Rosa Joao Guimares

> A certain Miguilim lived with his mother, his father, and his siblings, very far from here, (...) in the Mutùm. In the middle of the Campo Gerais, but in a hollow within forest country, black earth, at the foot of the mountains. Miguilim was eight years old . With this fairy-tale incipit, Guimarães Rosa narrates an extended peasant family through the eyes of a child. > Miguilim had no desire to grow up, to become a grown-up; grown-ups' talk was always the same dry things, with that need to be violent, frightened things . In a family plunged into poverty (the father > shouted that he was poor, on the verge of becoming destitute, of having to beg for alms ), Miguilim lives at the heart of a complex social nucleus made of people and animals: the violent father, the uncle carrying on an affair with the mother, the eccentric grandmother possessing a severe and atavistic wisdom, the witch-servant, "so pitch-black, as Death must be," the cowherds and the village folk, the farmyard animals, and so much more; yet none is like his brother Dito—self-assured, protective, capable of standing up to their father. > All at once, it burst. (...) And then came the thunder! It thundered tremendously, again and again; everyone covered their ears, closed their eyes. Then Dito held Miguilim close. Dito wasn't trembling, only he was more serious. (...) Dito was clever and peaceful. (...) Dito never truly quarreled with anyone, (...) Miguilim always wanted not to quarrel, yet ended up quarreling with everyone. How wonderful to be like Dito: suited to all people's hours... . Miguilim is fragile, unsuited to peasant labor, afraid to venture alone into the forest to bring lunch to his father working in the fields; nothing comes of the cowherd's reassuring words when Miguilim asks if he is deformed, nor of the hugs and kisses of the witch-servant, nor even of the purring rubs of the cat Sossoe, > eyes of a green so much less empty --- it was a light inside another inside another, inside another, without end . It is as though Miguilim lived in a world of his own: magical, incomprehensible, wondrous, and terrifying. It is no wonder that Dito's death shatters the boy; he nearly loses his mind, can no longer hide behind his brother's reassuring certainty, and must himself go to work in the fields, grueling hoeing beneath the sun. As in an exquisite fairy tale, a knight on horseback arrives to save him; he addresses little Miguilim directly and hands him a pair of spectacles. > And Miguilim looked at everyone, with such intensity. (...) He looked at the dark forests on the mountain crest, here the house, the hedge of wild beans and sao-caetano; the sky, the cattle pen, the yard, the round eyes and the high windowpanes of the morning. (...) The Mutùm was beautiful. Now he knew it. If in Anna Maria Ortese's *Il mare non bagna Napoli* (see the review on this site), eyeglasses unleash an unbearable reality upon an impoverished girl from the slums, here, instead, the lenses possess a salvific power, as though only the true knowledge of reality could make it bearable. A fairy-tale ending brings little Miguilim's childhood to a splendid close, foreshadowing the great social narrative of João Guimarães Rosa's masterpiece (see the review of *Grande Sertao* on this site). The extended peasant family characterized the social fabric of our country until the 1950s. And yet there are no great novels chronicling the sharecropping and tenant-farming world. *Pinocchio* is the son of an artisan, the Malavoglias in *I Malavoglia* are fishermen, Giannino in *Il giornalino di Gian Burrasca* is the quintessential bourgeois lad, the stories in *Cuore* are too edifying to mirror a social reality; perhaps only the splendid chapter "The Four Seasons" in *Il mulino del Po* investigates the dynamics typical of the peasant world (for *Pinocchio*, *I Malavoglia*, *Il mulino del Po*, and *Il giornalino*, see the reviews on this site). Here, however, Guimarães Rosa retraces a child's early years within the intricate web of relationships of an impoverished reality, entirely geared toward survival, yet one in which emotions churn and dreams remain possible. The relationship between Miguilim and Dito denotes an informal hierarchy in which the more fragile child seeks the support of the stronger personality, forging a privileged and steadfast bond that offers security—one that only the fairy-tale conclusion can replace. In his intense preface, Antonio Tabucchi defines the novella > an operetta with a Mozartian timbre, performed on the magic flute of an uncommon narrator . It is a particularly apt definition: it is the fluctuating cadence between hyperrealistic moments and fantastic ones, of "non-story," that imparts the sense of ambiguous allure that characterizes the narrative. Behind the easy screen of the fairy tale (but is it truly one?), the story > stirs unease and always retains an unattributable valence, on the margins of (or beyond) speculative formulation. Something reminiscent of the savage mind, bound to the mystery of Being . (Tabucchi's Preface). Why read it? Magnificent!

