B. Traven Books

I have been a big fan of the movie for years but had never read the book. Well, I have to say that the book is even better than the movie, and I still love the movie. If you have seen the movie It will be hard not to imagine Bogie and walter Huston in the main roles. And this is not just because they are already planted in your mind, I think director John Huston did an excellent job of casting the movie. Anyway, I highly recommend this book!

This book is the basis for John Huston's film of the same name. Both author and director share a love of Mexico and it's people. Having seen the movie many times it was interesting to come to many familiar parts of the story knowing what was going to happen and enjoy on the page verbatim bits of dialogue. The story takes awhile to get going as Traven sets up his characters but it builds to a powerful ending proving once and for all that man's greed destroys his soul. There are some who have criticized Traven's socialistic leanings but I don't think they get in the way of the story at all...in fact, I think they prove his point that unregulated capitalism is the bane of western civilization. But enough of that - this is a timeless story that meanders a bit so it won't appeal to casual readers. If your reading tastes lean to anything recent, this book will probably be too slow; in that case, watch the movie - you will get the same point in less than 2 hours. However, if you like Literature you will appreciate Traven's insights to human nature and his excellent story-telling method. I myself couldn't read this without putting the movie out of my mind...if someone tells you not to think of pink elephants...well, you get the idea. All in all, this novel is well written but could've been a bit shorter.

If you have seen and enjoyed the John Huston film of the same name, and believe it to be one of the greatest films ever produced, then it is mandatory to procure and read this book.

This review is written from the perspective of someone who has seen the film at least a half dozen times before reading the novel for the first time. The film is mostly faithful to the novel, so no nasty surprises await those weaned on the film. While less dramatic in some ways, the book provides a better explanation for the motivations of the characters. This necessarily leads to significant, though not unpleasant, changes in some of their fates compared to the film (or perhaps, better said, vice-versa). Some of the more interesting scenes also are expanded, such as the encounter with the bandits at the camp, and more background is provided about the bandits themselves and the efficient and clever way that they are ultimately dealt with by the local people.

Though a little slow going at first, once accustomed to Traven's writing style and well into the meat of the story, the feeling of the realization that a very special experience is in store for you simply builds and builds and continues doing so until the satisfying conclusion of the book is reached. This is a masterpiece, a gourmet treat for the soul, a book to relish during a lazy morning spent in a soft bed, or sitting by a cozy fireplace.

As in many screen adaptations, seemingly ancillary elements were culled for the film. However, those elements, namely the description of the factors which led to the oppression of the native peoples of Mexico, provides a pervasive, unifying theme throughout the novel. This lends an enriching, interesting counterpoint to the story of the central characters.

There is a tiny bit of information given about the mysterious B. Traven, just enough to make you want to learn more. A speculative look at his identity is presented in the extras which are included with the newly-released reissue of the film on DVD.

The stirring and adventurous novel, "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" was penned by enigmatic author B. Traven. Traven a political anarchist active in the 20's and 30's was thought to be of German descent and was purported to be the illegitimate son of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Nonetheless he lived for many years in Mexico and as seen by his most celebrated work, had an excellent working knowledge of Mexican culture and society.

His novel which served as the framework for the John Huston classic film starring Bogey and Walter Huston, greatly embellished the story seen on the screen. His tale of adventure, hardship and greed was admixed with political commentary as Mexico was emerging from years of colonial rule and subsequent exploitation by big industry. The oil business was seen ruling the economics of the region described in the book.

Traven's ingenious blending of the gripping tale of his main characters, Dobbs, Curtin and Howard braving the wilds of unexplored jungle regions of Mexico in quest for gold with social commentary was very effective. He was thereby able to expose his points concerning the Mexican social and political climate. He also didactically pointed out that life's riches are not solely based on precious metals but also on the fellowship, relationships and respect among mankind.

I bought the The Treasure of the Sierra Madre at a small used bookstore that was moving across town so that they marked all of their fiction half off (half off of used prices - awesome). So I left with about 20 books for about $20 - $25. I was grabbing things at random that looked at all interesting or at all slightly familiar. One of those books was The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

I had seen parts of the movie years ago on TV, but not enough to remember any plot points. My dad had a tendency to habitually switch channels between five movies all at once so for the longest time I thought John Wayne and the scene where they blow up the bridge during "Bridge over the River Kwai" were scenes in EVERY movie.

