Nine Nights

Among the best books out of those that commonly integrate the bibliography of brazilian universities' entrance exams. Rather than a detective story, the fragmentary narrative feels more like the process of retrieving a complete image of a past event using parts of your memory that feel more vivid the more you relive them inside your mind. It's a common occurrence for a fake memory to become real the more it is thought about, and Quain's story follows the same route, where every artifact is corroded by time. Every piece of the puzzle is brought by a person with their own opinions, and their vision of the events, as well as their relationship to its characters, compose an intricate tapestry.

While each chapter reveals more details that show more elucidate former questions, some are still left open and even more appear. I would say that the reader must perform their own detective work to properly grasp the book. Someone once said that knowing what to ask is more important than to know the answers, and this book does not give you all the questions.

However, its greatest merit is the interweaving of several parallel stories as the narrator's investigation progresses. Not only does Quain's life resembles that of the narrator's, but his obsession also mirrors the narrator's. Similar stories appear in side characters, and with the constant repetition over time we are led to believe in the cycles. Especially in my experience, since I became obsessed with the book too. show less

B. Carvalho a écrit Neuf Nuits avant les trois que j'ai énormément aimés : Mongolie, Ta mère et Le Soleil se couche à Sao Paulo. Lisant celui-ci, j'ai eu l'impression de me trouver devant une sorte de double moins bien réussi de Mongolie. Au-delà de la différence univers de l'Amazonie / univers de la Mongolie, on retrouve le même type de construction mêlant réel et fiction, document retrouvé et narrations multiples. On retrouve aussi les thèmes de la folie, de l'homosexualité et de la culpabilité. S'y ajoute l'influence de Conrad et particulièrement de Lord Jim (mais aussi Au coeur des Ténèbres), influence qui existait peut-être dans les autres romans mais qui ne m'était pas apparue.
Bref, si vous ne connaissez pas show more cet auteur, laissez ce roman et plongez-vous directement dans ses trois autres romans nommés ci-dessus. Et si comme moi, vous les avez déjà lus, vous serez peut-être déçu comme je l'ai été ou intéressé malgré tout car l'ambiance et la construction du roman sont tout de même remarquables. show less

Nove Noites é o sexto livro do jornalista e escritor brasileiro Bernardo de Carvalho. O livro, vencedor do Prêmio Portugal Telecom, é denominado por pesquisadores como uma “metaficação”, isto é, quando um discurso histórico, dado como real, é incorporado à narrativa como uma motivação ficcional.
Organizado em 19 capítulos, os leitores percorrem uma narrativa densa e labiríntica em que se busca desvendar os motivos que levaram a morte do antropólogo estadunidense Buell Quain, quando ele esteve no Brasil na década de 1930, ao mesmo tempo em que se busca descobrir o que se passa com o autor-narrador.