Expectations

The most subtle and noteworthy aspect of this week’s reading was how much sense it made.   The book was, for the most part, exactly what I expected.  The question that I’m forced to ask here is: Why?   Considering Restall’s seven myths of the conquest it seems as though, at least Diaz’s account of the conquest of Mexico, has had a profound impact on the way that epic/ heroic fiction was written subsequently in Western Europe.   I really enjoy a good fictional read (i.e. Louis L’Amour, Robert Jordan, or George R.R. Martin) and Diaz seemed so familiar that I am forced to acknowledge the debt I owe to his work.   Without his style, force, and clarity the types of books that I enjoy today might not have been written the same way.  Aspects of the seven myths, built I think at least in part by his narrative style, show up over and over again in the types of fictional works that I read and even in popular television programs.  This is the stuff that the dreams of people in the United States are made of.  Being accounts written by a Spanish conquistador, I must also ask myself why a “foreign” work could have had so much influence on the English speaking world.   The answer that first comes to mind is guilt.  Why couldn’t the English speakers have had such a glorious conquest?  Perhaps it’s this need, coupled with the tenacity, style, and flair in Diaz’s work that have made it so influential.  My current answer may be too simplistic, but hopefully as I think on it more I will be able to develop a better hypothesis.