There was a choice between Norman Manea’s The Trenchcoat and Carlos Fuentes’ The Old Gringo for this week’s reading. As the name of this blog post indicates, I chose the latter, but hen I heard about Norman Manea joining in on a class discussion, I questioned whether I made the right decision. However, although it would have been interesting to hear directly from an author about their book, I ended up really enjoying reading Fuentes’ novel.
What made me choose this novel in the first place was because of its description on the “Which texts” page of the course website. The Old Gringo was described to be the “closest we have here to a romance” and I was excited to see how it would play out.
The main romance of this novel is between the Old Gringo and Harriet. However, the connection between the two constantly switch from being portrayed either as romantic or like a father-daughter relationship. A really great example of this is that the Old Gringo, himself, describes seeing Harriet as an “elegant thirty-one-year-old woman who reminded him of his daughter, and his wife when she was young” (140). Despite the character’s own confusion about how he feels about Harriet, within just a few pages, he “kissed her like a lover” (146). To make things even more confusing, after that moment, Harriet tells the Old Gringo that “in you I have a father” (147). However, it is seemingly decided that the relationship leans towards being a romantic one as the Old Gringo comes to the conclusion that Harriet is a “beautiful woman who could be his wife or his daughter but was neither, only herself, at last” (147).
Also, I found out that there is a film adaptation of this novel that stars Gregory Peck and Jane Fonda. The trailer for the movie also seems to lean towards portraying the relationship to be romantic. Additionally, I watched this one scene of the movie and although the age gap is more apparent, it’s clear that the two characters are lovers.
Anyways, here are some questions for everyone!
What are your thoughts on the relationship between the Old Gringo and Harriet? Did you read it as more of a paternal relationship or a romantic one? Also, from the lecture video, I learned that Ambrose Bierce, the Old Gringo’s identity, is actually a real person. Why do you think Fuentes chose to base his character on a real person instead of creating a complete fictitious one?