About book The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1984)
A fantastic little story about American workers in 1920s Mexico, attempting to find their fortune whilst feverishly guarding their secret accumulation of wealth from sadistic, roaming bandits. Mexico in this novel is a place where working people are thrown about from poor paying job to poor paying job, with no place to live in except camps and hotels, and where the only cheer is found in retelling stories of glorious hidden riches. It's funny, gritty (for its time), humane and gripping.Robbery, a constantly manifest threat from bandits, is a central metaphor in this novel for the state of the land the three male protagonists, Dobbs, Curtin and Howard, find themselves fighting for survival in. At one point, at the end of their work, the three discuss how to leave the land they have been upturning for gold, and the elderly Howard asks the younger men to consider that nature may appreciate being restored to the state it was in before they came. This merely bemuses the younger men, and they can only think of self-interested reasons for covering their tracks, e.g. if they wish to return to it in the future. Howard realises that in reality they are robbing the earth's resources just the same as the bandits threaten to rob them. The massive demand for casual labor and short term projects made possible by enormous capital are as unsustainable as the actions of the bandits, too. By the end of the story, robbers are robbed themselves, and the great efforts to obtain the booty is cut short just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Traven's point, I think, is that work is something which can unite people and give life a purpose, but when you work only for gold only the worst parts of human nature can come out, and nobody really wins, who plays this game, except for a handful of winners and a whole lot of pipedreaming losers (who are, in this setting, brutally dispatched of).Some quotes: No man has ever originated an idea. Any new idea is the crystallization of the ideas of thousands of other men. Then one man suddenly hits on the right word and the right expression for the new idea. And as soon as the word is there, hundreds of people realize that they has this idea long before. When an enterprise takes definite shape in a man's mind, one can safely say that numbers of men all round him cherish the same or a similar plan. That is why movements catch on and spread like wildfire.(p.46)--All that might not have been so bad. The worst was that by taking out a licence [for a gold mining project], however careful you might be, you were pretty sure to bring bandits about your ears - those bandits who reap without sowing, who lie in wait for weeks and months while their victims do the hard work, and then fall upon them as soon as they load up to go, and take their gold from them. And not only their gold, but their donkeys and even the shirts from their backs. It is not easy to find the way back to civilisation without donkeys or trousers or shirts or boots. Often the bandits, realizing this, are kind enough to take their lives too rather than leave them in such a perplexity. Who is to say where the poor wretches have got to? The bush is so vast and so impenetrable and its dangers so many. Sometimes there is a search for a missing man. And before the search is even on foot the bush has disposed of the body almost to the last bone. From this last bone it has to be made out who the man was to whom the bone belonged. And the culprits, of course, will be brought to justice. But for that, they must first be caught. And because of this, the bandit's trade is an easy one, much easier than getting gold by the sweat of his brow.(p.64)
Traven’s classic novel, which became a classic movie, about greed, gold, and violence in the Mexican wilderness, is a thoughtful, entertaining morality tale. The movie followed Traven’s plot and dialogue pretty closely, except for some variation in the ending where the film collapses scenes for economy sake, and for a couple of long, but entertaining mining yarns told by Howard, the grizzled prospecting veteran. So if you have seen the movie, you know not only the plot and ending but you can see and hear the actors (Bogart, Tim Holt, the great Walter Huston, Alfonso Bedoya) performing the classic lines (“I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!”) B. Traven, whose biography and even his identity remains a bit of a mystery, has a strong, punchy prose style (Hemingway meets Hammett). He also has a partisan, though not naïve, view of those who thrive and fail along the frontiers of civilisation, where the very rich and powerful, usually by proxy, and the very poor and often desperate play a stacked game where the winners are the usual suspects and the losers everyone else. Howard is wise to the fact that there are two enemies, maybe three, but only one truly matters. The wealthy corporations, the Church, the bandits might get you but if you’re smart and careful you can beat them. The enemy that ultimately gets you is yourself, your own greed, it will turn you against your friends, your partners, yourself. That’s Howard’s warning to his partners Dobbs and Curtin and, when the trio find their fortune and only need to get to Durango safely with it, suspicion and madness emerges from greed’s fertile imagination. Traven has knowledge and affection for the Mexican landscape and people that is evidenced in his writing. Lovely descriptions of the mountains and deserts, of Mexican village life, bring the setting not just authenticity but, as they say, almost rise to the level of a critical character in the drama. Traven occasionally slips in anti-capitalist and anti-Church digs, given Mexico’s history and his sympathies, this is neither surprising nor inappropriate. They are generally brief asides and therefore not particularly disturbing to the tale he is telling. But the main story and almost all of the writing is focused, compelling and vigorous. John Huston got the movie right but B. Traven first got the novel right. The Treasure of Sierra Madre is a very good novel.
