Rubem Fonseca (1925–2020)

Em O buraco na parede, Rubem Fonseca apresenta oito contos que dissecam os elementos essenciais à existência humana ― nascimento, cópula e morte, muitas vezes unidos em um único ato. Motivações e obstáculos se confundem: um balão de vinte toneladas, o retrato da mãe, parafusos na perna, um ghost-writer, uma doença, um feto em uma caixa de isopor, um furo na meia... um buraco na parede. Rompendo convencionalismos, o autor interroga o leitor, a sociedade, a literatura e a si mesmo show more em uma de suas grandes obras. show less

"I had seen too many detective films in my life not to know how to get away from someone following me." - Rubem Fonseca, Vast Emotions and Imperfect Thoughts

In his novella, The Short-Story Writers, Brazilian author Moacyr Scliar includes many cameos about men and women dedicated to writing short-stories: Auro wishes to coat the pages of his stories with hallucinogens; Omar wears a T-shirt with a warning that he will kill himself if the public doesn't buy his book of short-stories; Otaviano show more writes his stories in public toilets in the form of graffiti on the walls; Jane calls up strangers on the telephone and proceeds to read her short stories; Ernesto mimeographs his stories and hands them out at soccer games; Bltazar, a psychiatric nurse, reads her short-stories to her patients; Fischer writes in a trance-like condition, dictating his stories to his secretary. And on it goes.

With Vast Emotions and Imperfect Thoughts (The Lost Manuscript) Rubem Fonseca likewise has his unnamed narrator, a Brazilian film director living in Rio de Janeiro, ramble forth on a number of intriguing asides, such things as his hallucinations and dreams, his reflections on media saturated society along with assorted books, films and television. All with a light touch but there's another aspect to the story that makes all the difference: right from the first pages our offbeat film director is sucked into a brutal murder and the world of crime.

And speaking of rambling, allow me a brief digression about my love of such works written in the first person with an unnamed narrator. I take this as a glorious opportunity to name the narrator myself. Here I named the novel’s film director Andre Barrio since he reminds me of Andre from Louis Malle’s My Dinner with Andre and Barrio is the last name of one of Brazil’s top contemporary artists - Artur Barrio.

Back on Vast Emotions, the novel is told in three parts: the first takes place in Rio, the second in Berlin and the third back in Rio. There are a plethora of those tangential excursions and flights of imagination until we arrive in Berlin when certain events kick the story into overdrive – as readers we eagerly turn the pages as we are now in the midst of an international crime thriller.

Since there are so many references to film and filmmaking, here's a batch of short clips as if from a movie trailer:

Serious Business: Angélica says they’ll kill her if they catch her. The narrator lets Angélica hide in his apartment. The next morning Angélica is gone but she leaves a bag of gems – emeralds, rubies, diamonds. Shortly thereafter, bad news: Angélica has been murdered. And not long after that, the narrator’s doorman is murdered and his apartment ransacked. But whoever they are, they didn’t find the gems. No doubt about it – the eccentric, artsy film director is caught at the epicenter of something that might cost him his life.

Lights, Action, Camera: Pointed breasts of his twenty-year-old girlfriend Liliana reminds him of Godard’s film Detective; the brilliance of the diamonds bring to mind Ian Fleming’s Diamonds Are Forever and then the mediocre Guy Hamilton film. The references to movies are so frequent, we’re given the impression the narrator is forever observing life around him through the lens of a camera – life as raw material to prompt memories of past films and ideas to create new methods and fresh techniques for directing his future films.

Luscious Ladies: What’s a crime thriller without sexually charged beauties? Vast Emotions features Liliana and Mitiko from Rio, Veronika in Berlin and Dalia from Curvelo. Perhaps not surprisingly in a novel so closely linked to film, all those gorgeous sweethearts find the spacey filmmaker irresistible. And, yes, there's a string of intimate sex scenes.

Televangelist: José, the narrator’s brother, an Elmer Gantry-style former car salesman, is making a small fortune hawing himself and his religion. The filmmaker observes "he had no love for his fellow man, which, contrary to popular belief, did not keep him from loving himself." However, it must be noted, José being a sleazy sharper does not stop the narrator from making films about the church as a marketing tool to support his brother's thirst for wealth and power. One of the more humorous parts of the novel.

