Nélida Piñon, The Republic of Dreams, Trans. by Helen Lane, University of Texas Press, 1991. [1984.]
This mesmerizing novel, first published in 1989, marks the debut in English of one of the most brilliant and admired of today's Latin American writers. As the novel opens, the matriarch Eulalia has begun her final task--dying. Long, long ago she came to Brazil from Spain--a bride with her already formidable, iron-willed husband, Madruga. Inspired by Grandfather Xan, the young couple brought with them the passion for making memories into tales--told as sustenance, proof, and hallmark; told as protection against the killing rush of time. Now, as both Eulalia and her era near their end, that tradition achieves its most poignant flowering--in a burst of family lore, recrimination, and recollected dreams, as the clan, gathered at Eulalia's side, relives the past and vies for the future.
A major South American novelist's debut in English, this novel is a stupendous work, literature of a high order. Even Pinon's penchant for incomplete sentences, irritating at first, comes to seem right (are there subjects and predicates in dreams?). It's a four-generational family drama quite unlike the loping family sagas we are so accustomed to. The central figures, who give structure to this vast familial, sociological, psychological and political panorama, are Madruga, iron-willed, complex patriarch of the clan, who immigrated in his youth to Brazil from Spain, and his elderly wife Eulalia, dying as the story starts. The republic of dreams is Brazil--mysterious, cruel, sensual, not yet conquered imaginatively by its people, themselves an explosive mix of Americans, Europeans and Africans. The republic is also the human mind, wherein realities are shaped by dreams that stretch forward and backward. The story is of Brazil and Spain, winners and losers, the endless clashes of will between the soul-devouring Madruga and his extended family, and the shock of tragedy, the whole haunted by the insight that words never precisely correspond to feelings. Every page holds memorable observations. One example: "Her ambition, smoldering in damp, half-closed eyes, corrupted everyone.'' The Amazonian plenitude of Pinon's imagination puts her in the category of genius. - Publishers Weekly
Pinon's first appearance in English is a giant family portrait and a meditation on the nature of dreaming (of colonizing a new world, of the magic of the past) and disappointment. Eulalia, an intensely religious old woman, has announced that she's about to die. As her extended family flocks in for the deathwatch, history unfolds in a luxuriant, unchronological snarl. As a child in a small town in Galician Spain, Madruga--the man who would grow up to be Eulalia's husband--had his imagination nurtured by his Grandfather Xan. Madruga borrowed money and set sail for Brazil. On arriving, he promptly made his fortune, while Venancio, his friend from the crossing, wandered around looking, thinking, imagining. Once rich, Madruga went back to Spain and won Eulalia, daughter of the local aristocrat. Then the couple headed back to Brazil to begin the would-be dynasty. There are five children: Miguel, charming but obsessed with sex; Esperanca, a radiant rebel who dies (commits suicide?) young; Bento, the consummate businessman who can never quite win his father's approval; Antonia, weak and despised; and Tobias, who grows up to be a radical lawyer. Meanwhile, old friend Venancio, driven to despair by his family's brutal fate in the Spanish Civil War, pens a weird fact-and-fiction diary. And Breta, Esperanca's daughter, is the first offspring who manages to connect with prickly Madruga. A jumbled assemblage of fertile symbols, peripheral dramas, and--most interesting--a subtle, detailed exploration of the love-hate relationship between Madruga, the colonizer, and Venancio, the historian. For those who can cope with the portion (600+ densely packed pages), this rich stew is rewarding, and spiced with an intoxicating blend of insight and drama. - Kirkus
''Once the Spaniards and Portuguese landed on these beaches and in these quagmires, they lost control over the course of destiny,'' Venancio, the sage conscience of ''The Republic of Dreams'' observes about Brazil. ''No destiny could resist the colossal excesses of this continent. And hence everything began to be lived and recounted in a way diametrically opposed to the accounts of the official chroniclers.'' In this way, living itself becomes an act of fantasy.
That is why it is important for this memorable clan to continue the line of imagining that stretches back to Grandfather Xan and the small Spanish village of Sobriera. In a seamless translation from the Portuguese by Helen Lane, the author Nelida Pinon has made the dreams of her republic not only those of one family, but of all Brazil, and perhaps of all Latin America as well. If the dreamers die off, what's left is a reality far too small to handle all the facts.
