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It is definitely another totalitarian novel and not saying that I like to read this kind of Literature but it is so descriptive and so vivid -not like Facundo- that I almost see myself running and hiding and seeking for help in the streets of Guatemala.

In the first chapters I love the way he introduced the lectors by presenting the main characters which in a general basis are all the peasants, and poor people from Guatemala which in every part of the world and mostly in the poor countries are the ones who suffered the most due to the ambitious goals of their Governments.
Not to mention that by presenting these general society, all the compelling stories that happens with Mosquito, Zany, and Angel Face are related to the President so this in means to prove again what a society can be changed, transformed, created with the vision of the man who governs it. Through out the history of Latin America we can see how these people who live in marginal conditions have naturally wanting or not be dependant of the State.

It is maybe with the fantasy and language he uses with the one Asturias is making a protest and satirized novel of a Dictatorship in Guatemala which never places us in a specific time or place but seems to be one of those in which every character of the novel will be subjugated to the aims of a terrible, mighty, unscrupulous President.

Another thing that seems interesting for me is the vivid descriptions of how the children and youth people are getting used to live with all the tyranny at the right hand of the corner, maybe all the analogies Asturias did with these young people is because when he has at that age is the way in which he lived. Its like having Asturias as the main character but trying to narrate his experience in this Dictatorship throughout his pen. Again the mighty pen.

As my way through this first half of the President I also can see another dichotomy as the one analyzed in Facundo but in here is not civilization and barbarism but rather than “life or death” having the hopes to be freed, or their destinies to be reached.

Seems to be like a nightmare in which we cannot escape because after each chapter we have more and more tragic, violent schemes in which we can’t escape., hard to say these but seems to me in the first chapters that is with irony in which he denigrates humans as animals by the way they are treated like the beggars, the way in which with an inhuman cruelty he narrates how Fedina is tortured or how they kill Zany.

Maybe this is the style in which Asturias wants us to keep the track while reading the book, so that we cannot escape until we finished with the most tragic element. Which will it be? Will Angel Face be able to find a solution for the dichotomy of life and death, -The President and Camilla’s love- it seems to be as the death or the romantic life which in a moment like a Dictatorship era I doubt he could find the magic one.

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End of Facundo

Hard for me to read latin american literature in English and finding it interesting is quite a good feeling. But if this is my space, my blog, and my personal opinion about what emotions I can have with this book, then I want to say the truth, saying that I don’t find how can this book possibly be one of the greatest literature of Latin American??? Is it also part of the ironic elements in the style of the book?
As I was reading the chapters, and as the end came closer my senses were getting me straight to confusion.

“I believe that Rosas made manifest is the crass ignorance in which Europe exists regarding European interests in America, and the true means of making those interests prosper without diminishing American independence” (Sarmiento, pp228)

The problem in almost all Latin American governments and in much cases is true is that we try to imitate Constitutions, governments, laws, education, and economic systems from those of Europe or North America and that’s what lead us to be under developing countries and having spaces for totalitarian governments whose intentions to control and unified the opinions are in consequence of feeling uncomfortable with the way foreigners want to established their economic, cultural, and political systems.

Im not saying that I am in favor of the Dictatorships in Latin America that occurred and damage the progress of these region, or that they exist due to reasonable aspects but it is true that we do no had in the past democratic governments because we didn’t seek for our own rules, based on our traditions, on our people, (not trying to bring Europeans), this Eurocentric vision is what in fact

Im sure that Sarmiento knows the power that words can have and we know he is a well educated man who seeks for a free Argentine Republic, but why he has so much admiration to Europe thoughts?? Wasn´t it barbaric from the Spaniards the way the conquer and exploit America? Does Sarmiento knew about the Aztec empire massacre? And wasn´t that barbaric?? Where does France and England were when the knew about the atrocities the Spanish were doing? Didn´t they turn their backs to the American?

Maybe that´s why nowadays the argentinian see in a superior way the other latin American citizen because they have never felt that feeling. Weird when one of the precursor of a Panamerican country was Marti. “El premio de los certámenes no ha de ser para la mejor oda, sino para el mejor estudio de los factores del país en que se vive. .. Conocer el país y gobernarlo conforme al conocimiento, es el único modo de librarlo de las tiranías” (MARTI: 1891).

Barbaric and Civilization, the dichotomy between gaucho-ciudadano, Rivadavia-llanos, America-Europe, sword-pen, but power for both.

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The Argentine process of independence was quite different from the rest of Latin American countries. The non dramatical separation of the European colonies as the ones of Mexico or Central America causes a defiant reality between those who wanted to preserve the culture of the nation and the ones who were looking forward to an European immigration as the best form to create social development.

In the pen of the author and in the power that it suscribes to Facundo, Sarmiento strongly supported the theory of the European migration as the path to success and imitation of the Western "civilized" countries but on the contrary is Facundo the one who preserves the Argentinian culture and encourages authors from all Latin America to empowered their roots and beliefs against the ones who want to supressed them.

Sarmiento describes in the first chapter the Argentinian geography, giving a hint of what maybe the core of the conflict relying in the multiculturalism aspects that make this land worthy to fight.Assuming the author´s pride of the land in which he had born.

Reading the other chapters the core of the book intself changes to explain the figurative sense of Barbarian. Not as an animal, or salvage human being but more over in the strenght to confront and mantain its cultural heritage. Sarmiento did know the final purpose of this book, which was in a hardly dispute with Rosas, not against Facundo who was the "example" of this so called Barbarism. And mainly on purpose of a "civilized" way to rebel versus tyrany in Latin America

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HelLoOO!
mY naMe is MirIam and Im FroM MEXICO!!! visiting the wonderful Vancouver land