Reading Campobello’s Cartuco was an intriguing, thought-provoking, and unique experience for me this past week. As an IR major whose focus area of study is Latin America, I was quite excited to delve into a book pertaining to the Mexican Revolution. I quite enjoyed Campobello’s writing style, as it was quite descriptive and provided effective imagery and tone-setting to help emphasize the individual circumstances of each short story she wrote. Although this style of writing was new for me, and it was a bit confusing to remember all the characters in each individual story in the beginning, I really enjoyed it for its raw and honest nature: it showed the true struggle of the everyday person who lived through the Mexican Revolution and its aftermath.
Like some other students have mentioned, I also found myself believing that Campobello was trying to introduce each ‘character’ in the novel, but I soon realized that short accounts were her way of telling her story. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for Campobello to experience and see all she has through the eyes of a child, and she did not shy away from being clear in her intent to display the true violence and fervor it provided. To be able to account for something like that from beginning to end is bound to be exhausting to recount–I am impressed with her effort to provide so many memories that encompass seven years time of the Revolution in just under 100 pages. Particularly, the story that caught my memory most was the story about Catarino Acosta–the man who “lasted eight days lying in the road”–and where the crows were already eating away at him (28). It was disturbing, real, and traumatizing. The ending of that story: “They executed Catarino without bullets” was a powerful way to end the story because it shows a violent death that was filled with suffering, and shows the reality of many during the Revolution. During the lecture, it is mentioned that together, both the reader and the narrator have to make sense of or respond to a situation that is not of their own making; we see this not only continually via Campobello’s storytelling, but also through my own experience and reactions to her stories as a reader. I sometimes felt uncomfortable reading the stories due to how violent they were because I continually thought of the pain that must have been felt by many–a pain that was sometimes necessary toward change in a country with vulnerable, unpredictable, and vast circumstances. I think this form of storytelling to capture memories was impactful and it shows why this book was so prominent in literature.
A question for you!: Did any part of the book make you “uncomfortable”? How do you think Campobello was feeling during this time?
Yes, sometimes a book isn’t so much trying to impart an idea or information or a “message,” but rather a feeling, or even what we could call a “structure of feeling.”
Hello! I really enjoyed reading your post and found your point about how our own experiences and reactions to her stories as the readers contribute to the effects of the story. In regards to your question, I definitely found there to be parts where I was uncomfortable, as there are some horrific details to her accounts. It was eye-opening for me however because when looking at historical events, I tend to only see the overview that was provided by adults, whether historians or those who were actively engaged in the war. However, I never really thought about what it would be like to be a child living through all the terrifying events of the war, so while I was uncomfortable, it really made me think about my bias as the reader and how I didn’t have to live through this but many people did. It definitely was a really impactful story for me that really made to think about the experiences of the youth living during the Mexican Revolution.