Idea Transcript
The Case of Rubem Fonseca
—The Search for Reality
Karl Erik
Schollhammer
Translated by David Shepherd and Tania Shepherd
Don’t say armpit. Say
axilla.
Fonseca, 1973, 17.
If reality
could establish direct contact with our conscious mind,
communicate immediately with things and with useless, or rather,
we would
all
be
ourselves, art
we could
if
would probably be
artists.
Fonseca, 1973, 99.
There
Rubem
are
more than enough
reasons to highlight the importance of
Fonseca (1923) within contemporary Brazilian
central to the trajectory of
literature.
contemporary prose, with 18
novels to collections of short stories. Fiowever,
it is
titles
Fonseca
is
ranging from
not the purpose of
this
essay to praise the excellence of the writer’s oeuvre, because national critics
have already taken care of
this
task.
It
more important,
is
rather,
to
understand his innovative contribution to the mainstream trends of Brazilian literature.
Among
in prose the literary
critics,
there
is
a consensus that Fonseca has consolidated
urban tendencies of the
emergence of the
literature
usually agreed that the portrait of a privileges a marginal
represents a
came
to
three decades
and thus represents the
new urban
reality, as
Brazil. It
after the
is
also
painted by Fonseca,
dimension of both violence and crime that
form of political
power
last
of a modern, metropolitan
allegorically
resistance against the authoritarian regime that
“Revolution of 1964.
5,1
In the 1970s, there were three tendencies that aligned literary approaches
with the sociopolitical situation of the time.
First,
there was a
new
prose
224
PORTUGUESE LITERARY & CULTURAL STUDIES
4/5
addressing the theme of struggle against both the military regime and clandestine
with
lives,
titles
such
A
as
Casa de Vidro by Ivan Angelo (1979),
Calor das Coisas by Nelida Pinon (1980) and Os Carbonarios by Alfredo ( 1
0
Sirkis
98 1 )- 2 The second tendency that was becoming popular was documentary by press reports which denounced the repressive violence of
realism, inspired
the police
and which avoided the censorship imposed on newspapers by using
medium. This was exemplified by
literature as the
and Lucio
Flavio: Passageiro
Assassinos (1976)
Pixote a Lei do ,
da Agonia by Jose Louzeiro, or
by Aguinaldo
“brutalism” by Alfredo Bosi. 3
It
Silva.
The
Mais Fraco
Republica dos
trend has been called
third
had already exploded
Fonsecas short story collection, Os
A
1963 with
in
Rubem
Prisioneiros.
was characterized thematically by descriptions and
“Brutalism”
among
creations of social violence
outlaws, prostitutes, bouncers, corrupt
policemen and tramps. Without making any concessions to a
commitment, Fonseca created communicative.
his
themes
His
appropriating not only
own
style,
and
which was
on
focused
stories
its
re-
tragedies,
succinct, direct,
Rio
the
literary
and by
underworld,
but also
colloquial
its
language, which, in turn, became innovative within Fonsecas “marginal
Other writers
realism.”
Drummond
and,
Joao Gilberto Noll precursor and
exposing a
later,
—such
Roberto
Loyola Brandao,
Ignacio
Sergio Sant’ Anna, Caio Fernando Abreu, as well as
—followed
twin soul,
“human
as
in the footsteps
the
of both Fonseca and his friend,
Parana-born writer,
Dalton Trevisan, by
rawness” hitherto unseen in Brazilian literature.
