3 - Don Segundo Sombra

Summary

Every finished work always leaves a surplus, be it large or small …

Ricardo Güiraldes on Don Segundo Sombra

The accolades received by Don Segundo Sombra immediately after its publication astounded all concerned – particularly Güiraldes himself, already resigned to the general indifference with which the public had greeted his earlier works. Concurrently, the popular acclaim was given its benediction by the dominant literary figure of the time, the poet Leopoldo Lugones, in an encomiastic appraisal that proposed Güiraldes' novel as an exemplary instance of autochthonous literature. Güiraldes, a dying man at the time, seemed finally destined to achieve, in the waning months of his life, the unanimous approval that had persistently eluded him. And yet, the very Sunday after Lugones published his review – and in the same Suplemento Literario of the newspaper La Nación – the Franco-Argentine man of letters Paul Groussac made a trenchant observation that encapsulated his misgivings regarding Don Segundo Sombra. While reading the novel one had the impression – Groussac claimed – that “ [Güiraldes] had left his dinner jacket on top of his gaucho pants [ha olvidado el smoking encima del chiripá].” Güiraldes died a few months later, bewildered both by the immense editorial success of his masterpiece as well as by the unkind statements – exemplified by Groussac's remark – that the novel continued to elicit from other quarters.

Although couched in somewhat different terms, the two general perspectives delineated by the previous anecdote have been restated time and again during the intervening sixty–odd years since the publication of Don Segundo Sombra; the chasm between Güiraldes the gifted writer and Güiraldes the privileged landowner has never been adequately bridged.