The contemporary Argentinian … is suffering from a grave crisis of identity. The crisis is much more serious than the one that usually accompanies the individual who wishes that a certain man were his father but knows deep in his heart that he is not. All the apparent factors for a legitimate origin from the gaucho are present and it is only by a cruel twist of fate that the contemporary Argentinian is not even an illegitimate child of the gaucho. About all that he can claim is a literary or imaginary descent from that immensely seductive figure, unique in the history of the disappeared races of the Americas. With a great deal more complexity and morbidity than one would suspect from the non-existence of a particular much desired ancestor, the contemporary Argentine is suffering from a loss that he cannot possibly replace by any means at his disposal...