Besides representing a realist element within an urban literature,
seem that the exploration of violence national prose. City
life,
mainly the marginal
life
for revitalizing literary realism. Violence
was extremely
difficult to represent,
new
The
literature
and
last
was an element that
decades has been drawing a
city, as
a symbolic
overcome the limitations of
or documentary realism which, despite the fact that cultural changes, has
of
this was, in turn, a challenge for
of the
image, both of urban reality and of the
cultural space, attempting to
would
of bas-fond had become a
new backdrop
writers’ poetic efforts.
it
also initiated a search for the renewal
been unable to depict the
it
and
either a
socio-
memorial
has followed socio-
city as a radically
new
condition for historical experience. In the prose of the 1960s and 1970s, the
complex
reality
narrative of an
of the large Brazilian metropolis offers a
emergent generation. The
city as
new
setting for the
such no longer represents a
universe ruled by justice and rationality, but rather a divided reality; the
BRAZIL 2001 SPRING/FALL 2000
symbolic division, which was formerly placed between “country” and is
now
placed between
“official city”
For the majority of critics and for certain state
SCH0LLHAMMER
the revelation of the
censors, 5
and of the de-humanization of urban
violent passions
“city,”
city.” 4
and “marginal
225
contained an implicit
life
ERIK
denouncement of the
Not
brutal reality under a repressive political regime.
KARL
without reason, they perceived in Fonsecas literature an implicit argument in favor of violence, inciting violent revolts against an illegitimate regime.
saying that
like
if social
reality
is
violent
and
self-destructive,
consequence of a wider violence deriving from the system ends up legitimizing social violence, provided that against the powerful
when guided
this
itself,
it
was
It
only a
is
which, in turn,
same violence
is
directed
in a politically correct way.
However, seen from another point of view,
this literature represented
attempt to comprehend both an excluding social
an
of the time and the
reality
urban middle-class reaction against growing
social inequalities, or rather
and murders. In
this sense, the fictionalization
armed
robberies, kidnappings
of the criminal world can be understood in terms of a re-symbolization of the
from
violent reality deriving
The
big
cities.
to
the reading public,
social confrontations in the
literary re-creation
underworld of the
of a coarse, colloquial language,
the large majority of
whom
unknown
were middle
class,
represented a will to overcome the barriers of social communication; at the
same time,
it
gave literary language
itself
a
new vitality
get out of the deadlock of traditional realism vis-a-vis
in order to be able to
modern urban
reality.
Fonsecas prose created a successful symbiosis between, on the one hand, a literature
with a clear political-social concern, and on the other, an
search for an expression
were noticeable in
which
historical
and regional
is
built
which
realism.
In “Intestino Grosso,” the final short story of FelizAno plot
artistic
could solve representative impasses
Novo (1975), the
by means of an interview with a writer who has been accused of
being “pornographic,” hinting that the character alter ego.
Running the
relevant
to
consider
risk
may
be the author’s
own
of being taken in by Fonsecas fictional game,
some of
the
character’s
opinions
as
keys
to
it is
an
understanding of the author’s oeuvre. To begin with, the writer reports how, at the
beginning of his
career,
he was harmed by the expectations of the
publishers, critics
and newspaper’s
that he “write like
Machado de
literary
Assis.”
supplements, for they
For someone
who
all
insisted
“lived in a block of
apartments in the center of town,” listening to the “noise of motorcar engines,” this did not
make much
sense. Next, the critique
of the character-
226
PORTUGUESE LITERARY & CULTURAL STUDIES
4/5
oriented Brazilian literary tradition manifests
and Historical Realism,
Naturalism
as
itself in
well
as
opposition to both folklore-oriented
to
Regionalism. These tendencies are rejected as inadequate vis-a-vis the
urban experience, paving the way for the sordid
life stories
new
of the marginal
underworlds that are excluded from the large metropolis. Accused of being a pornographic
the interviewed author challenges this criticism by
writer,
admitting positively that his books are “peopled by toothless destitutes”
—
(1994, 461). Thus, the notion of pornography
defended by the
fiercely
character in order to reject the censors’ favorite justification
—does
not
correspond to a traditional definition. Instead of identifying his literature
as
within the characteristics inherent to the genre, the author-character claims that “pornography”
of
which seeks
that literature
is
a
new
expressive
economy
by revealing both forbidden and excluded themes.
literary language,
According to him, the problem with the present-day naturalist and novel
is
that
it
no longer
offers a representation
of
reality that
arousing the reader’s emotions. This happens, in the lack of thematic focus in a
backdrop
which
“typical landscapes,”
first
capable of
is
place, because of a
which used
to serve as
have long moved away from the new
for historical narratives,
within which the majority of the population
urban
reality
means
that the conventional representational language of realism,
as a tool for fictional identification,
realist
no longer
Secondly,
lives.