Menacing Presence: A sinister-looking man in a raincoat continually lurks around the filmmaker's apartment building and on occasions tails him throughout the city. "In different circumstances I'd have asked the man to work in a film of mine. Since Widmark threw the paralyzed old lady down the stairs in Kiss of Death in 1947, I'd never seen a face as repugnant and terrifying as his."

Rio Carnival: All those gems bring the filmmaker in contact with one colorful parade contestant. “Ha! Ha!” shouted Negromonte, getting up from the bench, still carrying on his back the construction of wire, wood, plastic, cardboard, fabric, stones, feathers and various decorations, some sixteen feet high, causing the security guard to draw back in alarm.” Yet again another appealing element in the chemistry of Vast Emotions.

Isaac Babel: A major thread running through the entire novel is the presence of the famous author Isaac Babel. His short stories, his life and maybe even an authentic manuscript of his one and only novel. What a find!

Critic Chimes In: In his New York Times review esteemed literary critic James Polk wrote: “The novel becomes, despite its forays into the darker side of life, a profoundly optimistic book. Early on, the narrator refers to 'the essential qualities - love, compassion, charity, tolerance'. Finding them here, among even the slimiest of characters, is simply a marvel.” I completely agree! This Rubem Fonseca novel is truly marvelous. Or if you prefer the Portuguese – maravilhoso. show less

Fantástico! Brazilian author Rubem Fonseca's High Art is among the greatest of Latin American boom novels. I’m not alone in my praise – in his glowing New York Times book review, Mario Vargas Llosa judged the author’s work a stunning accomplishment, a combination of amusing detective novel and an elegant literary experiment of the topmost aesthetic and intellectual order.

A fictional fiesta. Certainly one of the high arts of High Art is the art of breathtaking storytelling. To attempt show more a synopsis would be ridiculous as there are too many colorful stylistic spirals and as many unexpected curves and curls as there are feathers on a Hyacinth Macaw or Toco Toucan. Rather, I'd like to share my excitement for this book that I've read three times and counting by noting a number of captivating characters and dazzling details:

Mandrake the lawyer: The novel’s first-person narrator goes by the cartoonish name of Mandrake. We can judge such a name as a parody of pulp detective fiction. He’s a criminal lawyer in Rio and is teamed up with a hardworking Jew by the name of Wexler. All the many references to Wexler’s Jewishness can also be seen as a parody, this time of social stereotyping. Mandrake doesn’t work nearly as hard as Wexler when it comes to defending clients because he’s continually sidetracked by investigating the truth behind the crimes he’s drawn into.

Mandrake the irresistible playboy: Actually, Mandrake has to deal with another major distraction: beautiful women. His leading girlfriend at the moment is tall, thin, ravishing Ada with her long legs and neck slightly curved forward. Ada would like nothing more than to wed Mandrake and start a family. Good luck, dear lady! Although you are in the lead, there are at least two or three or four (I lost count!) other attractive, vivacious sexpots who keep knocking on the playboy's door.

Mandrake, the eccentric: How eccentrically oddball? One morning our Sherlock Holmes wannabe accompanies two real detectives at the apartment of a rich socialite. They find the young lady’s bloated corpse on her bed, having been strangled sometime the previous evening. And where is Mandrake’s attention? Why, he’s making remarks about the fashionable décor, all the furniture, paintings, lamps and carpets speaking to an owner bathing in luxury. And while the head detective is busy gathering evidence, Mandrake scrutinizes the magazine covers on the coffee table: Amiga, Status, Donald Duck and then pleads with the other detective to let him feed the exotic tropical fish in the aquarium lest they go belly up.

Camilo Fuentes: An enormous, powerful Bolivian from Indian stock, a man who doesn’t mess around when it comes to conducting his business trafficking drugs for gangsters and seeking out targets to be murdered. Camilo especially hates Brazilians since they have always looked down on him as a Bolivian and as an Indian, as someone who is poor and badly dressed, but most of all, he despises Brazilians because, in his eyes, they are all disgusting dogs.

