho Villa's self-declared Generals. I liked the clean prose at the end, when Arroyo was killed and she left for the USA.
His father was a Miranda who had raped his peasant mother. The language is spritely, sullen, erotic by turns. The winner of prestigious literary awards like the Miguel de Cervantes Prize given for lifetime achievement in Spanish-language literature , Fuentes is a careful observer of his society and a perceptive student of human character — and his interest in physical borders and cultural boundaries comes through strongly in The Old Gringo. The Old Gringo PDF Details Author: Book Format: Paperback Original Title: The Old Gringo Number Of Pages: 208 pages First Published in: September 1985 Latest Edition: February 20th 2007 Language: English Awards: Los Angeles Times Book Prize Nominee for Fiction 1986 Genres: Main Characters: Ambrose Bierce, Tomas Arroyo Formats: audible mp3, ePUB Android , kindle, and audiobook. The Christian Science Monitor. And who sees life as experienced mainly through his manly body parts. And I cannot blame him for wanting to do so.
There was still much I didn't understand, but I think Fuentes may have done it intentionally since the story was told from an old, feeble protagonist from memory. Retrieved May 18, 2012. I was very surprised that I liked it as much as I did. He wanted us to kill him, us Mexicans. However, a few pretty passages, sometimes almost poetic writing and the desire to know where all this was going to lead me allowed me to go to the end by skipping a few pages, I admit. This may work for his male readers. .
Retrieved May 16, 2012. Why did she come? He met the young woman, Harriet Winslow, who came to teach English to the children in a big hacienda in the north of Mexico. Retrieved September 5, 2021. Bierce has come to Mexico to die in anonymity; he feels that his fifty years as a writer have won him praise only for his style, not for the truth that he's tried to tell. Fuentes' novel gives a wonderful romanticism of his disappearance and death that is moving and realistic. Most of the novelists in this canon, also with certain exceptions, tend to be women, notably Harriet Beecher Stowe and Louisa May Alcott. People will say of a Hemingway, for example, "He writes with his dick.
Carlos Fuentes THE OLD GRINGO A Novel 1st Edition 3rd Printing
Retrieved 18 May 2012. Retrieved August 23, 2010. You also need some historical background: Mexico, Pancho Villa and Ambrose Bierce, as the novel presents those two and that land as the major characters in the novel. I tho I'm not much of a history reader, so I wasn't sure about reading this book for a challenge but thought I'd bite the bullet. But it did not work for me when it came to reading the parts of the story told from the point of view of Harriet Winslow, a starting-to-age American school marm who takes up with Bierce and the Villa general. Written by ElizabethShaw This novel is about the disappearance of American writer Ambrose Bierce, who went missing in 1913 while visiting Mexico.
