Sincerest apologies for my tardiness, I know everyone is long over this, but alas, it must be done. Sooo, what to say about José Martí? His writing is exquisitely detailed? Done and done.

Well, let’s see, to elaborate slightly, I have to say that I did find this style, although beautifully eloquent and conducive to sparking the imagination, a little over the top in the article on the Brooklyn Bridge. I appreciate the desire to stress the grandiosity of the New World, and its ever-growing tentacles of imperial power, but I found the excessive description almost off-putting to the reader. And I can’t imagine that his audience at the time was comprised purely of Spanish speaking scholars, so I fear that it may have been lost on more than a couple people back in the day as well. Nonetheless, if tackled with the right state of mind, it certainly does offer a wealth of richly stylized literature and more importantly, keen insight into the ways of the new American people and where they might be heading.

On that note, I found the essay on Coney Island to be the most enjoyable in its shrewd criticisms of the glutinous society it portrayed. To return to the passage that we discussed in class, I came across an interesting (and I believe unintentional) similarity between the Hispanic and Anglo cultures being compared. Naturally, Martí feels as though the tendencies and aspirations of his people are superior to those of the Americans, which may in many ways be a just opinion, but I think that while singing the praises of the Latin-American spirit, and its constant search for betterment, he touches upon a universal truth that applies to the society under attack as well.

On the top of page 126, he says that the Latin soul is in a never-ending quest for a higher level of love and idealism, which, once attained, seems insufficient and an even more glorious goal takes their fancy. This is all well and good, and I am not one to argue that on the whole, America seems to be lacking in spiritual truth and goodness, but he is describing the exact same process that he criticizes in the “other”. You strive for something with all your heart, be it moral or physical, but once you have it in your grasp, it loses your interest and you need something else to fill the gap. This is the very course that has lead to overindulgence and mass consumption of products and entertainment in the United States. You can think it more noble to be in pursuit of moral and spiritual enlightenment, but I believe that the cycle itself is the same, and is destructive and pointless in any circumstance and with any goal. Desire and avarice only lead to emptiness and insatiable longing.

Ok, sorry to get all philosophical on your asses, but I think it would do everyone good to remember that we are all essentially the same and that we all struggle with the same demons. Oh, and the other stories were alright too.

En El Puente de Brooklyn, Marti obviamente tiene mucha admiracion para esta gran ciudad. Sus descripciones estan llenas con detalles y factos sobre el puente. Parece que alguien encontraba esta ciudad, con su technologia y gente de todos raices, ser magnifico en todos aspetos. Es interesante que Marti compara el puente a monumentos como el Acropolis, que en mi opinion, no es la comparacion mas apropriada, porque el Acropolis fue construido antes del tiempo de Jesus y no tuvo la intencion de viajo mas facil. Pero yo pienso que el punto que marti esta haciendo es que New York es como un nuevo nacimiento de civilizacion. Marti probablemente no ha visto una ciudad donde diversidad esta a cada esquina, donde los edificios aparece como los dios han construido. Refierre a partes especificas con gran fascinacion:
Mas, como anclaron en la tierra esos magicos cables?
En mi opinion, este articulo concierna mas con la ciencia del puente sino que la alma o emocion.

Coney Island, en la otra mano, es un texto que funciona mas como literatura o poesia que el previo sobre el puente. Sin embargo, yo preferia leer algo con menos vocabulario y muchas mas morismos, por ejemblo una traduccion de The Babysitters Club o El Diablo Lleva Prada. Es dificul concluir si Marti esta en realidad impresionante con todos aspetos de New York, porque no creo que el estado de New York es tan perfecto como el descrube. Con oraciones como “que absoluta ausencia de toda tristeza o pobreza posibles!” es dificil saber si es cinico o no. Quizas esta observando que New York puede ocultar la pobreza. O quizas no tengo la capacidad comprender sus ensayos en su totalidad…

I know you are probably tired of hearing this but i also found this reading hard especially because poetry is not one of my favorite types of writing. When reading Marti i felt that he had a lot of the basic, and expected parts of peotryhe had a lot of metaphors, and he uses a lot of descriptions he takes something as unattractive as a bridge and describes it in such detail that he makes it poetry. ( note i looked at a picture of the bridge and its not that great) i believe that being able to do this shows real talent, his other writings also are very poetical the one i like the most was “fiestas de la estatua de la libertad” He writes a lot about the USA but i had a hard time trying to see his connection to Latin America, maybe my poetic skills are not great but i did not find much connection to his roots and how being from Cuba and not from America affect the ways he sees all these places.

