Whatever Happened to Dulce Veiga? : A B-Novel (Texas Pan American Series)

by Caio Fernando Abreu

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A forty-year-old Brazilian journalist reduced to living in a dilapidated building inhabited by a bizarre human fauna--fortune-tellers, transvestites, tango-loving Argentinean hustlers--is called upon to track down and write the story of Dulce Veiga, a famous singer who disappeared twenty years earlier on the eve of her first big show. Thus begins a mad race through an underground, nocturnal São Paulo among rock bands with eccentric names, feline reincarnations of Vita Sackville-West, show more ex-revolutionaries turned junkies, gay Pietas, echoes of Afro-Brazilian religions, and intimations of AIDS . . . Constructed like a mystery, the novel unravels over a week, evoking a decadent and contaminated atmosphere in which the journalist's own search for meaning finds its expression in the elusive Dulce Veiga, who constantly appears to him as if in a dream, her arm pointing heavenward. Whatever Happened to Dulce Veiga? is a descent into the underworld of contemporary megalopolises where, like the inside of a huge TV, life intermingles with bits of music, film clips, and soap opera characters in a crazy and macabre dance, moving toward a possible catharsis. show less

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3 reviews
Em honra dos 20 anos sem Caio Fernando Abreu

Se eu tivesse que escolher um livro para representar os anos 80 do século XX, escolheria esse, não só porque ele represetna uma simbologia deslumbrante daquela década, mas pelo estilo do Caio que comunga fortemente com o cinema, não é preciso que ninguém fale que ele é um cinéfilo, a forma de pensar dele é de quem injeta filmes nas veias e isso aparece nitidamente na escrita dele.
Ein Journalist bekommt eine neue Anstellung - seine 1. Aufgabe: ein Interview mit einer Frauen-Rockband. Das Lied der Band erinnert ihn an eine Sängerin die vor 20 Jahren spurlos verschwand...

Ein eigentlich melancholisches Buch - denn es geht nicht nur um die verschwundene Dulce. Es geht um den Ich-Erzähler, um seine Verluste, seine Ängste...vor allem das Verschwinden von Pedro, von dem man erst relativ spät erfährt, was es mit ihm auf sich hat - und noch später den Grund für sein Verschwinden.
Dennoch ist es irgendwie positiv - ich weiß nicht, wie ich es beschreiben soll, aber bei allem Negativen ist nie Verzweiflung zu spüren, sondern immer eine gewisse Hoffnung vorhanden...auch wenn die manchmal auf Verdrängung beruht.

Die show more Sprache ist oft rau und vulgär, aber nie plump...gefällt mir wirklich gut. show less

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43+ Works 679 Members

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Genres
Fiction and Literature, LGBTQ+, Mystery
DDC/MDS
869.342Literature & rhetoricSpanish LiteratureLiteratures of Portuguese and Galician languagesPortuguese fiction20th Century1945-1999
LCC
PQ9698.1 .B68 .O5313Language and LiteratureFrench, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese literaturesPortuguese literatureProvincial, local, colonial, etc.Brazil
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81
Popularity
398,265
Reviews
2
Rating
(4.22)
Languages
5 — Dutch, English, German, Italian, Portuguese
Media
Paper, Ebook
ISBNs
16
ASINs
1