Books Two cultures seen in shifting mirror
TIERRA DEL
FUEGO: AN HISTORICAL NOVEL By Sylvia Iparraguirre, translated by
Hardie St. Martin Curbstone Press, 285 pages,
$15.95 |
REVIEWED by MARY
SILWANCE
Any story is given to the reader by the narrator from his or her
particular point of view. The reader, often unconsciously, accepts the
narrators rendition as truth, rarely as a story told from a singular and
therefore biased perspective. Tierra del Fuego, written by Argentinean
human rights advocate Sylvia Iparraguirre, does not allow its readers such
comfortable naiveté.
Iparraguirre chronicles the true story of Yamana Indian Jemmy
Button. As an experiment, Button was kidnapped from his native home in 1830 to
be civilized in London so that he could eventually return to his Yamana culture
to civilize others. The results of this experiment were disastrous: Button was
later charged and tried for leading a massacre of British missionaries.
But Iparraguirres novel is not that simple. Perhaps few
stories born in Latino culture and formed in the Spanish language are simple,
for they are seldom linear. Readers accustomed to works penned by Anglo authors
may find Tierra del Fuego a bit disorienting. Iparraguirres tale
begins in a present but flows through past and future seamlessly.
The excursions into the present are a jarring reminder that this
account is a story. And like all stories, it is shaped by the teller. Narrator
John William Guevera receives an overdue letter from the British Royal Navy in
a remote hamlet of Argentina requesting details regarding Jemmy Button, with
whom he had sailed. On the surface, Guiveras task seems simple: to tell
what he knows of Button. The book itself is structured to be Guiveras
response to the British Navy. But the letter chafes Guivera, upsetting the
easy, daily routine of his life. The request becomes a gadfly spurring Guivera
to confront himself.
Guivera directs his reply to the name signed at the end of the
request. That the name is illegible, rendering the correspondent unknowable,
becomes indicative of the narrators disposition toward the British. Or is
it the authors disposition? Again, we are given a point of view, not just
to be accepted, but recognized as a particular perspective.
Guivera delves into his own past recounting his birth to an
Argentinean woman and British man. Such detail may seem unnecessary in response
to the letters inquiry. But as Guivera contemplates the request, he
understands the particulars asked for are hollow without a meaningful context.
For Guivera, a literate bilingual man of two cultures, no information about
Button would be worthwhile unless he can explain what Button meant to him. How
could Buttons significance be understood without an understanding of
Guivera?
The letter becomes more of a biography as Guivera realizes he
needs to tell his story, not necessarily for the initially intended and
indecipherable audience, but for himself. Buttons story and the
strange destiny that united us pose a question that is still unanswered
the words that I set down on these sheets of paper without being forced to by
anyone, have turned to me
staring at me, waiting for an answer I
dont have. For the one who writes it, a story is like a mirror.
Although Iparraguirre leads the reader into a world richly
evocative, figurative and filled with recognizable characters, such passages
appear frequently, wrenching the reader from the narrative. It is as if one is
absorbed in a stage production, and the house lights are flipped on revealing
the offstage orchestrations. It is both jarring and thought provoking. To what
purpose is the reader awakened intermittently from the spell? Iparraguirre
challenges us to appraise the narrators role. Certainly Guivera
contemplates his role in Buttons life and in the recounting of it.
In his letter, Guivera gazes into the mirror hes creating
with words and through memory, taking months to articulate his response.
Guivera and Button develop a kinship allowing Guivera an unmatched perspective
on Button. For the biracial Guivera, culture was a weighty, substantial entity.
Being raised between two cultures, on the fringes of both and fully inside
neither, Guivera empathized with Buttons, the savage, in ways the
fully British could not. It was Guivera who intuited the demise of the
experiment with Button while it was still nascent. It was Guivera who
understood the Yamana culture, appreciating rather than judging it. Perhaps
having stood outside the stream of culture, Guivera could see culture in ways
those within simply cannot.
Perhaps Iparraguirre intended the same for the readers of
Tierra del Fuego. If we are fully immersed in the narrative, are we able
to see it clearly? Through Guiveras recurring stops in the present, we
are snatched out of the stream, forced to consider its dimensions, from whence
it came and where we will go with it.
Mary Silwance teaches English at Bishop Miege High School in
Shawnee Mission, Kan. Her e-mail address is silwance@aol.com
National Catholic Reporter, May 4, 2001
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