“The Old Gringo” by Carlos Fuente

As much as I liked the actual story that Carlos Fuente writes about in his historical novel The Old Gringo, I can’t say I enjoyed this novel as much as other texts we have read thus far. I found the narration quite chaotic, it was hard for me to stay engaged, and I initially couldn’t understand what message the author was trying to convey. That being said, I appreciated some of Fruentes’ choices when capturing the partially-real story of Ambrose Bierce and I will try to explore them in this post.

Firstly, I liked the sharp irony and the paradoxes. While the old gringo’s initial purpose is dying in the heat of the revolution, he ends up being shot by Pancho Villa only after he is already dead. Similarly, while Harriet leaves the Unites States and the lie she has been living with her mother to find a new life in Mexico, her spiritual journey ends up being full of death and disappointment. Lastly, Arroyo seems so invested in leading a revolution against the Mirandas but ends up being emotionally attached to the worthless papers he finds in the hacienda as he is himself the bastard son of a Miranda. I really liked Fuentes’s use of irony as it gives a more lighthearted feel to a somewhat intense and violent historical novel centered on realistic events that occurred during a revolution.

Secondly, I enjoyed the lyrical tone that the author gives to the novel through stylistic aspects. Like Professor Beasley-Murray explained in his lecture, the repetition of the sentence “Now she sits alone and remembers” adds a dreamlike quality to the novel that – again – made the historical narrative less consuming for me. The characters’ flashbacks and the frame within the frame narration are what made the story more interesting for me. They gave a mystery-like feel to the story and – although they were somewhat confusing at times – made a plain story quite intricate. The fine line between reality (Ambrose Bierce’s real-life story) and imagination (basically all of the made-up adventure that the old gringo goes through after he crosses the border with Mexico) is hard to identify while reading the novel, but once the reader learns more about Bierce’s biography it is fascinating to see how factual evidence, myths, and fantasy intertwine in Fuentes’ work and enrich the story of an American writer who lived over one hundred years ago.

My question for the class is: in your opinion, do irony and fantasy take away from or add to the historical narrative of Ambrose Bierce’s life?

– Bianca