Facundo, take 5.

Where to begin?

First, when I looked at the table of contents and read the title of the first five chapters, I was expecting simple, factual details and long, excruciating descriptions. But instead the first few chapters were actually a very good insight of Argentina at that time. As mentioned in his introduction, it is necessary to understand the country to understand what Sarmiento believes was responsible for shaping the development of Rosas and Facundo as he writes, “It too avenges the evil the provinces did to it when they trained Rosas!” (48) However, I was surprised to find that even in writing about the physical aspect of Argentina, Sarmiento was able to let his resentment shine through ever so brightly. Any reader could clearly see what Sarmiento felt about the dichotomy between European civilization and indigenous barbarism. I also found it very interesting that he would choose to name this indigenous barbarism as “American.” Though I have to agree that Europe was likely the most civilized, considering the fact that the American Civil War was in progress, I still found it somewhat difficult to think of America as “barbaric.”

One thing that I also noticed was Sarmiento’s use of the word “physiognomy” in referring to the physical appearance of the country, since the word itself essentially means to judge from appearance or one’s face. Though he is describing his judgments of the cities, one can correlate this with the latter judgment of Rosas’ character from his facial features and outward appearance.

Despite his attempt to portray the barbaric nature of the various characters of the rastreador, the baqueano, and others, I instead got the image of a society that “works.” Though Sarmiento considers it to be barbaric, I found that there was some order in that, for instance, “the testimony of the rastreador is absolute evidence: to deny it would be ridiculous, absurd.” (65) This shows that at least the society can still function. I found Sarmiento to be slightly contradicting as he writes, “…its institutions, and the wealth and liberty that come from it, it cannot be denied that this situation also has a poetic side, and aspects worthy of the novelist’s pen.” (59) In addition, by writing this, Sarmiento seems to be praising the power of the pen, explicitly stating that something has to be “worthy” to be written about. Of course, this is no surprise coming from an author who believes he may bring about change expose truths through his words.

Thus far, Sarmiento’s style of writing appears to be much more graphic and emotion-ridden, as opposed to, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, by whom I’ve read two books and found them less filled with judgment. But it will be interesting to see whether or not my opinion changes after reading The General in His Labyrinth, since the two are more similar in their topics.