XX. mendeko euskal literatura - Etxepare, Euskal Institutua

Euskal literaturaren ataria, basqueliterature.com
Portal de la literatura vasca, basqueliterature.com
Basque Literature Portal, basqueliterature.com
to que Dominique siente hacia el País Vasco es equiparable
al extrañamiento que en ocasiones muestra
hacia su nuevo hogar, los Estados Unidos. En el que
es quizás el más citado pasaje del libro, el comienzo,
Laxalt nos dice que su padre era un pastor y que las
montañas eran su hogar. Las montañas son un lugar
de frontera, un lugar en suspensión, un tercer lugar si
se prefiere; delimitan pero, al mismo tiempo, unen.
Dominique se encuentra entre dos culturas, dos
mundos que nada tienen que ver el uno con el otro,
y sin embargo se encuentran unidos en su persona.
La suya es ahora una realidad en plural (pero, ¿qué
realidad no los es?), por lo que no admite ser definido
en singular. De ahí que se resista a ser entendido
sólo en base a su pasado o, mejor dicho, a cierto pasado.
Posteriormente, Laxalt publicó la trilogía basada
en las experiencias de una familia vasca emigrada
al oeste americano relatada por un miembro de la
misma, Pete Indart, y compuesta por los siguientes
títulos: The Basque Hotel (1989), Child of the Holy
Ghost (1992) y The Governor’s Mansion (1994).
Sweet Promised Land, which has been described as
faithful rendition of the experience of the emigrant
who returns home to his birthplace after many years
away, is a record of Laxalt’s own impressions on his
first visit to the Basque Country in the company of
his father, Dominique. Whatever the case, one cannot
say that Sweet Promised Land is the testimony
of an assimilated immigrant. The strangeness Dominique
feels for the Basque Country is matched by the
strangeness he continues to feel on occasion in his
new home, the United States. In perhaps the most
cited part of the work, the beginning, Laxalt tells us
his father was a sheepherder and that his home was
the hills. Mountains are a frontier land, a suspended
place, a third place if one prefers; they divide but,
at the same time, they also unite. Dominique finds
himself between two cultures, two worlds that have
nothing in common with one another, and yet they
come together in him. His is now a plural reality
(although what reality isn’t?) which is why he cannot
be defined in the singular. This is why he resists only
being defined by his past or, to put it another way,
by a specific past. Later, Laxalt published a trilogy based
on the experiences of a Basque family that had
emigrated to the American West as told by one of its
members, Pete Indart, and made up of: The Basque
Hotel (1989), Child of the Holy Ghost (1992) and The
Governor’s Mansion (1994).
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