''The country . . . that went by the name of Brazil,'' muses Madruga, the wealthy and pragmatic patriarch, ''must be somewhere.'' Finding out where is left to the speculation of its citizens. On that certain Tuesday when Madruga's wife Eulalia begins to die, the web of myth that has sustained their family starts to break apart. Her husband cannot keep this country of memory together all by himself, and none of the others are willing to assume the role.
Who else is there? Surely not the family's sons - one obsessed by sex, one who would rather complain than act, a third lacking in spirit.
And certainly not the surviving daughter, consumed only with possessions and position. Not Odete, the ageless black servant and Eulalia's faithful amanuensis, secretly loaded down under the weight of her own visions. Nor the in-laws or nameless grandchildren, whose concerns are more immediate and mercantile. The only realistic candidate is the unwilling Breta.
''The Republic of Dreams,'' the first of the author's six novels to be published in English, continues one of Ms. Pinon's central themes: the long and muddled fight to reclaim a forgotten but essential corner of individual identity. Complicating this effort is the struggle to resist the colossal excesses of the Americas, a battle in which the family itself becomes a metaphor. ''I saw Brazil in Madruga's face,'' Breta observes at one point, in unknowing reflection of her mother, who had told her father years before, ''You are the beginning of my country. . . . As far as I'm concerned, it didn't begin till you arrived.''
In a work recalling the Argentine novelist Ernesto Sabato's mammoth saga, ''On Heros and Tombs,'' as well as certain of Faulkner's excursions through Yoknapatawpha County, the author sets out to discover if Brazil can survive Madruga's departure. Following Ms. Pinon's lead requires stamina and fortitude as well as the ability to navigate some tricky waters. Madruga and his family have found stability and success, but they have lost their way. ''The Republic of Dreams'' traces their wanderings in ways that are complex and elusive, but also rich, detailed and epic. STEWING HIS THOUGHTS
At five in the morning, Venancio was always up. And this had been so ever since he had arrived in America, as he still continued to call Brazil. He made fresh filtered coffee, heated the milk, and sitting at the kitchen table, dunked his buttered bread in the hot liquid, as though he had no teeth. He gave up this habit temporarily only in Eulalia's presence.
In the early morning quiet, seemingly the only person alive, it was as though time, for him, would never run out. He would sit at the table for hours on end, now that he had retired and had no obligations to fulfill. Only to wake up, look at the sun, and go back to sleep when it was dark. In all truth, Venancio's mind was only too inclined to wander. Even in the early days when they lived together, Madruga often pointed this out to him, on coming upon him sitting in front of the stove, stewing his thoughts, unwilling to plunk his feet on the floor and get moving. . . .
Eulalia was the only one to talk to him of Spain. Through her he was certain that Spain was still alive, attached to the map of the world by a thin steel thread, visible only if he made a special effort. Beset by doubts, he would consult her. - From ''The Republic of Dreams.'' - James Polk
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/30/books/living-is-an-act-of-fantasy.htmlSince times immemorial people have been dreaming and telling stories. Ancient myths and legends are part of the cultural heritage that shapes our view of the world and helps us to cope with life. But as we grow older the longing to live our own adventures and to weave our own legends grows. Determined “to make the Americas” thirteen-year-old Madruga, the central character of The Republic of Dreams by Nélida Piñon, left his native Galicia and arrived in Brazil in 1913. By the early 1980s, he is head of a numerous family and of a profitable group of companies, but almost lost his beloved grandfather’s ancient Galician legends. When his wife announces that death is coming for her, he and all the people who are integral part of their lives look back on the memorable events, joys and tragedies of seventy years thus start a new – Brazilian – legend.
