São Bernardo
by Graciliano Ramos
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Description
"A masterwork about backcountry life by one of Brazil's most celebrated novelists. In 1941, a national literary poll in Brazil named Graciliano Ramos one of that country's ten greatest novelists--one of only four living authors on the list. His reputation has only increased there in the sixty years since his death, with all of his books still in print and special editions for anniversaries. Brazilian readers fight over which of his novels is their favorite. Now São Bernardo, his show more second-to-last novel, has been freshly translated for North American readers. This gritty, drily funny book tells the story of Paulo Honorio, a field hand who learns to read and write in jail, emerging with the ambition of buying and restoring to greatness the now-decrepit property where he was once a day-laborer. São Bernardo, named for his ranch, is the memoir of his rise and fall, written in his own rough-hewn voice. "With Ramos, language is a precision tool with which effects hitherto unrecorded in Brazilian literature have been made," said critic Fred P. Ellison. Flavored with subtle ironies and rich local idioms, São Bernardo will appeal to readers of William Faulkner and Juan Rulfo, anyone who loves a tragicomic story of a striving outsider and self-made man, ruthless and tender in turns"-- show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Uma obra de arte da língua portuguesa para os apaixonados pelo nosso idioma. ;)
Um texto dinâmico, divertido e de incrível domínio literário, largamente em primeira pessoa, da vida de Paulo Honório, homem ambicioso mas pobre, e sua ascenção, via violência, maracutaia, coragem, engenhosidade e curiosidade, ao posto de fazendeiro no sertão de Alagoas, creio que no entreguerras. Equilibra com maestria um estilo mais seco, angular e um vocabulário extenso, interessante, dando alfinetadas metaliterárias no processo. Acaba por desenhar um retrato do Brasil da época e suas relações sociais truncadas e brutas e exploratórias. Na figura de Madalena acha um contraponto que traz ainda mais à tona o aspecto machista-patriarcal de Honório, e o estilo conservador anti-comunista que infelizmente estamos show more familiarizados ainda hoje. Nisso, para não apenas tecer louros ao romance, acaba por perder um pouco do dinamismo, ao final do livro, nos episódios de ciúme, e não deixo de pensar que a amargura que se encena após talvez seja um pouco mais didática do que deveria. show less
Jul 18, 2025Portuguese
A obra consiste na história de Paulo Honório, um homem simples mas ambicioso que acaba por se transformar num grande fazendeiro do sertão de Alagoas. Casa-se com Madalena para conseguir um herdeiro. Incapaz de entender a forma humanitária pela qual a mulher vê o mundo, ele tenta anulá-la com seu autoritarismo.
Jan 25, 2019Portuguese (Brazil)
Esta edição é aberta com o texto antológico de Antonio Candido, "Ficção e Confissão", em que ele canoniza a leitura na qual a obra de Graciliano Ramos possui tom confessional, tom de confidência.
May 30, 2021Portuguese (Brazil)
Esta edição conta com o texto crítico de João Luís Lafetá, "O mundo à revelia".
May 30, 2021Portuguese (Brazil)
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Greatest brazilian novels of 20th century
50 works; 2 members
Author Information
82 Works 2,777 Members
Ramos was one of many leftist intellectuals purged by President Getulio Vargas's government during the 1930s. Barren Lives (1938) examines the psychology of poverty during the drought in the interior of northeastern Brazil. The novel is narrated through the minds of several members of a family who, due to their lack of education and primitive show more natures, rarely communicate verbally. Of Ramos's technical accomplishments, Morton Zabel wrote in The Nation, "Graciliano Ramos is notable among the contemporary Brazilian writers for a severity of style, an accuracy of social and moral observation, and an intensity of tragic sensibility which derive as much from fidelity to native experience as from the stylists---Proust, Joyce and more relevantly, Celine---whom his American publisher mentions as models." (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- São Bernardo
- Original publication date
- 1934
- Important places*
- Brazilië
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Romance
- DDC/MDS
- 869.3 — Literature & rhetoric Spanish Literature Literatures of Portuguese and Galician languages Portuguese fiction
- LCC
- PQ9697 .R254 .S213 — Language and Literature French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese literatures Portuguese literature Provincial, local, colonial, etc. Brazil
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 435
- Popularity
- 71,033
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (3.95)
- Languages
- 7 — Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 20
- ASINs
- 14
