In which Papa Hemingway is being revisited, Miami is likened to a modern Garden of Eden and the crucial question is asked : where does all the money come from?
The very
last of these is the liberal haven Key West where Papa Hemingway settled down
in the 1930s in order to be as close to Cuba as possible without having to deal
with the Cubans themselves. I have to admit that I belong to the non-negligible
category of people that is more fascinated by the extravagant Papa Legend than
by Papa’s books. I wish I could say that I truly enjoy the latter, but to me
Hemingway’s prose, though so often praised precisely on this account, appears
frugal and simplified to the point of sterility (the only one of his books that
truly captivates me from the beginning to the end is The old Man and the Sea). I thus fail to fathom its hidden depths
and underlying symbols, of which critics and connoisseurs have spoken so
eloquently.
It’s therefore all the more surprising, and indeed gratifying to be able to marvel at the titles of his books, since they are almost invariably (A Movable Feast is in my opinion a notable exception) charged with rich suggestion. I don’t know if he made them all up by himself, if it was his editor, his wives, or some other person with a particular genius who invented them. Whatever the case: they’re just perfect. Please do me the favour of listening to the inner reverberations of titles such as: The Sun also Rises; not ‘Farewell to Arms’, but precisely A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Absolutely not ‘The Snow of Kilimanjaro’, which would have been trite and commonplace, but again, precisely, The Snows of Kilimanjaro; The Old Man and the Sea; and my personal favourite: Across the River and into the Trees. It’s very possible that I shall one day have to change my appraisal of Hemingway’s works, based on yes, unprejudiced, but also limited and, above all, face value reading. I do wish it would happen. For now I stay with the titles that have always haunted my imagination.
If Hemingway’s prose sometimes, per chance, seems flat, this is even more accurate about the Florida ground he walked. From Jacksonville in the north to Key West in the south, Florida is not only thoroughly developed but also flat like a pancake – the only hills you’d come across are either made from landfill garbage or they are highway overpasses. South of Jupiter, to the north of West Palm Beach, palm trees, precisely, gradually come to dominate over and against various ferns. This is not just because of the latitude but has to do with the Mexican Gulf Stream which runs closely along the coast to this point and then branches off into the Atlantic Ocean, in this way ensuring South Florida’s year round tropical climate. A predominant eastern trade wind, heated by the surrounding tropical waters, effectively shields off southeast Florida from the incursion of northern winter storms, making cold spells rare and almost relished as a temporary contrast.
Original nature scenery on the other hand – exception made for the inhospitable Everglades – is scarce in the southern part of Florida. Seen from the air, the immensity of Miami-Dade and Broward County’s two-dimensional urban grid becomes apparent; it might even dawn on you that you don’t need to be stranded in Alaska to realise how infinitesimally small your personal, physical existence really is. A look at this cityscape at night from an airplane reveals a geometrically precise system of highways and other thoroughfares lit up by endless rows of white and red light dots. There are myriads of cars on the roads even late into the evening. They meet, part and blare their horns in intersections enclosing square residential blocks, like the symmetrical arrangement of atoms as revealed by the electron microscope in quest of the vanishing point of matter.
 |
| 1 Å (Ångström) = 10−10 (one ten-billionth of a metre) or 0.1 nanometre. |
What you don’t always think about when you (a single ant within the entire colony) drive past one residential block after the other, which in any given neighbourhood, and in the absence of topographical land marks, all have a tendency to look the same, is that the number of villas and their adjacent gardens is not just accumulating numerically but by the square: what seemed to you a row of 15 houses enclosed within the intersections of main roads in reality is a cluster of 150 residences. This exponential repetition ad infinitum adds an almost hallucinatory dimension to the city, as splendid and monotonous as the ocean surrounding it, and gives a vertiginous idea of the staggering number of humans in this once unforgiving marshland which, wherever asphalt and concrete subside, has an artificial tendency to transform into a tropical garden.
It really is an Eden of sorts. There are many Adams and many Eves. There might be a God-Father somewhere too, and an archangel announcing his will and ultimate condemnation of mankind. But the most conspicuous other character in this scenario remains the snake holding out his promise of the apple. Not only are there many explicit casinos and gambling spots. All of South Florida really is a gigantic money making machine. This is more paradoxical than it might seem at first glance. Some of the money is obviously made here, most notably by the commerce generated in the harbour area at the estuary of the Miami River. It’s the first East Coast port of call for cheap Chinese merchandise to Wal-Mart and also home to an impressive fleet of Caribbean cruise ships. Next to it there is the Miami downtown, featuring a wealth of bank and corporate skyscrapers. Consequently there is a constant need of various kinds of maintenance crews – sun, wind and salt take a relentless toll on any man-made structure. Aspiring to be North America’s only tropical Paradise, the place also is in constant need of gardening, gardening and more gardening. Finally there is the tourist trade of Miami Beach.
But apart from these evident sources of income, Miami-Dade County possesses no real industry. Conclusion: the vast middle class apparently thriving here must either have made enough money to be financially secure, and/or be engaged in the social service sector. A whole society built on providing services – for what, for whom? The inevitable question rears its head: what do all these people live off? The answer is probably akin to what I imagine applies to Los Angeles on the other side of the continent: there is a giant influx of money and investment from other places gathering and circulating in the internal economy of South Florida. Money that doesn’t primarily come from the sales of local dairies, orange juice and avocados, but from all the peoples of the north who have saved throughout their lives to be able to buy a place in the sun, in the rays of which they now bask hoping to spend some more of their money. This said, in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial depression, an astonishing number of brand new condominium high rises still gape eerily empty all year round on the sandy eastern beaches, meaning someone must recently have lost tons of money by investing in them.
The text above is an excerpt from:
http://www.amazon.com/Incidents-Travel-Latin-America-Holger/dp/1910524557/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1463168828&sr=8-4&keywords=incidents+of+travel+in+latin+america
No comments:
Post a Comment