We Argentines (I am a Canadian citizen but I was born in
Argentina) have the good luck, unlike Canadians, of having several poems and
novels that are about the country. We have several definitive Argentine novels. One of them
is the 19th century Martín Fierro by Martín Hernandez. Argentines of
my generation have all read the long poem about a doomed gaucho during the war
when the Argentine army pushed back the native Argentines west and south to almost extinction.
I also love re-reading Charles Darwin’s The Voyage of the
Beagle in which I learn and fondly remember how Darwin befriends an as yet to be strongman Juan Manuel de Rosas. They galloped together in
the southern Pampa where Darwin noticed the cardoon growing in every direction
he could see. The cardoon is the wild version of the artichoke so Darwin
declared. To this day any spiny plant is called a cardo in Argentina.
El gaucho Martín Fierro
Poema de
José Hernández, publicado en 1872
Y al que le toca la herencia,
donde quiera halla su ruina:
lo que la suerte destina
no puede el hombre evitar,
porque el cardo ha de pinchar
es que nace con espinas.
Canto III - 451 y ss.
La vuelta de Martín Fierro