Doña Barbara: A Novel (Emersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith) - Softcover

Gallegos, Rómulo; McMurtry, Larry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226279200 ISBN 13: 9780226279206

Verlag: University of Chicago Press, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

Rómulo Gallegos is best known for being Venezuela’s first democratically elected president. But in his native land he is equally famous as a writer responsible for one of Venezuela’s literary treasures, the novel Doña Barbara. Published in 1929 and all but forgotten by Anglophone readers, Doña Barbara is one of the first examples of magical realism, laying the groundwork for later authors such as Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa.

Following the epic struggle between two cousins for an estate in Venezuela, Doña Barbara is an examination of the conflict between town and country, violence and intellect, male and female. Doña Barbara is a beautiful and mysterious woman—rumored to be a witch—with a ferocious power over men. When her cousin Santos Luzardo returns to the plains in order to reclaim his land and cattle, he reluctantly faces off against Doña Barbara, and their battle becomes simultaneously one of violence and seduction. All of the action is set against the stunning backdrop of the Venezuelan prairie, described in loving detail. Gallegos’s plains are filled with dangerous ranchers, intrepid cowboys, and damsels in distress, all broadly and vividly drawn. A masterful novel with an important role in the inception of magical realism, Doña Barbara is a suspenseful tale that blends fantasy, adventure, and romance.

Hailed as “the Bovary of the llano” by Larry McMurtry in his new foreword to this book, Doña Barbarais a magnetic and memorable heroine, who has inspired numerous adaptations on the big and small screens, including a recent television show that aired on Telemundo.

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Rómulo Gallegos (1889–1969) was a Venezuelan novelist and politician who served briefly as the nation’s first democratically elected president. After publishing Doña Barbara, he was forced to flee to Spain but returned in 1936 to hold a variety of political offices. He was again forced out by a coup d’etat in 1948, returned in 1958, then was elected senator for life.

Rómulo Gallegos (1889'1969) was a Venezuelan novelist and politician who served briefly as the nation's first democratically elected president. After publishing Doña Barbara, he was forced to flee to Spain but returned in 1936 to hold a variety of political offices. He was again forced out by a coup d'etat in 1948, returned in 1958, then was elected senator for life.

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Doña Barbara

By Rómulo Gallegos, Robert Malloy

The University of Chicago Press

Copyright © 1929 Rómulo Gallegos
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-226-27920-6

Contents

FOREWORD, 
Part I, 
WHO IS WITH US?, 
THE DESCENDANT OF THE CUNAVICHERO, 
THE OGRESS, 
A THOUSAND DIFFERENT PATHS, 
THE LANCE-HEAD IN THE WALL, 
THE MEMORY OF HASDRUBAL, 
THE TAWNY BULL, 
THE HORSE-BREAKING, 
THE SPHINX OF THE SAVANNAH, 
THE SPECTRE OF LA BARQUEREÑA, 
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY, 
THE DAY WILL COME, 
SEÑOR DANGER, 
Part II, 
AN UNUSUAL EVENT, 
THE TRAINERS, 
THE FURIES, 
THE RODEO, 
MUTATIONS, 
THE TERROR OF THE BRAMADOR, 
WILD HONEY, 
THE PHOENIX, 
THE DANCE, 
A PASSION WITHOUT A NAME, 
IMAGINARY SOLUTIONS, 
SONG AND STORY, 
THE EVIL-EYE AND HER SHADOW, 
Part III, 
THE TERROR OF THE SAVANNAHS, 
THE WHIRLWINDS, 
ÑO PERNALETE, 
THE CROSS ROADS, 
MAN'S HOUR, 
THE INEFFABLE DISCOVERY, 
INSCRUTABLE DESIGNS, 
RED GLORY, 
AMUSEMENT FOR SEÑOR DANGER, 
WITHDRAWAL, 
LIGHT IN THE CAVE, 
DOTTING THE E'S, 
DAUGHTER OF THE RIVERS, 
THE GLEAM OF A STAR, 
MANY HORIZONS, MANY PATHS, 

CHAPTER 1

WHO IS WITH US?

A large dugout was making its way up the Arauca, keeping close to the right side of the gorge.

Two boatmen propelled it by means of a slow, painful, and slavish manœuvre. Bronzed body bathed in sweat, apparently insensible to the torrid sun though but meagrely covered by dirty trousers tucked up above the knee, each in turn plunged a long pole into the muddy bed of the stream; then, with the upper end pressed against his powerful chest, set the craft in motion by tramping from bow to stern with heavy, measured stride and back bent from the strain. And while one struggled aft, panting, the other would return to the bow, renewing the desultory talk which lightened the bitter toil, or singing, between mighty in drawings of breath, some significant ballad of the boatman's life—the laborious poling of league upon league upstream, or the cautious gliding among overhanging boughs during the descent.

