Jorge Amado
1968
Around 380 pages
Jorge Amado wrote this three years after the military overthrew the democracy in Brazil. Considering the military at the time was torturing and killing some of Amado's political friends, Amado was like Scheherazade - one wrong word and he was doomed. As if writing isn't stressful enough.
A professor from Columbia University is effusive in his praise for a Bahian writer from a hundred years ago that most people have forgotten about, Pedro Archanjo. People are eager to profit off his memory for the centennial of his birth, and the novel switches between present day and the life of Pedro, who was an alcoholic womanizer. Apparently, this is a shocking discovery and not our default assumption about what a writer is. Which is cute.
The way that Amado used women in his story did not sit well with me. The idea that the solution to racism is to father as many children as possible seems like a way to justify men cheating on their wives. And the descriptions of some of the female characters felt like racist stereotypes.
I think it's more interesting to focus on what he is not saying here, rather than what ends up on the page. Still worth reading, I haven't read many Brazilian authors.
RATING: **---
Interesting Facts:
Amado published his first novel at 18.
UP NEXT: Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard
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