reflects reality,
when
nor
it
used
capable
is
of provoking an affective and sensual effect equal to contemporary passions
and emotions. According to the
fictional author, this loss
affecting literature’s ability to
Despite the fact that realism
convey the symbolic
is still
social
express
themes due
living
and banned from
is
it
still
has ceased to extract valuable plots
Given
this
to choose those
their culture.
one
impotence,
option
for
themes and objects that are excluded
Such themes focus not only on sex
—
longer branded with the same cultural stigma today violence,
reality.
and
to the absence of a literary language that could
experience.
contemporary authors
new
vis-a-vis a
directed at the historical world
seeks to maintain an imitative fidelity,
from
of expressive force has been
,
—no
but also misery,
madness and death.
Confronted with forbidden themes,
literary
language
may
recover an
important cultural role by confronting, in an indirect way, an exclusionary discursive regime that dominates Brazilian society
perpetuates itself through
and which,
modes of communication, cybernetic
materially,
structures
BRAZIL 2001 SPRING/FALL 2000
When
and other ideological apparatuses.
search
in
of an expressive
innovation, literature confronts the limits of representation;
it
manages
of transgression, the most concrete form of
express, in the defeat
227
to
SCH0LLHAMMER
own
its
prohibition. In this way, the struggle takes place within language, swinging ERIK
between subversive
and affirmative
literature
discourses,
whose main KARL
objective
is
what deserves
to define
At the
to be regarded as real or otherwise.
core of literary creation, the poetic aims to create, fictionally, certain “effects”
of
reality
through more violent emotions, and not to search for
pleasures. For the author-character this
means searching
illusive
for a “real four-letter
word,” because only the four-letter word can create the right shock. For him
word
the four-letter derives
different
is
from the well-behaved word. The
from the expression of human shame
as
confronted with
latter
its
own
nakedness and animal nature. Fie claims that “[mjetaphors appeared so that
our forefathers did not to have to say
‘fuck,’” 6 at the
same time highlighting
the “word” as the focal point of artistic struggle with society.
may seem
It
useless to
attempt
whose
part of an old tradition
type of scandalous effect, but
this
may
origin
modern
literature
work of the Marquis de novel,
Sade.
which soon gave
work of de
constitute the
first
a sensorial effect
in 1963, that the real
included the English gothic novel and the
The French philosopher argued
rise to
which was
Sade,
also
have a significant kinship with the
modern notion of literature. Michel Foucault claimed, precursors of
it is
that the gothic
fantasy in literature, as well as the intriguing
in
its
own way
also a type
of gothic
literature,
time that there was a conscious effort by writers to create
beyond the message
reader. 7 Fear, terror,
restlessness
that the narrative could
and excitement
are
convey to the
no more than
a sampling
of the feelings that a text could provoke. Literature thus went beyond a means
of representing
realities
receptive reality. 8
within conventional
The “new”
in
modern
classic
molds by creating
literature, as seen in the
its
own
examples
provided by Foucault, meant that the sensory effect here did not necessarily corroborate the content of the message. this content,
while
it
It
did, however, indicate a limit for
pointed towards a meaning beyond
itself,
or rather
towards non-meaning. Within this limit, the language of modern literature faced
its
opposite,
Fonsecas
first
its
unnamable or
novel,
O
its
ineffable.
Caso Morel (1973), represents a clear example of
the author’s literary project as well as a relative exception. In the
textual
and
discursive
criticism
exceptional as a formal experiment
of the
1970s,
the
harmony with novel
appears
which mixes various fragments of genres
228
PORTUGUESE LITERARY & CULTURAL STUDIES
such
4/5
the novel, the diary, the police report, apocryphal citations, an
as
autopsy report, and
how
metadiscussion of
name
to
letters,
a few.
to represent reality
9
,
Within a pseudo-academic
the plot develops as a search for
and Morel
the truth about Joan’s death (or Heloisa’s), the lover of Morel, himself,
who
the
is
main narrator and who
on the
narrator and
main
other, the story
accused of murder. In Fonseca’s is
not
as
common
10 .