The book was slow going at first. The characters are introduced and they take their time to finally get to the part where they're prospecting. As I read it I thought, "yes. There's lots of social inference in here." But then continued to read on taking it all at face value instead of trying to over analyze everything. It's more fun to think about it for a month later and think, "Man, that's so true. We'll all turn against each other in an instant if money is involved. tsk."

I enjoyed the characters, I felt frustrated for them as they fell into paranoia and insanity. I kept thinking, "Which one is Bogart? Is that Bogart?" And when the one guy **spoiler** gets his head cut off, I was like 'Whaa? For real? That's pretty intense." I've been reading a lot of Beat writers a lot lately, and the Mexico that Traven describes is a lot different from Kerouac's or Burroughs' Mexico - they tend to romanticize the poverty, where the guys in this book are actually living the miner hardships. Mexico's a lot better when you have a trust fund, huh, Burroughs?

And yes. I was so happy that the famous `badges' line is actually in the text. I pictured Micky Dolenz saying it from a skit in the Monkees TV show that I used to watch after school on Nickelodeon. I laughed and laughed.

By chance I came upon Traven at the library when I noted that he had authored "Treasure of Sierra Madre," a film classic that I automatically associate with Hollywood's old Bogey.

Not knowing anything more than that I picked-up "The Bridge in the Jungle," and what I found most fascinating was finding a story that so honestly stripped away cultural biases and opened a window to another universe. It revealed the dignity of a community dealing with death of a young boy in an obscure jungle town in early nineteenth century Mexico, and it also provided a vivid account of a proud Aztec culture on the threshold of extinction.

I wish I could see more modern American writers, who, like Traven, would more readily examine how cultural biases skew our understanding and appreciation of the quiltwork of cultures that inhabit our amazing World.

I confess that I am a major afficionado of B. Traven. My politics have mellowed over the years but I enjoy Traven's political perspective. I believe B. Traven was an ararchist at heart. He attacked big government and big business as evil but saw the uncorrupted individual as nobel and good. In the rural Mexican Indian community he found, for himself, the most ideal form of government he had ever encountered. His Jungle Books were a tale of conflict between good and evil; peasant and capitalism. His book, The Bridge in the Jungle, is his ode to the Indian peasant community. He brings us into their midst throught his vagabond American who stumbles upon a small village at the time a tragedy is unfolding. A young boy has drowned and we witness their suffering and their coming together. We see the corruption of their society by misunderstood influences from the outside world. The example I remember best is the musician who, when asked to play something during the funeral march, comes up with "Yes We have no Bananas". Neither the musician nor anyone else except our American narrator comprehends the total inappropriateness of the song. All in all, a beautiful story of a disappearing society.

In this book, Traven captures the essence of comunity life in a village in the jungles of southern Mexico. I use the term "village" loosely. The community is described in the book as a nameless group of huts beside a nameless river.

An American identified only as Gale travels to this remote place to hunt alligators. He looks up an old acquaintance named Sleigh (a minor character who deserves to have an entire book devoted to him). Sleigh welcomes him and gives him a place to stay.

On the second evening of Gale's stay, Sleigh and Gale attend a community dance in the yard of one of the huts. During the festivities, a young mother searches for her child, casually at first and then frantically. The entire community and the neighboring communities soon join in the search. Hours later, all hope of finding the boy alive is gone.

The narrator, Gale, observes the interactions and rituals and meditates upon each detail. Thinking upon the poverty-stricken but emotionally-rich lives within this simple community, he challenges organized religion and society to come up with something better.

In this book, tragedy brings into sharp focus the most meaningful aspects of life, death, grief and community. For a book which takes 36 chapters to cover a three-day period, it is surprisingly fast-paced. Traven expresses the deepest of concepts and most poignant of emotions in remarkably simple language. His book is nothing short of a humanist masterpiece.

This book was dedicated by Traven to the mothers of the world. It is a cold, crude and, at the same time, compasionate and tender view on a child's death and the terrible, extreme pain it produces on his mother. It also describes the quite particular, "uncontaminated" and honest reaction the event creates among a small Indian community in Chiapas. All this is told by Gales, the main character, an American adventurer that hardly tries to undertand what is actually going on and how he feels about it.

Although the plot is very simple, this novel has some passages of an extraordinary literary intensity. It is also full of irony and sometimes sarcasm too.

