Cartas norteamericanas. (North-American Letters)

Reviewed by Carlos Carlos Rodríguez Martorell, East Elmhurst, NY -- Críticas, 5/1/2008

Burucúa, José Emilio.
Argentina: Adriana Hidalgo Editora. 2008. 176p. ISBN 978-987-1156-78-8. pap. ESSAYS

A respected art historian in Argentina, Burucúa traveled to the United States for the first time in his 60 years on a scholarship from the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Over four months, he crossed the country and expressed his observations in these diaries in the form of letters signed "Gastón" and sent to an unknown reader, along with pictures of American landmarks such as the Grand Canyon, Vegas hotels, and the Brooklyn Bridge. Indeed a cultured individual, Burucúa shows off his knowledge about art and philosophy, and crams every page with erudite quotations in Latin, Italian, French, or English. The problem is that, although the book sleeve promises this to be a "Journey to the heart of the U.S.," the author doesn't seem to know much about this country, other than Mickey Mouse and the Lauren Bacall movies he saw as a kid. Instead, the book reads like an unintended cautionary tale about the perils of a tourist vision of the world. He obviously never goes astray from the route between the hotel and the museums. "Washington doesn't seem to have developed its own populace," he writes after a stroll through the Washington, DC, Mall. "Last night I had an extraordinary first-hand experience of the political reality of the U.S.," he writes, continuing on to describe a Nancy Pelosi speech and a program about Iraq he casually saw on TV. To express the "strength, contradictory complexity, and human richness" of American society, he explains what he read in a random Sunday edition of the New York Times. There are virtually no American voices to counterpoint these poorly informed views. He smugly says that a friend calls him "L'ami des noirs" because he befriended a couple of African American women. What did he hear or learn from them? The reader never gets to know. The book certainly has its amusing moments, and some of Burucúa's reflections--that the country is in crisis and there is uncertainty for the future--are valid, he just didn't need to leave Buenos Aires to take notice.

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