But here
on the one hand, the narration of
narration retains a double articulation;
crime, and
is
type of intertextual staging
later novels, this
character, the musician-painter-photographer Paul
(or Morais), writing serves as
a
of the future of narration. Thus, for the
an explicit means of remembering the
Morel
facts that
led to Joana’s death, a kind of Freudian Durcharbeitung (“working- through”), in
which the narrator
tries to relive
creation. In this way, the
words
those facts through the artistic process of
in the narrator’s conscience seek their origin
within an enigma which, albeit articulated as the conventional secret of the detective genre
—
who’s done
i.e.,
it
—
hides a
more fundamental enigma
about the relationship between writing and events. During the narrator’s search, the facts
around Joana’s death
are revealed.
However,
at the
same time,
writing appears to be, for the narrator, the means by which reality emerges,
an event that embodies that which
is
real
and can be
felt.
As
a narrative, the
novel reconstructs events through an immersion in Morel’s occulted memory.
From
the point of view of reading, events emerge between various textual
explanations in a growing intertwining of words and things. is
conveyed
as
an insurmountable distance
The
real
enigma
that, despite the characters’
and
the readers’ efforts, remains undiluted, like the silence of the victim Joana.
The key
question about what really happened between Morel and Joana
remains unanswered. In a
We lay
first
version,
Morel
writes:
spent the afternoon drinking, in silence. Afterwards
down on
the sand.
were an empty
“You
see
we went out and Joana
We gazed at the sunset. Afterwards, I kicked Joana,
as if she
tin can.
what you’ve made
me
do?”
She didn’t answer. “I
hate cruelty,”
I
said,
almost in
tears.
Joana opened her eyes and calmly looked
blood but she did not appear to be “I
never want to see you again,”
I
at the sky.
in pain.
said.
Her mouth was
stained with
BRAZIL 2001 SPRING/FALL 2000
I
229
went home. (1973, 111) SCH0LLHAMMER
Soon
after this,
a second version appears:
ERIK
I
kicked Joana. She laughed.
I
kept on kicking her while she laughed and
I
looked KARL
at the sunset. It
was a beautiful thing, indescribable.
Joana stopped laughing. (1973, 113)
The account comes happened on that kicking;
to an
day.
end without easing the doubt about what
Whether Joana died
really
consequence of Morels
whether Francisco, her caring admirer, or the poor couple of
caretakers,
who had hidden
her body, were responsible for her death.
seemed
guilty of Joana’s death if she
sadomasochist
The
as a
to search for
Who
and provoke
it
is
in
it
rituals?
novel includes a typical characteristic of Fonseca’s detective novels,
that of the
enigma without
resolution, without hermeneutic relief for the
reader. In the detective’s frustrated search,
Fonseca copies a noir feature from
the Maltese Falcon but also draws attention to the appearance of reality vis-a-vis ,
the
meaning of language. With the same impetus
as
Morel,
who
searches for
an affective communication with an alienated world, a search that culminates in the explicit violence against Joana, the novel tries to penetrate palpable reality
by taking the “word”
to the verge
The unnamable and incommunicable underside of an expression that
is
of an eclipse in the silence of death.
facts thus transpire in the text like the
impossible to represent.
In conclusion, the thematic option for violence in Fonseca’s prose
understood
as reflecting
literary languages.
an expressive search aimed
at
may
be
innovating traditional
Fonseca has been labeled a “post-modern” author due to
the fact that, for example, the presence of media reality can be detected in his characters’ conscience.