Well, it can be said The Bridge in the Jungle is a sad, tragic novel but it is beautifully written and that is what matters.

"The Bridge in the Jungle" is one of those strange books you don't know how to respond to at first. On one hand it's absolutely tragic and, on the other, it's filled with some of the funniest passages imaginable. More or less condensed into a twenty-four hour period, Traven describes how an Indian community bands together, sometimes with folly but often with strength, when a young boy disappears into the bush.

Throughout the story Traven gives an intimate account of peasant life in southern Mexico, nevering missing a detail of how the campesinos live, think and act. In fact the narrative is filled with so many astute observations that you feel, at times, Traven works better as an anthropologist than as a novelist.

But, unfortunately, some of these observations sound a little sentimental. It's the only work by Traven that seems to run in circles, at times even becoming boring. He praises the spiritualism of Indians one too many times and focusses on their diet rather than moving on with the plot.

He does, however, redeem himself with the character of Sleigh, an expat who's made the jungle his home. He's like a good-natured version of Kurtz -- wise, crazy, but harmless.

On top of all this, Traven makes his usual attacks against the oil industry and organized religion.

If you enjoyed any of his "jungle books," then gives this one a read.

Traven's Jungle series is the gripping saga of the Mexican struggle for hope and dignity.

This is a spellbinding and disturbing story about the abuse suffered by the indians of southern Mexico at the hands of the large logging companies as well as the more "elite" classes. The translation is flawed, however. For example "jefecito" is translated as "little chief" which, while being literally correct is not what is meant which is "dear chief", a term of respect given by the "inferior" indian to his boss.

Read this in a British translation many years ago. After all these years it remains for me the most memorable of the "jungle" novels by Traven. Of course, all of them are exceptional, and all should be read. This novel has the ring of truth, a truth that indicts the comfortable and complacent, a truth from which most of us would like to avert our gaze, but truth nonetheless. This is Traven at his most powerful.

This superb novel is one of several "jungle books" by the author that describes exploitation and debt slavery among the impoverished Indians of Southern Mexico in the early 20th Century.

The story centers on Celso, an illiterate young Indian trying to earn enough money to buy a wife. Celso works two years on a ranch, only to lose most of his savings in a quasi-legal swindle. He then undertakes a dangerous trip into the jungle, and contracts to work in a jungle logging camp - called a Monteria. After two years of ceaseless labor on the Monteria he tries to return home with his savings to marry. Once again he is cheated, this time by an under-handed conspiracy involving agents, contractors, and the law. Celso then tries to adjust to his situation as he joins the forced march of fellow pseudo-slaves deep into the jungle to their new Monteria. Readers quickly identify with Celso as he attempts to control his life despite an unfair system that repeatedly cheats and abuses people like him.

Author B. Traven (1890-1969) wrote with great sympathy for the impoverished Indians of Mexico, as well as other exploited workers. Traven held leftist/anarchist views, and as usual, exposes the dark sides of human nature, racial bigotry, and capitalist exploitation.

This is the third in a series of books written by Traven. They are usually called the Jungle Novels. In the first book; Government, there is a detailed explanation of the social and economic structure under the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. We see how Indian peon work on farms as serfs, always in dept to the large land owners. In some ways the first book reminded me of the books of Victor Hugo where he combines social science with novel.

In the second book; The Carreta, a young man makes his living traveling the roads of Mexico with an ox drawn cart full of goods owned by his master.

This third novel in the series is actually better than the first two in some ways. In the first novel, Traven gives a tremedous amount of social commentary, which is good, but the characters lack the cohesion and depth of a novel. In the second novel, a romance between Andres and a young runaway Indian girl becomes a marriage, but they experience one challenge after another in a system that is rigged against them.

In this third novel, Celso, a young Indian man who has assumed his father's debts and has gone to work in the mahogony plantations of Southern Mexico, must survive under the cruelest and most brutal of conditions. Celso is a more heroic character than characters in the first two novels. He is heroic in assuming his father's debts. He has a critical consciousness that allows him to make judgements about the system in which he is trapped. He begins to try to figure a way out of the system instead of resigning his fate to daily back breaking toil and death. The reader dearly wants him to escape. Therefore the reader becomes more emotionally involved in his struggel to escape from the man-destroying experiences of the Monteria, the mahogany plantations. Celso has a sense of justice and injustice that allows him to look beyond his personal circumstance and at the circumstances that entrap his people.