Nélida Piñon was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in May 1937. The daughter of Galician immigrants studied journalism at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and worked for different Brazilian magazines. In 1961, she made her debut as a novelist with Guia-Mapa de Gabriel Arcanjo (tr. The Guidebook of Archangel Gabriel) followed by Madeira feita cruz (1963; Wood Made into Cross), Fundador (1969; Founder) and Tebas do meu coração (1974; tr. Tebas of My Heart). It was her erotic novels A casa de paixão (1977; tr. The House of Passion) and A força do destino (1977; tr. The Force of Destiny), though, that made her known to a wider public. Nonetheless, the author’s greatest literary success to date are the novels The Republic of Dreams (A república dos sonhos: 1984), Caetana’s Sweet Song (A doce canção de Caetana: 1987), and Voices of the Desert (Vozes do deserto: 2004) that all have been translated into English and other languages. She also wrote two memoirs, namely Coração Andarilho (2009; tr. Migrant Heart) and O Livro das Horas (2012; tr. The Book of the Hours), short stories, non-fiction, and a children’s book. Nélida Piñon lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
On a Tuesday in the 1980s, Eulalia decides that her time is near to leave The Republic of Dreams and her family to find eternal rest with the Lord. Only she knows that probably she would have entered a Catholic convent, hadn’t Madruga visited their native village in the Galician mountains in 1923 and charmed her with his blue eyes. As his wife she followed him to Rio de Janeiro where he had settled down ten years earlier after having secretly left his parents’ miserable farm and his grandfather’s mesmerising legends to set out for weird and wonderful Brazil with money lent from his uncle. Unlike his lifelong unworldly friend Venancio, who has his age and whom he had met boarding the English ship that took the boys of thirteen away from Spain, already in his twenties Madruga owned a thriving small business thanks to his unwavering resolve, his eagerness to learn and his great skill in dealing with people, but he felt far from having “made the Americas”. While he worked hard on enlarging his company and on securing his place in Brazilian society making forget his immigrant status, Eulalia bore him six children and retreated ever further into her own world made of religion and the legends of Galicia. Madruga is hard on his children although he gives them everything that money can buy. His eldest sons and the younger daughter’s husband readily take on roles in the group of companies, while the older daughter Esperanza and late born Tobías rebel. Unwilling to submit to the traditional female role model, Esperanza even has herself thrown out of the family mansion and gives birth to an illegitimate daughter called Breta who after her death in a car accident in the 1950s becomes Madruga’s pet grandchild and the family chronicler…
Told from alternating perspectives, mainly from those of eighty-year-old Madruga and his writing granddaughter Breta, The Republic of Dreams unfolds the saga of a Brazilian family with Galician roots against the backdrop of twentieth-century history including not just the almost constant political turmoil shaking Brazil, but also the Spanish Civil War and the following Franco regime as well as World War II in Europe. In addition, the ancient tradition of shaping reality into tales, if not into timeless legends, and the power of dreaming as a refuge from dire existence get much room in the novel. The result is a very complex, sometimes a bit confusing portrait of three generations living in Brazil which would be incomplete without the side glances at their family back in Spain. The frame plot covering the time until Eulalia’s death and her funeral is strictly chronological whereas the memories – like in real life – seem to follow random associations and often show just one family member with amazing psychological depth and realism. Fragmented and incomplete as many sentences are, even the author’s style reminds of the arbitrary workings of a mind. The language is powerful and permeated with impressive images that made reading a delight.
Although it took me quite a long while to get through the nearly 700 pages of The Republic of Dreams by Nélida Piñon, it was a thoroughly engaging pleasure to read this unusual family saga from Brazil. Not even for a single moment I was tempted to give up on the voluminous tome although I wouldn’t precisely call it a page-turner, either. What I appreciated most in it was the succeeded mix of an immigrant’s success story and the historical as well as social study of a country struggling to patch together a sole national identity from an incredibly mixed heritage. The diversity and authenticity of every single character surrounding the family patriarch fascinated me a lot as well. It’s a pity that the Brazilian novel is so little known outside its country of origin. In fact, it deserves being read much more widely and therefore I gladly recommend it. -
Nélida Piñon, Voices of the Desert: A novel, Trans. by Cliff Landers, Knopf, 2009.
From one of Brazil’s most beloved writers, a magical tale of lust, power, betrayal, and forgiveness set in the royal court of thirteenth-century Baghdad: a sumptuous retelling of the legend of Scheherazade that illuminates her character as never before. In exquisite prose, Nélida Piñon transports us from the Caliph’s private sanctum to the crowded streets of the forbidden marketplace, to the high seas of imagination, and to Scheherazade’s innermost life, as she weaves her tales night after night.
As the novel opens, the Caliph, betrayed by the Sultana, vows to take his revenge on the women of his kingdom by marrying a different virgin each night and executing her at dawn. Born into privilege, a daughter of the Vizier, Scheherazade decides to risk her life by marrying the Caliph, in an effort to save the women of Baghdad.
