Juan Moreira

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.