A great book for the ESL classroom. My community college students were motivated to memorize their parts and stay after class to practice. Fun play, highly recommended.

My adult ESL students thoroughly enjoyed using 10,000 Baskets as a class text. Based on a classic story about quality of life, the play contains humor, action, and great language practice. Preview, comprehension, and extension activities are included. This play and its companion volumes provide a wonderful springboard for creative teachers who want to step up the excitement and joy in language learning.

I bought this book by the table area in the back where the music was on. I thought it was gonna be boring but i spent my last moneys on it. I read the first page and busted two nuts all over my self. It's about a guy who has to take this thing to romania and kill a guy with himself air point. After he gets on a plane he ends up falling. Can it see them there? How could he know that it was ended up in that patio? Good thing gotta read it there, too.

A New Orleans born sailor's ship left without him after a night's stop, taking all his forms of identifaction with it. He was sent all over Europe trying to find a place to stay, or another ship to sail on, but no one could help him becuase of the missing ID. Eventually the "Yorikke" comes by and picks him up. It's the infamous death ship that changes his life completely. The author, B. Traven, is one of the most mysterious authors there are to date. As a young man, he was known as Ret Marut, the publisher of an underground anarchist magazine in Germany called "The Brick Thrower". He kept his personal life a complete secret, including his name, which was changed multiple times. No one knows what the B stands for, or where the name even came from. This book is definitely one of my favorites. It takes no time at all to really get into it, and once you do, you can't put it down. It takes you on a journey across Europe with the main character, and then onto the ship. It goes into great detail once on the "Yorikke" and you really get a feeling of what the other hopeless sailors are going through. This book is really unforgetable.

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I grew up in Mexico, and know first hand how life goes in a mexican pueblo. B. Traven really impressed me with his narrative, and his knowledge of the way of living of the mexican indian people. I loved every single story and Mr. Traven books have been praised and are highly recommended in Mexico. I personally recommend this book, it is funny and the kind of book you can't put down.

B. Traven, in a series of short stories captures the mind and soul of rural Mexico in days likely gone forever. Each story, beginning with that of the Kidnapped Saint, draws on the moral and social code of these people in ways that draw you in wanting more. Also, Traven shows a great sense of humor in the description of the characters and events. A joy to read.

I bought this book to read the author's thoughts on Bukowski and Miller and was quite impressed with the passion and clarity of his criticism. The best thing about it for me, however, was an introduction into the works of B. Traven, a writer I had never heard of before this book. Traven, the author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and many other novels, is a forgotten treasure in our literature.

I highly recommend this slender volume to anyone interested in discussions of contemporary American literature. Be warned, though: This is not dry, academic discourse. William Joyce, for all of his erudition, is a bloody, passionate thinker and a living man. In other words, he's the perfect sort of fellow to write criticism of Bukowski, Miller and B. Traven.

To say that B. Traven captures the essence of old Mexican life outside the big cities, coming from a reviewer who has yet to set foot in Mexico, might seem a bit rich ! But I've heard that his novels and stories are required reading in Mexican schools. That may give more than just a little insight into what Mexicans think of his work. The pleasingly-written stories are well-constructed around themes of interest to everybody---history, poverty, work, love, dreams, animals, and humor. Throughout, Traven's respect for the common people of Mexico shines like an unwavering beacon, though he never idolizes them.

The title piece, about an American stuck away in remote jungles, who reads his way through a library of rare books on pre-Columbian Indian civilizations, and reaps an amazing result, cannot fail to grip readers. Stories like "Effective Medicine", "Assembly Line" and "The Cattle Drive" reflect Mexican life as seen through American (or foreign) eyes, while "Burro Trading" is one of the most humorous stories I've read in a long time. Mexico is no doubt in the grip of the 21st century already---traffic jams, pollution, the Internet, privatisation, globalisation, and sweeping political change. These stories might harken back to a simpler time of less justice but less uncertainty, when social status was more fixed and Mexican ways had not been sullied by MTV, MacDonalds, and Madonna. Mexico is no doubt better off nowadays. The view of Mexico provided by the history of the Conquest and by the broad strokes of Rivera, Orozco, and Sequeiros is not the only one. This group of stories, by a talented, somewhat-mysterious writer, ought to be much better known than they are because of their attention to smaller details on a more daily plane. I strongly recommend THE NIGHT VISITOR.