Visions of the Past, Courtesy of Todorov

Once again, I'm horribly early with the post comparatively but I found something interesting and figured I should go ahead and post about it.
First, who knew Columbus was so keen on Jerusalem? All we really learned is how he was backed for the trip and the basic details, he went, mistook what he saw, actually found (not discovered) a new continent not Asia like he wanted, and started the ruin of the native peoples. And the "In 1492, Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue...". I found Todorov's assertions that Columbus really wanted the gold to fund another Crusade really interesting and his evidence very compelling. Speaking of evidence, I found it rather amusing Columbus was so dead set on everything he saw indicating he was right. A strange mixture of faith playing into conviction and events this time around. Columbus seems to have fallen into the trap that The Sparrow folks did except he seems to have wanted it more than they did. He "knew" that gold was in the Indies, he "found" the Indies, so gold was around somewhere. As Todorov said "no longer consists in seeking the truth but in finding confirmations of a truth known in advance" (19). A river looks like another river that has gold, it has gold too. Except, oops, the other river really didn't have gold! I'm not sure whether to bang my head against a wall at Columbus' thinking or feel sorry for the guy, or perhaps impressed he had such firm, unceasing belief.
Second, in light of all the linguist discussion in The Sparrow, I wanted to mention Todorov's discussion of Columbus' obsession with names. He has a blatant disregard for the inhabitants of the islands he runs into, renaming the islands based on his own hierarchy of important elements of life. Instead of exploring, Todorov explains how he immediately planted a flag and renamed the island he first set foot on (28). He's more interested in classifying and categorizing things via names than exploring or trying to explain what he sees, thus his interest in names. Columbus also seems to have pulled a Prince and gone to a symbol for his name, a rather complex and precise one at that (28).

It seems to me that after Todorov's book, Columbus was still guilty of not understanding what he'd quite literally run into based on his own very narrow view of the world. At least the group in The Sparrow was trying to take in everything and then failed. Columbus didn't even attempt the trying.