ATDTDA (23):

[kelber at mindspring.com]

-----Original Message-----
>From: Tim Strzechowski <dedalus204 at comcast.net>

>
>"Away to the west and the Sierra, in grand residences faintly visible through the mists that rose from the malarial lowlands, the gringo population cringed on top of their breezy river-bluffs, waiting for the native uprising they all believed imminent, as they lay supine in their bedrooms night after night, beset, in the few hours of sleep they did find, by near identical nightmares of desert flight, pitiless skies, faces in which not only the irises but the entire surfaces of eyes were black, glistening in the sockets, implacable, reflecting columns of flame as wells blazed and exploded, nothing ahead but exile, loss, disgrace, no future anyplace north of the Rio Bravo, voices invisible out in the oil-reek, from out of the diseased canals, accusing, arraigning, promising retribution for offenses unremembered. . . ." (p. 639)

  Is this description of the "gringo population" in its "grand residences," laying fearful of the native uprising (which is seemingly all in their perception anyways), an example of social commentary ... and, if so, is this something he's addressing toward the time period in question, or something applicable today (like his obvious dig at Starbucks/Arbuckle's on p. 638)?

Two things come to mind:

1.The Mondaugen sequence in V where the colonialists are holed up in the mansion having a decadent party while awaiting the inevitable native insurrection.  Beleaguered colonialists are all alike ...

2. John Dos Passos has a great description of gringos in Mexico (both would-be revolutionaries and fleeing colonialists). Not sure offhand how the time-frame relates to that of ATD.  Here's an excerpt:

42nd Parallel (Mariner books, p. 98):

"A guy at the railroad men's boarding house told him he'd sure die of thirst if he tried to enter Mexico there, and nobody knew anything about the revolution, anyway.  So he beat his way along the Southern Pacific to El Paso.  Hell had broken loose across the border, everyone said.  The bandits were likely to take Juarez at any moment.  They shot Americans on sight.  The bars of El Paso were full of ranchers and mining men bemoaning the good old days when Porfirio Diaz was in power and a white man could make money in Mexico."

Too lazy to type anything more, but it's worth reading the rest via the "look Inside" feature on Amazon.

Laura