Eduardo Gutierrez (1)

Juan Moreira was a renegade gaucho of Buenos Aires province in the 19th century. Gutierrez' work is a novelization (originally serialized) of his life and escapades. Though Gutierrez claims he researched the Moreira and spoke with many witnesses, I'm still a little dubious about the novel's historical veracity. However, even taken with a grain of salt, there is something captivating about the short life of this outlaw. The Moreira of the novel is an upstanding, moral man who runs afoul of the law because of a local administrator's desire for Moreira's wife. He gets his vengance on the administrator, but is then on the run from the law. The narrative is a little repetitious at times, with knife fight after knife fight. Moreira may be portrayed as a noble figure, yet there's something quite ugly about all the death he leaves in his wake. Yet, over the course of the story, I found myself becoming more sympathetic to his plight. If Moreira isn't quite an existentialist hero, there is something tragically noble about him, a man cut off from society but still living by a code, though he knows full well the best he can expect is to die a good death. I wouldn't call it a classic, but definitely a worthwhile example of the gaucho genre.… (meer)

Gutierrez' account of the life of the gaucho Guillermo Hoyo (known as Hormiga Negra) has some of the same charm as his Juan Moreira in its account of 19th Century Argentine life, though it lacks the sense of near-cinematic tragedy that made Moreira so moving. Hormiga Negra starts his life as an outlaw early, when he has to sneak his beloved away from her mother, which leads to various adventures, mostly on the wrong side of the law. Despite eventually settling down, he returns to drinking and making trouble, which eventually lead to new troubles just as he is trying to go straight. Where Moreira was a good man reduced to banditry through injustice, Hormiga is a more ambiguous figure, his courage offset by his impetuousness.… (meer)