Customer Reviews

The Carreta

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Sixty years ago, Traven wrote books that taught you everything you needed to know about what Mexico and, indirectly, America were doing to Mexico's indigenous populations. Though often translated awkwardly from his original German into English, Traven's prose sings. As a leftist who fled a death sentence issued by the post-World War freikorps of Bavaria, he sympathized with the Indians of Mexico, learned their language, and told their story in such a compelling way that it will change the way you see the world. Traven is best known for writing "The Treasure of Sierra Madre," but his so-called jungle books, like "The Carreta," are perhaps his real masterpieces.

B. Traven, a German leftist who fled the chaos of post World War I Bavaria for the New World, wrote many novels of Mexico, including the movie immortalized by Bogart, "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre". This is the first one I've read, so don't put me on your list of Traven experts. I have learned that this novel, THE CARRETA, is part of a series. I hope that the characters continue from novel to novel, but have no idea if this is true. If they do not, then this book is a very slight effort, in terms of a story and sequence of events. A young Indian man, a peon on a hacienda, is traded off by his patrón during a card game. His new boss runs a cartage company---the workers are on the road all their lives, and due to an extreme system of debt slavery, can never escape their hard existence. Andrés, the young man, finds a young woman at a fiesta and makes her his wife. They love, but must part when Andrés learns that his father, back on the plantation, has been sold to a timber cutting firm deep in the jungles, a fate that nearly nobody can survive. This is the entire plot of the book. What makes the book interesting is the great amount of detail the author gives on Mexican life in the time of Porfirio Dias, the dictator who was overthrown in 1910. The land, the lives of the simple people, Indian legends, the details of work are all depicted in beautiful prose interspersed with considerable irony on the cruelties and injustices of the whole system. Some people might find the political slant not to their taste, but how could you ignore or accept a system that kept more than half of the Mexican people in virtual slavery all their lives ? If you read this book, which is set in the southern state of Chiapas, and wonder how the Revolution changed everything, think about what has been taking place in that very state during the 1990s. The Indians are still in a state of armed revolt against the landlords, who still think that the native peoples are theirs to use and discard. If you link the times described by Traven and the news of today, you will find that his novel remains entirely relevant to our times.

The Carreta, the second of B Traven's Jungle Series,is the tale of a young Indian peon, Andres. The story shows the way the Indian people of Mexico became serfs or peons to the wealthy Hispanic landowners. The corrrupt government of Porfirio Dias allowed for over half of the Mexican population to live as virtual debt slaves, always toiling for the landowners. Andres's family, like all peon families, must work in the fields for the rich and get further and further in debt. Eventually he is traded in a poker game by his master. He then leaves his family and becomes a carreta driver. These folks drove simple oxen carts across the Mexican frontier, carrying goods from village to village. During one of the trips, he meets a homeless displaced Indian girl of around 15 and they become man and wife.

Traven paints a picture of economic and social oppression, fueled by racism and illiteracy, and ripe for socialist revolution. He tells us of a nation that is rotten from the President on down, living like parasites on the toil and sweat of the poor. A simple story in many ways, the focus of Traven is frequently in the details and explanations of the economic conditions rather than on character to character interactions. These interactions interest him most when there is injustice.

This book was not as oriented toward teaching the reader the economic system of oppression that Traven's first book, Government, exemplifies. However, it is a good read.

La Carreta is a great read, second in the jungle series. The first five books set the stage and the book, "General from the Jungle" is the climax. Each book stands alone well enough, however, by reading the entire series, preferrebly in order, a greater understanding of what created the conditions for revolution can be garnered. Characters from previous books have cameo appearances in later books, so some previous knowledge of them makes it more interesting. Tierra y Libertad!