Every evening, in an amorous battle devoid of love, Scheherazade succumbs to the Caliph’s advances, and every night, with the help of her devoted sister Dinazarda and her loyal slave Jasmine, she entices the Caliph with her storytelling, unfurling accounts from the desert, the tundra, the bazaar, the golden-domed mosques. Scheherazade gives herself entirely to her characters, speaking as both man and woman, capturing the call of the muezzin, the speech of the caravans, the voices of the scattered tribes from the Red Sea to Damascus. The Caliph, unable to sate his curiosity, prolongs her life each day, desperate to hear how her stories will end. As Scheherazade brings him the tales of his people, he begins to question his cruel mandate and his own hardened heart, until, finally, Scheherazade discovers how to live out her story in a way that not even she could have imagined.
Here, for the first time, is the story of One Thousand and One Nights told from Scheherazade’s perspective, giving us the full breadth and depth of her longings and desires, her jealousies and resentments. Voices of the Desert is the ancient story reinvented—as a woman’s story, an erotic allegory, a haunting meditation on the power of storytelling.
Nélida Piñon, Caetana's Sweet Song , Knopf, 1992.
Returning to her hometown after years of traveling the world and pretending to be a world-famous diva, Caetana draws the town's most illustrious citizens--among them a cattle baron, an historian and poet, and a pharmacist--into her life.
The grand opera of Brazilian public life is the backdrop for this engaging tragicomedy set in 1970 in Trindade, a small town in the provinces. With the town's citizens acting as a sort of Greek chorus, Polidoro, a wealthy cattle baron, and his former mistress, Caetana, an aging itinerant actress, engage in verbal sparring and explore their passions, their insecurities, and their country's loss of innocence. Twenty years after she vanished from Trindade, Caetana returns dramatically, demanding that Polidoro grant her heart's desire, as he promised when they were young lovers. Caetana wants to be Maria Callas for one night; and so Polidoro, still smitten, sets out to provide her with a theater and an audience. He enlists Trindade's prostitutes, its pharmacist--everyone except his wife, Dodo, who has never forgiven him for his affair. Naturally, Dodo gets wind of Caetana's arrival and does everything possible to sabotage her rival's performance. Pinon ( The Republic of Dreams ) assembles her cast slowly, but her story soon picks up speed. Especially notable is the juicy dialogue between the aging actress and her consort. Pinon's newest work is robust and colorful. - Publishers Weeky
Brazilian novelist Pi§on, in her second novel (The Republic of Dreams, 1989) to appear in English, describes a leisurely paced encounter between illusion and reality in a Brazilian backwater in thrall to its dreams. When a letter arrives announcing the return of Caetana, a beautiful circus-star and actress, the small town of Trindade is caught up in a frenzy of anticipation. For 20 years the townspeople, who have survived by feeding on ``the bread of lies, the one warmth that fights off loneliness,'' have dreamt of such a day. Polidoro, the rich cattle-baron, has endured his wife's recriminations by remembering the great love affair he had with Caetana; Giaconda, owner of the local brothel, has similarly been helped by memories of Caetana's friendship; and the lonely misfits, like historian Virgilio, and the ``Three Graces''--the aging prostitutes of the brothel--have found a vicarious pleasure in imagining the happiness that Caetana's return will bring. Caetana, who has nurtured her own dreams, duly arrives, but reality turns out to be thin stuff. Refusing to resume their love affair, Caetana asks only that Polidoro build a theater for her so that she can give a performance to rival that of Maria Callas. The long-awaited performance is a fiasco, shattering everyone's dreams and illusions--but only briefly. For though Caetana leaves abruptly, she promises to come back in another 20 years--``Life to her was suitable only for the stage. Outside this domain everything seemed false''--and the town settles down once more to wait for ``the train of happiness to pull in.'' An insightful meditation on myth and reality, with all the ennui of provincial life vividly evoked, and marred only by the occasional repetitiveness in the telling. But a welcome addition to the Latin American canon.
- Kirkus
Nélida Piñon is a Brazilian writer born May 3, 1937 in Rio de Janeiro of Spanish immigrants. Her first novel was Guia-Mapa de Gabriel Arcanjo (The Guidebook of Gabriel Arcanjo), written in 1961 which concerns a protagonist discussing Christian doctrine with her guardian angel. In the 1970s she became noted for erotic novels A casa de paixão (The House of Passion) and A força do destino (The Force of Destiny), written in 1977.
In 1984 she perhaps had her greatest success with A Republica dos Sonhos, English translation The Republic of Dreams. The work involves generations of a family from Galicia who emigrated to Brazil. This relates to her own family's experience.
She is a former President of Academia Brasileira de Letras and on a personal note she is said to be fond of American television.
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