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.
1 comment:
It's hard to determine who exactly he's criticizing in his essay, because while crediting the vast intermingling of ethniticies he simulataneously is skeptical of their happiness. I think that he's rather condescending when implying that the city should already be gleaming with a sense of togetherness and soul, when it is a far younger society than that of what he is accustomed to in Cuba. As with any metropolis, and he talks about this one with a tone of definite sublimity, it requires time for all to assimilate and prosper both financially and emotionally. So, in my opinion, the soul is created after the body, at least when it comes to cities, the infrastructure comes before the sense of community and emotional wealth. Also, the most populous and most important international hub of commerce of the States is New York, so it's bound to be less personable, and I don't find it to be representative wholly of the country itself.
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