Do You like book The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1984)?
I had kept hearing about how good of an author B. Traven was by many friends, and told of the mystery that surrounds the author - (no one knowing really who B. Traven is, or even if there is more than one author, what country the author originates from or anything else).And then a friend of mine gave me a copy of this book, and I devoured it. (Not literally)The story itself is exciting, a page turner, & like a Quentin Tarantino film - it has many layers of several different stories woven throughout the novel.His writing is so descriptive you would swear that this anonymous mysterious writer had lived the stories he writes about, it definitely drags you into the atmosphere of the book. Most importantly is the way the author perfectly weaves good messages into the book, while not taking away from the story.Right after finishing the novel I watched the film, which - being a good film, it still pales in comparison to the book, not to mention that the film omits a lot from the book, and changes the story around a lot.After reading "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", I bypassed all the books I've had on my to-read list (which I never do!) and went straight for a borrowed copy of his book "The Death Ship" which so far, is turning out to be another classic.
—j to the muthafuckin R
What a find this is. Most anyone is aware of the John Huston directed/Humphrey Bogart starring classic movie by this name. Many don't know that it's based on a 1935 novel written by a character named B. Traven. This guy was the whole deal.He may have been born under a different name in Germany in 1882. he may have been a mexican revolutionary. He used several names, he may even have been on the set of the movie. He may have died in 1969.Be that as is may, he wrote a crackerjack of a novel. This book has made it's way into my top ten. If you've seen the movie, you know it's about Fred Dobbs and two cronies mining gold in Mexico and how it works on their souls and minds. The book is all of that and so much more. A story of men and greed, a history of Mexico, a history of gold mining, and bolshevik manifesto all rolled into one. A terrific book..I'm thrilled I found it...you will be too.
—Jim Kelsh
Hal Croves, agent to novelist B. Traven, visited the set of his client's film the treasure of the sierra madre. croves had a german accent. he aroused the suspicion of many people, including director john huston. croves swiftly disappeared only to resurface in the 1950s in mexico city. upon his death in 1969 it was discovered that no record of birth for Hal Croves ever existed. Ret Marut was involved in leftist politics in germany in the 1920s. he was the editor of the radical magazine der ziegelbrenner. in 1922 he was sentenced to death for his involvement in the bavarian soviet republic. he escaped to london. he spent time in prison in brixton. upon his release, he went to work as a fireman on a ship. he was never heard from again. copies of der ziegelbrenner were found in Hal Croves's archive. Traven Torsvan first emerged in mexico in 1925. he was involved in a number of archaeological digs, showed much interest in the welfare of mexico's indian population, and ran an inn where he was known to the locals as el gringo. the mexican journalist Luis Spota discovered a bank account in the name of B. Traven, operated by Torsvan. when Spota suggested that Torsvan was B. Traven, Torsvan disappeared from history. Otto Feige was the name given to police when they questioned Marut in london in 1923. in the 1970s Feige's brother was located and confirmed that a picture of Marut/Croves was his brother Otto who disappeared in 1905. their father worked in a factory that made coal briquettes. der ziegelbrenner is translated as 'the brickburner'. B. Traven had been photographed once. his voice exists on one recording. he had a german accent.other pseudonyms used by Croves/Marut/Torsvan/Traven: Albert Otto Max Wienecke, Fred Gaudet, Goetz Ohly, Anton Raderscheidt, Robert Bek-Gran, Hugo Kronthal, Wilhelm Scheider, Heinrich Otto Becker. if we follow the timeline from Feige to Marut to Torsvan to Croves, we find B. Traven drifting between the cracks like a literary phantom. we imagine Marut scribbling notes for novels between political rallies. or Torsvan, when all is silent and the inn's guests are asleep, plotting out the anti-capitalist pro-anarchist series of Traven's 'jungle' novels. we imagine Hal Croves having quite the laugh on the set of sierra madre as Croves, imaginary agent to B. Traven, the imaginary writer. other theories claim that Marut/Croves/Torsvan/Traven was, in fact, the writer Jack London. some say he was Ambrose Bierce. others contend the true identity is Adolfo Mateos, former president of mexico. or that B. Traven is a name shared by many people, which could explain the anti-semitism of the early novels and the humanism of the later ones. others wonder why, if Croves lived until 1969, did Traven's output end by 1940. additionally: the cotton pickers was published in 1925, one year after Torsvan arrived in mexico -- could he, in that time, have absorbed such a rich sense of mexican culture and life?Bolaño enthusiasts will notice something familiar: a german author who disappears and resurfaces throughout history, changing identities along the way, only to settle in mexico? B. Traven is, of course, Archimboldi. the only known photograph of B. Traven: [image error]
—brian
