I’ve been a bit negligent this week with regards to posting. I’m chalking that up to a vicious cold, a neurotic dog, and the lack of accessible wi-fi in the United States. That said, forgive me if I backtrack a bit and address some of Jake and Matt’s observations before sharing a few of my own.
First, I’ll admit the cigar trick sounded a bit MacGyver-esque. However, given my inexperience with revolvers, horses, trick fuses, and being pursued by a posse of deranged federale impersonators, I’ll defer to McCarthy in order to stay true to my apologist leanings thus far.
As far as McCarthy’s use of Spanish goes, again I took it in stride. I felt that he was “keeping in character,” as opposed to rubbing our noses in his bilingual abilities. For instance, during an exchange with the Captain, John Grady’s – in a near exhaustive state – begins barking out commands in English, after which he forced to repeat himself in Spanish given that the Captain doesn’t understand what he just said. He probably would have just relied on his Spanish from the get go had he not been in such a dismal state. For me, McCarthy’s explicit use of this transition from English to Spanish is just one example of how his use of Spanish just reflects life on the border.
Given our own collective failures in Spanish (I think I recall Prof. Tresnak telling our friend Paul, if not the rest of us, that she would only pass him on the condition that he never attempted to butcher the Spanish language again) perhaps the extent to which this upsets us is just sour grapes. Having taken 8 fruitless years of Spanish myself, I sometimes find myself still chafing at its use in public. Is that just some underlying jealously on my part? I’m just saying.
What did you both make of the Perez character? Interesting fella…I thought the entire series of exchanges between him and John Grady highlighted Grady’s idealist nature, as opposed to say Rawlins, the Captain, even the Aunt, who are all strict pragmatists in my view, perhaps to a fault. In speaking to Grady, Perez alludes to the difference between Grady and himself, chalking it up to the difference between gringos and Mexicans, but I don’t see it. I think it’s more than that. I’d also put Blevins in the idealist camp as well, and look where that got him.
And how about the way in which Rawlins split for Texas?
He turned and handed his ticket to the driver and the driver punched it and handed it back and he climbed stiffly aboard. John Grady stood watching while he passed along the aisle. He thought he’d take a seat at the window but he didn’t. He sat on the other side of the bus and John Grady stood for a while and…
Given that Rawlins opposed taking along Blevins, while also voicing his concern over John Grady’s affair with Alejandra – both of which played an equal part in their incarceration in my view – this final scene between these two might signal the fracturing of their relationship. Then again, maybe Rawlins just needed to get the hell out of Mexico, and was afraid for Grady and what might happen to him, and that’s why he couldn’t look at him as the bus took off.
Finally, now that we’ve learned from Alejandra why the greyhounds were up in the mountains that night with the Don Hector, why do you guys think Don Hector didn’t go through with killing them? Was it a practical fear, maybe that Grady’s death would have driven Alejandra away from him forever, or something more emotional; perhaps Don Hector empathized with Grady, his love of horses and the ways of the past, and saw a lot of himself in Grady – in this remarkable boy. I keep forgetting that Grady hasn’t even turned eighteen throughout our story. I don’t remember breaking broncs or cauterizing my own gunshot wounds when I was a senior in high school. Maybe Don Hector just couldn’t bring himself to snuff out someone that special. -Ryan
No comments:
Post a Comment