The Sertão is a vast region in northeastern Brazil: an expanse of low plateaus characterized by brief, intense rains that give rise to alternating periods of drought and flood, ruining crops and bringing famine to an impoverished population historically exploited by large landowners. At the end of the nineteenth century, widespread banditry developed, blending rebellion, brigandage, and confused social demands. In this setting, where "the criminal lives as he pleases," Guimarães Rosa composed an epic poem, a kind of *Iliad*, with its heroes and its battles (see the review of the *Iliad* on this site). Furthermore, the author recounted an unhappy and enchanting love story, a seemingly impossible, extraordinary passion reminiscent of that for the Pisana in Ippolito Nievo's *Confessions of an Italian* (see review on this site). Riobaldo is the son of a wealthy landowner; he could live in comfort and marry a wealthy, beautiful woman of his own social class, yet he chose instead to go fight alongside the rebels: > the Sertão produced me, then swallowed me, then spat me out from the heat of its mouth . Among the rebels, he met a splendid, delicate youth with whom he fell in love. > I felt the need to place my fingers, light, very light, upon those tender eyes of his. (...) My treasure, if only it were broad daylight, and I could see the color of your eyes...; so I said, lost in oblivion, as if I were only thinking aloud, almost reciting a line of verse. Diadorim stepped back, frightened. (...) And he laughed wickedly. We are not in ancient Greece, where homosexual relations were customary and Achilles could love Patroclus; here, in the Sertão, Riobaldo and Diadorim can only be friends, and Riobaldo’s advances a mere "mocking jest." Diadorim is the son of the most prominent gang leader, who is murdered by a cruel, bloodthirsty rival, "the man without a face"—perhaps the Devil himself. The vendetta begins. Several bands under Riobaldo’s command pursue their enemies in ceaseless clashes amidst great rivers, swamps, and scrublands, magnificent wild beasts, impoverished peasants, and wealthy landowners—stealing, raping women, looting, and dying of disease and in battle. The Great Sertão profoundly transforms Riobaldo: from a reflective, insecure youth he becomes a ruthless leader, shrewd and resolute. With his feminine sensitivity, Diadorim gently reproaches him: "what is changing within you is the task of the soul, not the duty of command." Did Riobaldo make a pact with the Devil? To be sure, he sought a pact on a stormy night, but the Devil never appeared. At last, we arrive at the final, decisive battle. Diadorim slays "the man without a face," avenging his father, but dies fighting. And when the pious women wash the corpse, as was the custom in the *Iliad*, they discover that Diadorim is a girl! > She was, such that she thus disenchanted herself, in so terrible an enchantment. (...) I howled. (...) Diadorim was a woman, she was a woman as the sun does not kindle the water of the river Urucuia, as I sobbed out my despair . The novel is not merely a love story. There are at least two other narrative strands. First and foremost, Guimarães Rosa tells of the vanished world of the "jagunços" and their natural and social environment: hardened men whose fate is sealed from birth and who know they will be defeated, yet continue to live in the Great Sertão, singing their songs: > life is a most perilous lot/in the duty of loyalty:/every night a river downstream, /every day is darkness... Another theme is the metaphysical one: does the Devil exist, and where is God? If by the end of the novel we cannot find an answer to the first question, we nevertheless understand quite clearly that God, if He exists, is like the Great Sertão—pervasive yet exceedingly distant, indifferent to the plight of human beings. As the translator notes, Guimarães Rosa’s narrative and lyrical world > blends regional terminology, structures, and inflections with the boldest innovations and the distinctiveness of the natural and human world from which it springs. Much is perhaps lost in translation, yet the magical sense of the narrative remains, sweeping the reader into a dreamlike and fascinating tale. Riobaldo, at the end of his life, narrates his Sertão to an unidentified person, addressed only as Vossignoria"; in this way Guimarães Rosa gives momentum to the novel, alternating brief colloquial phrases with detailed, intense descriptions, melding reality and imagination. It is a pity that Feltrinelli ruined this masterpiece by using a tiny typeface that is exhausting to read: perhaps to save paper and ink! Why read it? Arduous, but magnificent.