um………..i had just a few issues with the first of this book about the “puente del Brooklyn.” Besides the fact that i had to look up every second word, it was really hard for me to get through 5 pages the details of the Brooklyn bridge. And i dont mean to be hasty, because i too, appreciate detail and he de it very well, but why about something so dull (and yes it was dull) like a bridge. Im not sure why he wrote about the bridge but it did give off a goo image of the magnitude of the power in size of the bridge, and the effort it took by so many people to contstruct something that is so beyond our size. Im not sure what this has to do with chicanos though.

I think that the author has a very unique style in his writing as he observes everything he sees and uses a lot of comparison. When i read his writing he makes me feel like there is just so much going on. He talks alot about crowds and people and i just felt like the scene of “Gable” in New York was over crowded yet awkwardly glorious (if that makes any sense). anyways hopefully as i keep reading ill try to make some sense of what the author is trying to get at…

I chose to focus my blog on Martí’s Coney Island. I was supposed to read Nuestra  America el año pasado but never got to it and therefore my knowledge of Jose Martí work isn’t what it should be.

Yo estaba leyendo esa lectura en camino hasta Penticton. Tenia mi mini-diccionario de espanol conmigo y tambien yo estaba con una amiga ecuadorana en la coche pero de todos modos tenia problemas con el lenguaje de ese texto. Al principio no queria leerlo porque tuve que buscar muchas palabras en el diccionario. Al fin yo decidi que no valia la pena busar todas porque muchas de las que no conoci no estan en el diccionario, y mi amiga ecuadorana tampoco las conoce. Decidi que seria mejor leer el texto y intentar de entender el sentido de la lectura. Jose Marti escribio eses cuentos con un estilo muy poetica y por eso creo que no es necesario conocer todas las palabras sino hay que sentir el sentido que el queria expresar.

Parece que a Marti le gusto escribir frases bien largas con mucha descripcion porque hay muchas frases asi en sus obras. Normalmente yo no soy muy interesada en la poesia, tampoco me da mucho gusto leer algo con tanta descripcion. Pero, despues de leer algunos de estes cuentos, me parece que no cuesta tanta trabajo que yo pensaba que iba a cuestar.

Ese parafo del cuento Fiestas de la Estatua de la Libertad es muy interesante:

“Vedlos: todos revelan una alegria de resucitados! No es este pueblo, a pesar de su rudeza, la casa hospitalaria de los oprimidos? De adentro vienen, fuera de la voluntad, las voces que impelen y aconsejan. Reflejos de bandera hay en los rostros: un dulce amor conmueve leas entranas: un superior sentido de soberania saca la paz, y aun belleza, a las facciones; y todos estos infelices, irlandeses, polacos, italianos, bohemios, alemanes, redimidos de la opresion o la miseria, celebran el monumento de la libertad porque en el les parece que se levantan y recobran a sus propios.” (183)

Ese parafo explica, como otros que ha escrito Marti, el sueno que tenia la gente a llegar a los Estados Unidos. Aqui tambien Marti habla de los diferentes nacionalidades de la gente y con todas sus experiencias variadas que todos habian llegados a nueva york para empezar una nueva vida. Tambien habla de la estatua de libertad como un simbolo de esperanza y fe, que ese monumento permite que la gente pueden dejar sus experiencias de opresion y miseria en el pasado, en Europa, y que pueden empezar una vida mejor en los Estados Unidos.

La busca para la libertad todavia pasa hoy, que la gente quieren mudarse a los EEUU o a Canada para una vida mejor. Entonces ya me di cuenta que ese texto de Marti es importante para la vida de hoy y entonces voy a dejar de quejar y seguir leyendo.