Hermes: Specialist in Persev, a code word for a set of tactics and skills of knife handling and knife combat. In the aftermath of being stabbed himself, Mandrake seeks out Hermes, a former client who owes him one since the Rio lawyer got the knife expert off a murder charge. Mandrake takes his combat lessons to heart and from this point forward wears a leather shoulder strap for his new Randall. Rubem Fonseca delves into the details on what it means to make a knife an extension of your very arm. "Hermes reached out his hand and picked up the knife. A friend of mine raises birds. I once saw him stick his hand in a cage and grasp a bird to transfer him to another cage. This was the way Hermes held the Randall, as it were alive, capable of escaping from his hand."

Iron Nose: Nickname for the black dwarf José Zakkai, kingpin of a gangster mob, a man keen on accumulating and wielding power. When asked his specialty, Zakki answered: “Survival. When I was born my mother took one look at my hands and fainted. I had webbing between my fingers. . . But here I am, a first-class chatterbox, though I still haven’t grown much.” Even hardened gangsters and murderers realize Iron Nose is not a man to laugh at (although his cover is working as a clown for a circus) – you just might be forced to eat huge hard-shelled cockroaches if you don’t give Nose the information he wants, fast.

Rafael: Knife fighter and professional killer, a students of the Professor (Hermes) whose hobby is the cultivation of roses. “I have more than a hundred and fifty different species. My mother had the prettiest roses I’ve ever seen, to this day. And I think they’re the most sublime flower of all.”

Ricardo Mitry and Lima Predo: both men wealthy, completely self-centered, cruel and vicious – in the grand tradition of Latin American multigenerational tales, we are even treated to the particulars of their family genealogy. During one memorable party at his apartment, Mitry brings out a silver tray containing several small mirrors with fine lines of white powder along with a crystal vial filled with pills of every color. In attendance are two young glamorous prostitutes, Titi and Tata, well dressed, well tanned and absolutely scrumptious. During a dance in the nude, Mitry pinches Tata’s ass and proclaims to all: “The newest dream of the powerful – that flesh should have the durability of synthetic rubber.”

Pop Culture: One hip, shapely Rio goddess wears a shirt that says: COCA-COLA – THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES, another upper class call girl sports one reading: I (big read heart) NEW YORK. There’s references galore to popular movies, both old time black and white and current ones playing in living color: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Vincent Price in The House of Usher, the pornographic Orgy of the Perverts. Radio programs, television shows, videocassettes, glossy magazines, sensationalist newspapers - as we turn the pages, no mistaking the fact we are in hopped-up, with-it, trendy Rio.

High Culture: Not only a plethora of general historical and literary allusions but more specifically, Ajax, Zeus, Achilles are among the copious references to all things Greek: Greek mythology, Greek history, even Greek philosophy. As Mario Vargas Llosa acknowledged in his review, such mentions and citations adds a certain dignity and aesthetic dimension to Rubem Fonseca’s novel.

High Art: As in deft, nimble style, as in a story jam-packed with such flamboyant characters and absorbing scenes, the book will almost hop out of your hands to dance the samba. Is there any question about how I can’t recommend High Art highly enough? show less

It’s not often that a story collection blindsides me. Afterall, writers, both mystery and literary, devote much time to crafting stories so readers expectations are artfully managed – we receive just enough information to make us feel smart in anticipating plot twists and character downfalls, but not so much information that we aren’t delightfully or thrillingly surprised every once in a while. Rubem Fonseca breaks all those polite rules in The Taker and other Stories. By the time you show more reach the end of the opening story “Night Drive” you know you’re in for a rollercoaster-in-the-dark kind of ride – no predicting what will happen next. In “Account of the Incident” – if you think you’re going to find out what happens to the victims of a bus crash, forget it. Instead, you watch with horror as victims are left in a ditch while the bystanders fight over the butchering of the now-dead cow that the bus has hit. And what happens with the residents of an old age home revolt for a decent meal in “The Eleventh of May?” Not pretty. Turns out when they’re not being medicated, these old guys have a lot of kick left in them: “The Director opens the door. Pharoux grabs him, Cortines gets a stranglehold on him. Pharoux pricks the Director’s face with the knife, drawing a drop of blood.” The Taker and Other Stories will stand out in my summer reading because its stories were dark and unpredictable, filled with lots of characters you don’t want to spend much time with, but feel delightfully bad because you did. show less