Things Without Names

... y no se lo trago la tierra is probably the best example I've ever come across of why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Far from what its ridiculous cover image and large font would imply, the book contains a complexly crafted series of anecdotes and its narrative techniques and weighty themes keep the reader actively thinking.

One thing that interested me about the book so far was the relation between naming something and its existence. In the first half of the book we see things that are unnamed turn out to exist and things that are named actually do not exist. As children grow up they must reconcile between the world as their parents taught them and the the world as they personally experience it. Until he stumbled upon the couple the boy did not know about sex, it had been completely absent from his world except as a vague notion of sin, and soon he will discover the name of what he has witnessed. On the other hand, an entity that was taken for granted in his family, the Devil, turns out to not exist at all. The boy calls out to the Devil and curses him, expecting all hell to break loose, and nothing happens. Nothing exists behind the name.

I like the book's unique perspective due to being written through the eyes of a child. If we think of Who Would Have Thought It?, for example, its critique of contemporary societal evils is very direct and is accompanied by analysis through the characters' dialogue. In ... y no se lo trago la tierra we get to know the social context through the lens of a child - the racism of white society towards Chicanos comes through in a bully's remarks, most likely copied from his parents - and the labour conditions suffered by rural Chicanos in Texas comes through in the boy's grief and rage at his brother's near death on the fields and his mother's resignation to a life of endless toil. There is no analysis of the social context here, only brief and powerful anecdotes.

El Titán del Norte

The fact that En Los Estados Unidos possesses the narrative force to stir up the latent sense of wonder in the reader over the seemingly mundane object of a bridge is what makes this passage so supremely non-tedious. While passing through the iconic landscape of New York, Marti is overcome with “agradecimiento” for his fellow man, the architects whose pencils delineated the skyscrapers towering over his head, and goes so far as be “religiosamente conmovida” by the vast forms and structural aesthetic of the bridge. We might agree that the Brooklyn Bridge is a fine and useful structure, but Jose Marti reminds us, in language that bowls you over with the force of its excitement, that this bridge is one of the finest expressions of humanity.

Some may think it is merely some ugly slabs of concrete put together in response to a practical need. But: a human being does not have to feel dwarfed by nature when standing before an “inmenso” and “gigantesco” structure of our own creation. With our ingenuity we can build to the scale of mountain-sized mammoths and fashion objects of cyclopean proportions. Nor do human beings have to feel that their lives are so fleeting when we can leave such a triumphant mark of our presence. Look at how the foundations of the bridge “muerden la roca en el fondo del rio”: these structures are rooted to the earth.

But there is also evidence the Marti considers these structures not accomplishments of humanity at large, but profoundly American accomplishments. The fact that this reading package opened with an ode to a bridge recalled another traveler who famously recorded his impressions of the United States, Alexis de Tocqueville, who I remember opining that bridges were America’s cathedrals. This identification with bridges may have been part of the developing American psyche that sought to differentiate itself from Europe: it saw itself as vigorous, honest, and hard-working. As a Latin American, Jose Marti is also turning away from Europe, and venerating what is essentially American. He marvels at the spectacle of Coney Island and writes swooningly about the iconic Statue of Liberty. However, how Latin Americans will negotiate their own identity in relation to this northern titan is unclear. Other than the Americas sharing the ideal of liberty, which Marti calls “la madre del mundo nuevo,” he does not indicate exactly how this United States he describes relates to the nascent literary public in Latin America who would have been reading this text.

Tea with Maria

So I'm joining the stragglers writing this blog on Monday night - it took me awhile to plow through to the end of Who Would Have Thought It? I still find fault with Ruiz de Burton's writing style, somehow she managed to bog the book down with excess verbiage while leaving central characters undeveloped, but I can say this: If I was a young lady in the U.S. circa 1872, she'd be my first choice to sit down with and rail about the patriarchy over a nice spot of tea. Ruiz de Burton is a fascinating person who I enjoyed catching a glimpse of throughout the novel. This is a woman who has passionate opinions on every facet of the society she lives in - and pulls no punches in calling people out on their ostentation and hypocrisy. Though the writing is lackluster, it is occasionally funny, and provides lots of food for thought.

I appreciated the diversity of social issues that Ruiz de Burton commented on, both indirectly through characters and directly as narrator. In the second half of the book we find, amongst all of the melodrama, a searing indictment of war that maims and degrades the average man while lining the pockets of the rich, a mockery of the nouveau riche and their superficial lives, and a cynical portrayal of gender relations. Though Ruiz de Burton doesn't offer any answers to these societal conundrums, she must at least be commended for satirizing them.

Before I found out what the title refers to, that shriek of Mrs. Norval, I thought that it was an apt response to the duplicity of appearances which is a central theme in the book. The little "black" orphan is a white Mexican-American with trunks of gold, the abolitionist and pious Mrs. Norval is in fact racist and has an affair while it is still uncertain if her husband is dead, and the "two worthy reverends" are ruthlessly conniving - who would have thought it? Ruiz de Burton delights in uncovering "rogues" in the most unexpected places.

As to whether she was a feminist is an interesting and difficult question - just because a woman takes a look around and sees the structures that oppress her it doesn't mean that she's a feminist. Did she purposely make her critique indirect so that her novel would have greater legitimacy or was she merely writing a clever satire without a single emancipatory urge in her? I can't answer that but I do know that women in earlier time periods, and in even more suffocating social conditions, have more directly and persuasively shown women's intelligence and independence. Check out Sor Juana circa 1648 - there's a woman who doesn't beat about the bush.

On Race

This novel is extremely tedious to read. I find its characters uninteresting and lacking in depth, the story plods along at a maddeningly slow tempo, and the writing style is mundane. The only positive note that I can make about Who Would Have Thought It? thus far is that it does well in revealing the complex and nonsensical notions that people of that era held about race. As the story progresses, we observe what the racial hierarchy looked like at this time, how people perceived the race of others and themselves, and how different races corresponded to different opportunities in life.

At first, it does not seem that the white family can differentiate between people of African, Hispanic, or Native American descent, as they all marvel at how black Lola is and make speculations about her ancestry (17). It is clear that they are profoundly racist, associating Lola with a zoological specimen and contagious disease. It is also clear that they, especially the imperious Mrs. Norval, are hypocrites when it comes to their racial prejudices. Despite her horror that her husband has taken in a “black” child, Mrs. Norval is considered to be “a great abolitionist” by others (46).

The novel portrays a societal fixation with whiteness and shows how people needed to assert their whiteness in order to gain access to the privileges enjoyed by that identification. The authour initially tells us that “Lola was decidedly too black and too young for Julian Norval to take a fancy to her,” which implies that a lesser degree of “blackness” would be preferable to him (51). Later we find out that Julian does love Lola and that her skin only appeared to be black because it was “stained by the Indians” who had captured her (100). At this point Julian asserts the importance of her being “of pure Spanish descent” (100). For Lola, the whiteness that she had temporarily lost and her full European heritage are important assets for fitting into upper class New England. This is a useful case for reflecting upon the ways that place of origin, skin colour, and lineage interact in a highly prejudiced society.

Test Post

Hi everyone, this is Serena. Nothing terribly clever comes to mind to say right now but I'll make more of an effort on the next post.