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''The Old Gringo'' () is a novel by
Carlos Fuentes Carlos Fuentes Macías (; ; November 11, 1928 – May 15, 2012) was a Mexican novelist and essayist. Among his works are ''The Death of Artemio Cruz'' (1962), '' Aura'' (1962), '' Terra Nostra'' (1975), '' The Old Gringo'' (1985) and '' Christop ...
, first published in 1985. Its English language translation of the same year was the first novel by a Mexican author to be a U.S. bestseller and was one of three nominees for the Ritz Paris Hemingway Award as best novel of 1985. An unsuccessful adaptation to film followed in 1989. Later criticism has found in the novel a wary consideration of the irreconcilability of United States and Mexican mindsets.


Plot

The novel is framed as the reminiscence of a female character (identified as Harriet Winslow through its course) "now she sits alone and remembers". An embittered American writer and former journalist, not named until the final chapter as
Ambrose Bierce Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – ) was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and American Civil War veteran. His book '' The Devil's Dictionary'' was named one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by the ...
, decides to leave his old life behind and seek death in the midst of the
Mexican Revolution The Mexican Revolution () was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from 20 November 1910 to 1 December 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It saw the destruction of the Federal Army, its ...
. A widower whose two sons are dead and whose daughter refuses to speak to him, he seeks out part of the Army of the North under
Pancho Villa Francisco "Pancho" Villa ( , , ; born José Doroteo Arango Arámbula; 5 June 1878 – 20 July 1923) was a Mexican revolutionary and prominent figure in the Mexican Revolution. He was a key figure in the revolutionary movement that forced ...
. The particular group he encounters in Chihuahua, led by 'General' Tomás Arroyo, has just liberated the massive
hacienda A ''hacienda'' ( or ; or ) is an estate (or '' finca''), similar to a Roman '' latifundium'', in Spain and the former Spanish Empire. With origins in Andalusia, ''haciendas'' were variously plantations (perhaps including animals or orchards ...
of the Miranda family. Arroyo is
mestizo ( , ; fem. , literally 'mixed person') is a term primarily used to denote people of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturall ...
, the product of the rape of his mother by his Miranda father, and is persuaded by the old
gringo ''Gringo'' (, , ) (masculine) or ''gringa'' (feminine) is a term in Spanish and Portuguese for a foreigner. In Spanish, the term usually refers to English-speaking Anglo-Americans. There are differences in meaning depending on region and country ...
to let him join the revolutionary force. At that same hacienda, the old man meets Harriet Winslow, a 31-year-old woman from
Washington D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, hired as a blind to tutor the Miranda children, while the family has fled the country. Harriet, however, refuses to leave the hacienda, insisting that she has been paid and will wait for the family's return. At first, she will not call Arroyo "General" (insisting that he has merely given himself the title), and has a patronizing view of the revolutionary army and the Mexican people. Her own father had disappeared during the earlier American invasion of Cuba and the Winslow family has been living off his army pension. Only Harriet knew that he had really stayed behind to live with a
mulatto ( , ) is a Race (human categorization), racial classification that refers to people of mixed Sub-Saharan African, African and Ethnic groups in Europe, European ancestry only. When speaking or writing about a singular woman in English, the ...
woman. Harriet is committed into the care of the old gringo, who subsequently falls in love with her. The gringo displays considerable courage under fire, risking what seems like obvious death, and gains a reputation for valor. However, his refusal to obey Arroyo's order to shoot a captured Federal officer means that the 'General' could have him executed. Instead Arroyo shoots the officer himself, then parlays Harriet into a sexual relationship in return for sparing the gringo. Although Harriet appreciates their encounter, she cannot forgive his sexual arrogance. Arroyo's partner, a woman referred to as "La Luna", whom the Revolution has liberated from an abusive landowning husband, accepts his infidelity as necessary. But the gringo finds Harriet's sacrifice ironic, forcing him to reveal to her his real purpose in coming to Mexico. Instead, he now treats Harriet as a daughter in place of his estranged child, while she takes the old gringo in place of the father who has abandoned his family. While Arroyo was away fighting in the mountains, Harriet had been attempting to rebuild and restore the hacienda and teach the women and children there. He, however, wishes to destroy his place of birth, remembering his humiliation there as the unrecognized son of the owner, and wins over the local peasants by posing as a true son of the people and using the name of his mother (Arroyo) rather than Miranda, to which he has a right. That right he believes contained in a document which he keeps close to him (though he cannot read it), until the gringo sets it on fire in revenge for his treatment of Harriet. Arroyo then responds by fatally shooting him in the back. Later, Harriet presses for the return of the gringo's body, claiming him as her father, so that he may be buried in the grave reserved for the vanished Winslow at
Arlington National Cemetery Arlington National Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the United States National Cemetery System, one of two maintained by the United States Army. More than 400,000 people are buried in its 639 acres (259 ha) in Arlington County, Virginia. ...
. Pancho Villa now faces criticism for an alleged cold-blooded murder of an American by troops under his overall command. Villa has the American's body exhumed and 'executed' by firing squad (passing it off as the work of the Federales). When Arroyo approaches to give the dead body the
coup de grâce A coup de grâce (; ) is an act of mercy killing in which a person or animal is struck with a melee weapon or shot with a projectile to end their suffering from mortal wounds with or without their consent. Its meaning has extended to refer to ...
, Villa orders the firing squad to shoot Arroyo as a means of preventing any further American response. After Harriet crosses the border back to the US, she refuses to testify in front of Congress as part of a journalistic campaign to encourage the U.S. to 'civilize' Mexico, and decides that instead of attempting to change Mexico, as she had wanted to earlier, the better approach, as she now tells the waiting journalists, is "to learn to live with Mexico".