Que no nos perdamos en quejarnos de lo complicado y descriptivo de los ensayos de Marti. Nos tenemos que perder en los ensayos mismos, y se nos abraran los ojos a un mundo que es simultaneamente colorido, absurdo, loco, doloroso y maravilloso. Tenemos que dejarnos ir con la corriente de las palabras, que fluyen tan naturalmente y con tanta velocidad, y absorber la pureza de la descripcion y del sentido. Estas obritas de Marti son perfectamente humanas. Reflejan la condicion humana con el fluido del tiempo corriendo descontroladamente a su alrededor, y las adaptaciones del humano a la modernidad.
Leer las descripciones de America segun Marti es darse cuenta de lo que es el espiritu de America (lo que era entonces, pero la America contemporanea se deriva de este mismo espiritu), algo que era entonces y es todavia una novedad para el mundo. No siempre es buena la representacion de este espiritu….hay cosas malas y buenas de la cultura Americana que siguen influyendo la direccion del mundo moderno….pero todas son unicamente Americanas, y Marti las retrata en una de las formas mas puras que he visto en la literatura. Las descripciones de la feria en Coney Island, de las costumbres, absurdas para los Cubanos para los cuales escribe Marti, de las mujeres y los hombre y los ninos que pasan los dias alli. De el “feeling” que impregna el lugar….de la falta de clase y moralidad de un lado, que Marti compara con su unica gente, “Aquellas gentes comen cantidad; nosotros clase”(Coney Island)….a lo esplendido que es la innovacion, la libertad, el capitalismo debajo de todo. Que los hombres, en la faz de la dificultad, del dolor, del caos de la vida, salen adelante.
Este espiritu tambien sale en “El Terremoto de Charleston”, en el cual los hombres, blancos y negros juntos, vencen a la destruccion (fisica y emocional) de la terremoto, y despues de algunos dias de desesperacion, se encuentran trabajando juntos para seguir la vida. Que luchan encontra de la naturaleze y salen muy humillados, pero adelante (Esto tambien se discute en “Nueva York Bajo la Nieve”). Que el hombre se muestra bueno, despues de todo el dolor que inflige sobre el mundo (e.g. la discusion de esclavitud).
Otros temas en los ensayos: el de construccion, destruccion, y recontruccion (El puente de Brooklyn); el de la modernidad moral (discusiones de libertad en “Fiestas de la Estatua de la Libertad); el del racismo; el de la lucha entre el hombre y la naturaleza; el de la lucha entre el hombre y la historia; el de la hypocresia.
No creo que las descripciones de America en esta epoca sean totalmente negativas. Son verdaderas, eso es todo.

Firstly, I will agree with the sentiment expressed by other students that this was a challenging reading assignment. His stories took me a great deal more time than they would have were they written in English, but I suppose that is what one can expect from SPAN 322. And admittedly, I believe his work was worth the effort required in reading it. 

Martí presents New York through an understanding of its architecture. He constructively describes the Brooklyn Bridge as a structure that was created from points on a piece of paper. It is almost surreal that a few dots became a bridge and that same structure became dots again through his vivid description. His use of quasi-technical words reflects the strength of the materials used to build the bridge.

Different kinds of steel were used in the construction and Martí names each of them precisely. I depended on my dictionary until I saw “hierro” and realized that some of the construction terminologies were phonetically the same in colloquial Filipino but orthographically different and reading out loud would be the best way to approach the text.

The bridge symbolically fortifies the link between people regardless of their race. The structure bridges the spatial gap, allowing the people to freely go from one point to another. Personally, the text provides an intrinsic link between two languages.

Even though I had a bit of trouble with the vocabulary, expressions and use of language, I found many of Marti’s stories pretty interesting. I usually tend to find it a bit annoying when authors are overly descriptive, but I found his choice of adjectives and the way he described things in his writing worked really well. I have a feeling it also helped a bit with my understanding of the story. I think the high level of description also worked because of his strong use of similes and metaphors throughout the short stories.

Knowing a bit about Marti through an awesome wikipedia article, I find that his life has a strong influence on his writing. I think his high use of descriptive adjective and his detailed narrative are in part to demonstrate what the outside world is like to his fellow Cubans. Many of his writings focus on describing the city, and I enjoyed his exploration on liberty. One of my favourite lines on that topic was at the beginning of Fiestas de la estatua de la libertad which opened with “Terrible es, libertad, hablar de ti para el que no te tiene”. I found that his search for liberty as a Cuban to be very interesting.