Spanish 365: The Second Half of Cumanda

The second half of Cumanda, in my point of view, was much more eventful than the first. There were many more elements of suspense, for example at the end of chapter 11 when “Cumanda contuvo el lloro por atender y observar,” intriguing the reader to continue. Moreover, I found myself wondering how the novel would end and knew something tragic would result with the constant references to death and the several attempts made on Carlos.

The theme of relations among different cultures was a main focus of “Cumanda.” It was interesting that the love between Carlos and Cumanda was an exchange and sharing of different cultures, for example the sharing of the Christian faith and cultures of the indigenous people (for example, during the Fiesta). At the same time, this novel portrays the difficulty of mixing different cultures together and the problems they face to be accepted by the other, and moreover by society. Mera showed, through this novel, the Indian societal norms and views at that period and how the intrusion of “el blanco” was shunned upon and not accepted.

The second half of the book continued to portray Carlos’ poetic and romantic nature of speech, for example on page 190 (“jamas abandona al que pena y llora…fiemos en sus manos nuestra suerte, y vamos, vamos, Cumanda”) and on page 267. Although nice to read at times, I found it a bit tedious to read through. Futhermore, I found the events around the brother/sister or incestuous relationship between Cumanda and Carlos a rather surprising development to the storyline.

This book was a typical romantic-tragedy, but I did enjoy it since it revolved around main characters, an interesting plot, and personal matters such as the family and ethnic relations. In this sense, it was much different that previous novels I have read in Spanish 364, for example “Brevisima relacion de la destruction de las Indias” by Las Casas, which took on a completely different point of view.