However, Fonseca’s
as a skeptical de-stabilization
of
reality
main objective of his prose appears literary expression that
historical realism,
prose
is
is
literature
and of the meaning of
side,
The
reality.
to be the search for a language or for a
adequate to urban
on one
should not be identified
reality vis-a-vis the
impotence of
and modernist experience on the
The
other.
best described as neo-realist with the safeguard that the labels neo-, ,
hyper- or trans-realism qualify his
work
in a singular
manner within
the
thematic perspective of violence. Historical realism searched for an “illusion
of
reality”
by means of
direct mimesis,
which was,
in turn, distinct
from
230
PORTUGUESE LITERARY & CULTURAL STUDIES
common
conventionally reality.” 11
Fonsecas
4/5
language,
realism
resides
words, an “effect of
Barthes’
or,
in
in
the sensorial
concreteness of his
language, which appears, in turn, to contain the direct experience of the
event
—an
of
“affect
reality”
—
which the representation of violence
in
becomes the violence of representation.
Notes I
The “Revolu^ao de 64” was
the
name
received by a military
coup
d’etat
which ousted
democratically elected president Joao Goulart and led to the military control of Brazil which
20
lasted for 7 as
O
years. (Translators note)
This was a
Que
e Isso
literary
genre that resembled autobiographical memoirs, along the same lines
Companheiro? (1981), by Fernando Gabeira.
3 Bosi 18.
4
The
idea of a divided city underpins Brazilian urban sociology, especially in the books by
Carvalho (1994) and Ventura (1994). 5
In 1976, Fonsecas short-story collection FelizAno
for “offending public morals.”
The
Novo was confiscated by state censors 1980 the Court of
writer appealed the decision, but in
Appeals upheld the sentence, claiming that the book “incited violence.”
It
was only
in
1988
that the Courts decided to judge in favor of the writer, thus allowing the reprinting of the book, as well as granting
him indemnity
for material losses.
6 “Certain anthropologists attribute these restrictions
on the
so-called four-letter
word
to
the ancestral taboo of incest. Philosophers claim that what disturbs and alarms are not events themselves, but
human
beings’
own
opinions and fantasies about them. This
human
beings live in a symbolic universe, which contains language, myth,
threads
which weave the
7 See Foucault, 8
This
close
web of human
“Language to
varied
1963
in Tel Quel.
been acknowledged since Antiquity. For example,
the Aristotelian notion of catharsis in Greek tragedy, the ritualistic is
the case because
experience.” Fonseca, Contos Reunidos 463-4.
Infinity;” essay originally published in
literary function has obviously
is
art, religion as
and symbolic
role
in
of drama
emphasized, always in close connection with the universality of plot, or rather, content. 9
“Thanks
image on one 10
for the
side,
encouragement.
and the
reality
of
We
have, therefore,
I’image,
on the other”
what can be
called the reality of
(163).
Despite a certain generic experimentation in the short stories “Lucia McCartney” and
“Romance Negro.” I
as a
Barthes explains the description of apparently insignificant details in the fiction of Balzac
kind of mimetic redundancy which only significance
is
that “this
is
real.”
See Barthes,
“L’Effet de Reel.”
Works Cited Barthes, Roland. “L’Effet de Reel.” Comunications 11 (1968): 84-89. ,
Bosi, Alfredo. “Situa^ao e
Formas do Conto
Brasileiro
Contemporaneo.”
O
Conto Brasileiro
Contempordneo. Sao Paulo: Cultrix, 1975. 7-22. Carvalho, Maria Alice Rezende de. Quatro Vezes Cidade. Rio de Janeiro: Sette Letras, Fonseca,
Rubem.
O
Caso Morel. Rio de Janeiro: Artenova, 1973.
1
994.
BRAZIL 2001 SPRING/FALL 2000
Contos Reunidos. Sao Paulo:
Companhia
231
das Letras, 1994.
Foucault, Michel. “Language to Infinity.” 1963. Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays
and Interviews.
Transl.
and
ed.
Donald D. Bouchard.
Ithaca,
New York:
Cornell UP,
SCH0LLHAMMER
1977. 53-67. Ventura, Zuenir. Cidade Partida. Sao Paulo:
Companhia
das Letras, 1994. ERIK
KARL