Fear of De Sade by Bernardo Carvalho
22 Jan 2012 12 Comments
in Brazil, south and central american fiction, TRANSLATIONS Tags: 2011, latin american fiction, TRANSLATIONS
Bernardo Carvalho is a Brazilian writer and Journalist he has spent time in france and America as a correspondent for a brazilian paper ,fear of de Sade is his sixth Novel .He has also translated books from English into Brazilian Portuguese by the likes of Oliver Sacks and Bruce Chatwin .
The fear of de Sade is a novel in two act the first is told in dialogue between an unnamed voice and the Baron of LaChafoi a forty-year old that is a bit of a libertine ,he had before been taken to prison had an orgy with three other people and spanish fly in the mix it becomes a scandal ,he is being asked to remember this by the voice and thus solve what happened and how that some one had died as a result of the orgy ,all this is set during the terror period of the french revolution .Over time the Baron feels the voice maybe the man he admires De Sade the infamous French noble man and a man much admired by the baron .
VOICE : And what proves it wasn’t you ? that you’re not lying ? The fact that you don’t remember doesn’t mean much .Who can tell if you’re not really mad, and committed the crime in a fit ?
BARON :Master,I swear it !
Voice: don’t call me master !
BARON: I beg of you .My defence depends on you helping me .
the baron and the voice (de Sade?) talk
This first part does remind me of Kafka ,whether I d call it Kafkaesque I m not sure it is easy to put that title to piece that seem to not show the full picture and people on the edge or caught in the judicial system ,and I often see it mention and it is even ,mentioned on the back of the book ,But I feel this maybe owes something more to Beckett two unknown voices other than the baron’s name and the act he has supposed to have committed we are told nothing else .I m remind of the plays of Beckett detached voices ,people meeting in odd circumstances .
The second part of the book is about a couple,following a game that was devised by the Baron on his following of De Sade ,where the partners taken in turn to create fear in the other as the feeling is that when love dies all that can remain is fear its self ,so we see the acts by each partner crank-up one by one ,but they act as thou this is normal and thus this leads to the partners getting more radical with there ideas and thus leading to the husband taking a radical final step to put the fear in his wife .Again like the first part of the book this has no names the couple are just referred to as husband and wife .
In one of his books ,a moralising novel in dialogue form ,the baron recounted how he had avenged himself on the wife who was betraying him : he deflowered the illegitimate daughter she’d had by his cousin .Because according to the Baron’s philosophy ,only treachery liberates .Treachery is repaid with treachery .
The couple discover the Barons words .
This book is a gem an unusual and refreshing style of book inventive and an interesting insight into the human psyche .How far people will go in pursuit of an idea .
Have you a favourite Brazilian Novel ?
more than just a hatrick ,this brazilian shows flair with a pen
25 Aug 2010 10 Comments
in Brazil, south and central american fiction, TRANSLATIONS Tags: NEW VOICES, TRANSLATIONS
TITLE - A CHAPTER OF HATS AND OTHER STORIES BY MACHADO DE ASSIS .
SOURCE – LIBRARY
Machado Assis is considered the godfather of south american fiction been born in 1839 he was born in to a poor family and eventually rising to become a civil servant and respect writer in his own lifetime the first writer to develop a unique style of writing with influences from the european writing of the time Maupassant ,Chekov .Now the stories are all based in and around Rio in the late 1800′s ,what seems an emerging city and vibrant characters appear from the pages ,the main title story is of a wife and her attempts to get her husband to change his hat ,in other stories there are students drink rats blood ,a love triangle sailors on shore leave .
the choice of hat is not an indifferent act ,as you might suppose ;its is governed by a metaphysical principle .don’t imagine that a person buying a hat is committing a free,voluntary act;the truth id there obeying an obscure determinism .the illusion of freedom is rooted in the purchaser .
a brief description of buy a hat
Now I want to love this book when I ordered it from the library ,in parts I did but in other places I found his prose hard to connect with ,I have at time struggled with other prose of the era by other writers .But the stories I did connect with shone through and Machado humour and laconic wit shone through ,he is a bit like a brazilian Saki at times with the stories poking and highlighting the middle classes and the foibles ,in this exotic capital as it was finding it feet in the world ,It was a great introduction to a writer who I will try again Kinna at Kinna reads suggest I try one of his novels, so I will at some point ,the translation by John Gledson is neat and functional ,the book may suffer from a little stiffness at times whether that iz due to translation or the writing is hard to say .so a real up and down journey for me through this book but that is sometimes the case with short stories collection .
WINSTONS SCORE -
IS A SLOTH VERY BRAZILIAN AND LIKE THIS BOOK NEEDS TO BE READ SLOWLY AND ABSORBED LIKE A SLOTH IT TOOK ME A WHILE TO WORK THROUGH THIS COLLECTION .