The novel

According to a 1992 interview, the initial idea for a novel on this theme came after Fuentes encountered the work of
Ambrose Bierce Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – ) was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and American Civil War veteran. His book '' The Devil's Dictionary'' was named one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by the ...
in his teens, and was one to which he occasionally returned over the decades. Following publication, he commented that "What started this novel was my admiration for ierceand for his '' Tales of Soldiers and Civilians''. I was fascinated with the idea of a man who fought in the United States Civil War and dies in a Mexican civil war." The novel was written originally in Spanish and Fuentes then worked closely with
Margaret Sayers Peden Margaret ("Petch") Sayers Peden (May 10, 1927 – July 5, 2020) was an American translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English languag ...
on the English translation. Between the two versions there are some differences in wording and even in the number of chapters. Reviewers of the novel had difficulty with the postmodern rhetoric employed by Fuentes. The ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' found it "not always easy to follow; perhaps his convulsive involvement with his native land prohibits that". This is echoed by a comment in one encyclopedia that Fuentes' experiments in narrative are meant as a demonstration of the novel's master theme: the almost unbridgeable distance between the Hispanic and Anglo-American cultures. Another critic sees in the novel "a negotiation of borders within and between selves and between and within countries", of which the mirrored ballroom that is all that remains of the Miranda hacienda is made the deceptive symbol. ''
Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...
'' summed it up by finding that, "in this fine short novel, Fuentes remains, as usual, wisely suspicious of both American politics and those of the Revolution". One key incident, however, is not of the novelist's invention. The murder, exhumation and posthumous execution of Bierce is based on the actual killing of the Englishman William Benton by one of Pancho Villa's generals in 1910. In reality, no one really knows what became of Bierce, thus allowing Fuentes to make of his fate an
existential Existentialism is a family of philosophical views and inquiry that explore the human individual's struggle to lead an authentic life despite the apparent absurdity or incomprehensibility of existence. In examining meaning, purpose, and value ...
parable of personal choice and redemption.Patricia C. Dip
"Carlos Fuentes, 'Poor Mexico, so far away from God and so near the United States'"
in ''Kierkegaard's Influence on Literature, Criticism, and Art'', Vol V, pp.51-3, Ashgate Publishing 2013


Translations

* Spanish Braille: ''Gringo Viejo'' (1985) * English translation: ''The Old Gringo'' (1985) * Danish: ''Den gamle gringo'' (1985) * French: ''Le vieux gringo'' (1986) * German: ''Der alte Gringo'' (1986) * Swedish: ''Den gamle gringon'' (1986) * Italian: ''Il gringo vecchio'' (1986) * English Braille: ''The Old Gringo'' (1987) * Greek: ''Ho gero-gkrinnko'' (1987) * Portuguese: Portugal: ''O velho gringo'' (1987), Brasil: ''Gringo Velho'' (1988) * Dutch: ''De oude gringo'' (1988) * Finnish: ''Vanha gringo'' (1989) * Chinese: ''奧拉; 異鄉老人'' / ''Aola; Yi xiang lao ren'' (1991) * Polish: ''Stary gringo'' (1992) * Japanese: ''老いぼれグリンゴ'' / ''Oibore guringo'' (1994) * Romanian: ''Bătrânul gringo'' (1998) * Persian: ''Grīngu-yi pīr'' (1378
999 999 or triple nine most often refers to: * 999 (emergency telephone number), a telephone number for the emergency services in several countries * 999 (number), an integer * AD 999, a year * 999 BC, a year Media Books * 999 (anthology), ''99 ...
* Korean: ''내가사랑한그링고'' / ''Nae ka saranghan Gŭringgo'' (2001) * Turkish: ''Koca gringo'' (2004) * Croatian: ''Stari gringo'' (2005) * Czech: ''Starý gringo'' (2005) * Sinhalese: ''Grango mahallā'' (2007) * Russian: ''Старый гринго'' / ''Staryĭ gringo'' (2010)


See also

*
1985 in literature This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1985. Events *February 25 – Sue Limb's parodic pastiche of the Lake Poets, ''The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere'', begins broadcasting on BBC Radio 4 in the U.K. *March ...
*
Mexican literature Mexican literature stands as one of the most prolific and influential within Spanish-language literary traditions, alongside those of Spain and Argentina. This rich and diverse tradition spans centuries, encompassing a wide array of genres, ...


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Old Gringo, The 1985 novels Mexican novels adapted into films Mexican magic realism novels Novels by Carlos Fuentes Novels set in the Mexican Revolution Cultural depictions of American people Novels about writers Ambrose Bierce