The patrón, a guide of long experience in the streams and channels of the plain of the Apure, sat in the stern, the bar of the tiller in his right hand, and kept a sharp watch for the currents which form among the tangles of waterlogged limbs and tree-trunks strewed on the river-bed, and for the eddies which would indicate the presence of an alligator lurking in ambush.

There were two passengers. Under the awning sat a young man whose strong, though not athletic, stature and decided expressive features gave him an air of almost aristocratic hauteur. His bearing and attire were those of the city dweller who is careful of his appearance. As though indicating a conflict of emotions concerning his affairs, the quiet pride of his expression would change for moments to a look of enthusiasm, and his eyes would light up joyously as he gazed at the surrounding country; but this would be followed by a frown and a dejected contraction of the corners of his mouth.

His fellow-passenger was one of those men of disturbing aspect and Asiatic cast of feature who make one think of the possibility of a strain of Tartar blood mysteriously introduced into South America at some unknown time. They belong to an inferior race, cruel, gloomy, and entirely unlike the inhabitants of the Plain. This man was stretched out beyond the awning, with his poncho beneath him, pretending to be asleep—a feint which did not influence either the patrón or the boatmen, who did not lose sight of him for an instant.

A blinding sun, the sun of the Plains at midday, flung its glare over the yellow waters of the Arauca and the trees along its banks. Through the open spaces occasionally breaking the almost continual density of the growths along the riverside could be seen, on the right, the basin of the Apure, a succession of small grassy plains enclosed by chaparral and palm trees, while on the left was the immense basin of the Arauca—its sides, vast green prairies stretching as far as the eye could reach, dotted at wide intervals by the blackness of wandering herds. In the deep silence the tread of the boatmen on the deck of the boat resounded monotonously, monotonously to the point of exasperation. Now and then the patrón would put a conch-horn to his lips, drawing from it a hoarse, groaning note which lost itself in the depths of the surrounding silence and was succeeded by the disagreeable chatter of the chenchena-fowls and the hurried plunges of the alligators dozing on the sunny deserted sand-banks—the fearful lords of the wide, silent, lonely stream.

The oppressive heat of midday increased in intensity. The sloughy smell of the tepid water broken by the boat became irritating. The boatmen had ceased to sing. The spirits of those on board were weighed down by the crushing atmosphere of the desert.

"We're coming to the Big Tree," remarked the patrón at last, turning to the passenger under the awning and pointing out a giant tree. "You can eat your lunch comfortably and have a good siesta there."

The disturbing passenger opened his slanting eyes a little and murmured:

"It's not far to the Bramador Pass, and there's a fine place there for a siesta."

"The señor gives orders here," the patrón said sharply, alluding to the passenger under the awning, "and he's not interested in the resting place at the Bramador Pass."

The man looked at him craftily and answered, in a voice as smooth and sticky as the quagmires of the Plain:

"All right, then, I didn't say anything, patrón."

Santos Luzardo turned his head suddenly. All at once, although hitherto oblivious of the man's presence, he had recognized that peculiar voice.

He had first heard it when crossing the gallery of an inn at San Fernando. Some cowboys had been talking about their work, and one of them broke off what he was saying and exclaimed,

"That's the man!"

The second time he had heard that voice was in a roadside lodging-house. The suffocating heat of the night had forced him to go out into the patio. In one of the galleries there were two men swinging in hammocks, and one of them had ended the story he was telling with these words:

"What I did was shove the dagger at him. He managed the rest himself. Went on pushing as if he liked the cool feeling of the steel."

Luzardo had heard the voice again, the night before. Just as he came to the inn at the place where he intended to cross the Arauca, his horse had a sunstroke, and he found that he would have to spend the night there and continue his trip on a river boat which at that season shipped hides for San Fernando. He had arranged for departure the following day. Just as he was falling asleep, he heard someone say:

"You go on ahead, partner. I'm going to see if there's room for me on the boat."

The three scenes flashed clearly and exactly across his memory, and Santos Luzardo drew this conclusion, which was to be responsible for a change in the purpose for which he had come to the country of the Arauca:

"This fellow has been following me all the way from San Fernando. That business of the fever was just a blind. I wonder why that didn't occur to me this morning?"

As it happened, the man had appeared that morning at dawn, just as the boat was about to leave. He...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Chicago Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0226279200
• ISBN 13: 9780226279206
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 448
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar