The Perón reading interested me significantly – it was intriguing to see how a humble woman had overcome struggles in order to get where she got. Page 52 in particular shows her love, and the also the duty she felt towards her husband. Page 54 is even more interesting, as she describes how ‘nearly all’ of the supposedly influential men surrounding Perón at the time ended up betraying him; so much for loyalty! It is therefore ironic on their part, as they considered he ‘little more than an opportunist’! How can they call her that when they themselves were feigning loyalty…

I feel that her tone throughout is fantastically aggressive and spirited! Indeed, it seems that the idea of passion is at the centrepiece of her ideology, and what she believes should be engrained into the minds of all true Perón supporters! She goes as far as calling herself a fanatic, as she seems to believe that fanaticism is the only way of showing true passion; for example she talks about how fanaticism is ‘the only heart that God gave the heart to win its battles’. She also notes how ‘Quasi-Peronists’ made her feel sick – these people mainly being what she would describe as ‘tepid, the indifferent and the reserved’. I am certainly a fan of the passion with which she writes as it makes for a very entertaining read!

With the Borges – ‘Celebration of the Monster’, I feel like the descriptive language used (especially on the first page at least), is deliberately ugly! Are things like ‘pump a little pasta into the guts’ said to make us feel deliberately sick? Certainly the writing style in this piece is far less formal than Perón’s, with a more casual, slangy (perhaps Americanised) twang to it.

Ultimately, it is tricky to understand who ‘the monster’ actually is? Possibly it might be the every day monster in his life? Probably for Borges, ‘the monster’ is a representation of his poor health? He certainly hints at that, especially on the first page of this article. This Nelly character keeps coming up in discussion too – and one kind of assumes that he is either referring to his wife, or even his sister with this Nelly persona…or maybe Nelly is just a fictional persona….

I feel like in some ways these texts are certainly related – maybe because Borges was famously Anti-Perón; he even refused to hang pictures of both Evita/Juan up in his house (on request of the authorities) after the death of Evita. Perhaps the monster is indeed Juan Perón himself?…