I had an Argentine girlfriend once. Her brother beat me up and stole my cufflinks.

Argentina is a reflection of the national characters of the peoples of the Southwest Meditteranean: New Worldness vs. conservative Catholic tradition; Not always successful attempt to imitate Northern/Western European institutions of stable capitalism, discipline, sobriety, thrift, sanctity of contract, and future orientation; a sense of national grandiosity, passion, pride, and Latin impatience that leads to frustration and popular discontent with Argentina's place in the world..."we deserve more"; a national character reflecting old-fashioned honor and pride, loyalty to clan and family over meritocracy, Latin fatalism, and indiscipline, leading to weak economic and social institions, then crises, then drastic econo-politico measures from "strong leader" (spasms of authoritarianism) or external source (IMF) to counter Argentines' lack of discipline; Argentinean sense of confused identity...superior to other South American countries but inferior to European and North American countries...can't quite pull off the European model; and a love of life, drama, and romance.

Excellent short essay on Argentina. Congratulations to the author!

As to Thomas' comment, I am amazed at your cultural determinism. So, Argentina is nothing else but a "a reflection of the national characters of the peoples of the Southwest Mediterranean." Come on, are Argentineans perhaps exactly like (South) Spaniards or (South) Italians? They aren't, as you well know. The Southwest Mediterranean cultural heritage is a factor, sure, but one factor among many contributing to Argentina's history and culture. Now, the question starts to be interesting when you look at the specific differences, not at the gross similarities.

Johny Salami, you are not telling us what happened to your girlfriend. But the stealing of the cufflinks seems typical. Trust an Argentinean thief to go first (perhaps exclusively) for the elegant accessory...

Unfortunately--like most of these "Destination" articles--this essay has minimal literary content. What about Martín Fierro, Facundo, El Matadero, the short stories of Cortázar and Borges...?

"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" - A fascinating novel that was made into a couple of terrible movies, about a French Argentine clan with German relatives, in the years surrounding World War I, when Argentineans were intoxicated with their prosperity.

After reading Paul Theroux's "Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown" at Salon's recommendation, I read his "The Old Patagonian Express: By Train through the Americas."

Theroux's final chapters describe his meeting Borges in the 70's and they are touching encounters. Theroux stayed longer than he intended in Buenos Aires, dining with Borges, spending his evenings with him at his home, talking and reading Poe and Borges' poetry out loud to him.

Theroux made the short remainder of his journey by rail (which began in Boston), ending at Patagonia and at somewhat of an anti-climax. Desolately empty and stone cold, the landscape of his final destination didn't seem to mean anything other than that his trip had come to an end. He had however, fufilled an idea and its fruition was singularly Theroux - wondrous beauty alongside ugliness and the disappointment and irritation of (most) other people.

Excellent read.

Kunkel's essay is seriously incomplete in ignoring contemporary writers such as Ernesto Sábato (On Heroes and Tombs is the definitive Buenos Aires novel) and Borges's friend and occasional collaborator Adolfo Bioy Casares (and his essayist wife Victoria Ocampo, who led Argentina's counterpart to the Bloomsbury Group). Not to mention Tomás Eloy Martínez for The Perón Novel and Santa Evita.

In the 19th century, Domingo F. Sarmiento epitomized the struggle between Argentina's European heritage and New World reality. Argentina is still struggling with this.

When I was growing up in England, not so terribly long ago, the only Argentine writer read, almost religiously, by youth and their elders alike was William Henry Hudson, particularly Green Mansions, which, since its 1904 publication, has never gone out of print. Of Anglo-American parentage, he was very much the ornithologist. His first published work was Argentine Ornithology (1889)-But his tour-de-force was Green Mansions, set in the lush South American jungles the author so loved and featuring one of the rummiest characters in all of fiction, Rima the Bird Woman, with whom the narrator falls in love. It is a transporting tale with prose as rich as the jungles in which it is set.

Hudson is still well-respected in Argentine literary circles, where he his known as Guillermo Enrique Hudson, and his novel, for obvious reasons, is considered a precursor to Magical Realism. More importantly, especially in England, the book is still read and loved by young and old alike.

All one has to do to be reminded of his importance in the Anglophone world is to take a stroll through Hyde Park and behold Jacob Epstein's sculpture of Rima, looking singularly out of place, as if she just alit from another world.

Great essay about Argentina! That is exactly it.

Oh how the Argentinians love to feel superior to others in South America! Yet they aren't actually very accepted or even very similar to the inhabitants of the European countries that they try to ape.

Not previously mentioned, but worth noting, Argentina has always been a land of pervasive corruption. Even in its more recent, supposedly "democratic", era, the Mafia still run almost everything, the government is openly used to provide free handouts for politician's relatives, no one pays taxes, and you can bribe your way out of anything.

My Argentinian ex-husband was exceedingly charming and sentimental but suffered from a pervasive feeling of inferiority. Perhaps because he "survived" the dirty war, he was a pathological liar. He also was an astonishingly bald-faced hypocrite: he was autocratic and loved to make complex rules for how his employees, wife, and family members should behave, but he himself behaved atrociously.

As a recent Argentine immigrant — from Dublin, by way of San Francisco — I feel I should point (not without feeling a tad fastidious), that the photo you show of the snow topped mountain and the dusty four wheel drive, while quite definitely Patagonia, is almost certainly in Chile. Those peaks are incredibly similar to the famous Torres del Paine, their proximity to the vehicle would put that dusty road on the Chilean border by about twenty miles.

I should know I drove there from California.

While we are on the subject of Argentine literature I like Luis Felipe Noé

"En América, la conquista nunca terminó y el descubrimiento aún no ha comenzado."

In the Americas, the conquest is not yet complete, and the discovery is yet to begin.