Having read very little of Jose Marti's works in the past and not knowing much about his life, I went into these ones thinking he was simply a Cuban patriot, how wrong I was! I've realized from these readings that he is definitely a very patriotic writer, perhaps for Cuba, but definitely for the United States. As we saw from these short stories, he has a very intimate connection with life and the social aspects of American society.
Although these were tough to get through when it came to the level of difficulty of Spanish, I actually did enjoy reading them. Marti's amazing descriptive ability is most definitely one of the essential components in the way he writes. It truly astonished me the way he was able to describe the most simple situations, figures or people with sentances which were seemingly like poetry. He uses many beautiful Spanish words - some of with which I was familiar, most of which I was not - to express his feelings and surroundings. I'm quite certain I am not alone in saying that he does an excellent job in paiting a detailed mental picture for the reader, which makes the experience all the more enjoyable, as I found myself being as enthusiastic as he clearly is.
His writings about New York and it's surrounding areas show that he was quite passionate about the city. As Jon mentioned in class, Marti was a story teller for many Latinos as his articles were published in Mexico and Argentina (and perhaps all over Latin America). I assume he exceeded expectations when it came to describing North America and it's inhabitants to the foreigners to the south with excellent ability to entice and entertain his audience.
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i definitely agree with Marti's ability to take something like a bridge and turn in into a beautiful creature, created by "los desconocidos". he does an intricate job of describing all of the aspects of the bridge as well as creating interesting metaphors (with words that were not in my vocabulary either...) to describe nt only "el puente de brooklyn" but also "la gente, y la ciudad". i really liked the description of how safe the bridge is (and como no hay riesgos)
True. He is definitely obsessed with America (New York in particular) but i found him to also be a bit condescending towards America in a satirical way when it came to the foreigners who are behind-the-scenes in the constructions mentioned. I'm a bit confused about the whole picture....Does Martí love America because of it's prosperity and vision? ...because he found exile there?...or does he not love it at all and actually abhors their view of 'equality'? No sé.
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