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Uncategorised
1950s
Mexico
“Pancho portrays the
unsophisticated, simple, country-wise folk of a world that no longer exists.”
I am not certain that this is a historical novel, as such, although it does tell of
interesting characters and is set in the 1950s. There is no plot, no start,
middle or end. Instead the not far off 500 pages of this book are made up of vignettes
depicting life of six horse-wranglers in the ‘50s on a Mexican ranch.
Pancho is their leader, an elderly man with a wealth of experience,
his colleagues are Candido, Emilio, Jose, Gerardo, in modern terms, ‘special needs’
Julian and Juan, son of the ‘next door’ farmer.
Uneducated, but full of wisdom, humour and compassion, this
big-hearted group of men go about their daily chores which we see through Pancho's
philosophy of his own life. The 1950s were a time of change, post-war and on
the brink of modernisation when air-travel was becoming possible and the horse
was giving way to the motor car, when movies started to be made in colour and
TV was about to become the norm. Some of the ‘scenes’ are short, in places only
two pages, but we experience the heat of the mid-day sun, the long nights, the
tough work, and share the humour, emotion and the camaraderie of this
interesting group.
I have no idea what Mexico, or beyond my TV memories of Rawhide, Bonanza or the High Chaparral what a Mexican ranch or a
wrangler’s life was like, but assuming this novel has accuracy, these pages
gave me some insight. Despite it being a somewhat hefty tome, Pancho is a warm-hearted read.
© Ellen Hill
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