#afeastofbrazilianliterarydelights virtual brazilian … · 2020. 6. 23. · luis fernando...

2020 – A Feast of Brazilian Literary Delights Celebrating the birth centenary of

CLARICE LISPECTOR (1920-1977), JOÃO CABRAL DE MELO NETO (1920-1999) and JOSÉ MAURO DE VASCONCELOS (1920-1984)

#aFeastofBrazilianLiteraryDelights

©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml

14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

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VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB| LUIS FERNANDO VERÍSSIMO| BORGES AND THE

ETERNAL ORANG-UTANS |

16th JULY 2020, 18.30-21.00

2020 the year of #aFeastofBrazilianLiteraryDelights

Borges e os orangotangos eternos (2000)

by

LUIS FERNANDO VERÍSSIMO (1936-)

translated as

Borges And The Eternal Orang-Utans (2004)

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Who is the real murderer at the1985 Israfel Society Conference

on Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) in Buenos Aires?

The novel originated as a canny editor’s publishing contrivance, with an eye on a bunce: a ‘Literature or Death’ series!

Apropos, this editor was merely emulating earlier Brazilian editors.

The main murder witness, Vogelstein, a fifty-year old translator, and an English language teacher of German descent

and his hero, Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), attended an ill-fated party….

Two ways of reading this whodunit, spoof, and parody of locked-room mystery: (i) just read and try to find out what Vogelstein is up to!

(ii) If you are a literary buff, enjoy the multiplicity of textual references BUT, don’t believe that all of them are real. They are doctored and unreliable!

For the literature obsessives a few hints and some advice to all –

Luis Fernando Veríssimo’s narrator skims the surface of some world literary classics probably via his readings of Jorge Luis Borges

(1899-1986):

(i) The original play on the word ‘orango-tango’ in the title also refers to the Argentinian tango, lost in translation…

(ii) Why does the narrator choose the pen name ‘Machado’?

(iii) In which work did John Dee (1527-1609) mention ‘eternal orangutans’?

Consider the possibility of pseudo-reference and verify who this Tudor England’s polymath was.

(iv) Mirrors and Chess in Brazilian literature: e.g. in the masterful Machado de Assis’s The Mirror specifically,

and his oeuvre in general, Machado as a master chess player; perhaps Lewis Caroll’s sequel 1872 Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There...

(v) This novel also refers to the artificial language, Enochian, created by John Dee and

cryptography.

(vi) Can we continue to claim in the 21st century that it was Edgar Alan Poe (1809-1849) who originated detective stories, a cliché and a myth created detracting many from other amazing

mystery and crime stories?

(vii) Reference to apes, monkeys, orangutans, primates - simians in ancient human knowledge: the Bible, Naturalis Historia by Pliny the Edler (23/4-79), Physiologus (2nd century AD ), Aesop’s Tales, medieval bestiaries, The Tempest (1611) by William Shakespeare, The Tower of Myriad

Mirrors (1640, a supplement to the Journey to the West) by Yüeh Tung, the anonymous Genealogical Tree of Monkeys, according to Buffon's Nomenclature des singes (1776), the

female Yahoo in Gulliver’s Travels (1776) and …

(viii) Consider Poe’s epigraph, ‘And the angel Israfel, whose heartstrings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures. - KORAN’

The Brazilian Bilingual Book Club read Luis Fernando Veríssimo’s The Spies (2009) in

January 2017










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To find out more about the author visit https://sistemas.mre.gov.br/kitweb/datafiles/Londres/en-us/file/cul-bookclub-13-

osespioes.pdf

DETAILS OF AVAILABLE PUBLICATIONS:

ENGLISH 2004 Borges And The Eternal Orang-Utans translated by Margaret Jules Costa, published by Harvill Press, Random House: London, hardcover. Reprinted in 2005 by Vintage, Random House: London, and as an e-book 2012 Vintage Digital Various editions in English: ISBN-10: 1843430975 ISBN-13: 978-1843430971 ASIN: B007Y5TWV2 PORTUGUESE 2000 -Borges e os orangotangos, Editora José Olympio, Rio de Janeiro. Various editions in Portuguese e.g. ISBN 8535900586 978-8535900583 ASIN: B007Y5TWV2 Downloads available from the following, but some require registration and/or payment: https://issuu.com/bibianamrques/docs/borges_e_os_orangotangos_eternos https://www.scribd.com/document/207542037/LIVRO-Luis-Fernando-Verissimo-Borges-e-os-orangotangos-eternos-pdf https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gaudium.skoob&hl=pt_BR https://apps.apple.com/br/app/skoob-para-quem-ama-livros/id904670263 https://www.estantevirtual.com.br/livros/luis-fernando-verissimo/borges-e-os-orangotangos-eternos/2049332461

SHORT HISTORY OF THE BOOK AND TRANSLATIONS

Luis Fernando Veríssimo hinted, in an interview, that he writes to make money, which is plainly evident in his writing career. Borges e os orangotangos eternos was not the first work that he wrote as a commission. All his novels expect for The Spies * were commissioned works. The writer regards this short novel as his favourite, according to some commentators.





https://sistemas.mre.gov.br/kitweb/datafiles/Londres/en-us/file/cul-bookclub-13-osespioes.pdf


https://issuu.com/bibianamrques/docs/borges_e_os_orangotangos_eternos

https://www.scribd.com/document/207542037/LIVRO-Luis-Fernando-Verissimo-Borges-e-os-orangotangos-eternos-pdf

https://www.scribd.com/document/207542037/LIVRO-Luis-Fernando-Verissimo-Borges-e-os-orangotangos-eternos-pdf

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gaudium.skoob&hl=pt_BR

https://apps.apple.com/br/app/skoob-para-quem-ama-livros/id904670263

https://www.estantevirtual.com.br/livros/luis-fernando-verissimo/borges-e-os-orangotangos-eternos/2049332461

https://www.estantevirtual.com.br/livros/luis-fernando-verissimo/borges-e-os-orangotangos-eternos/2049332461






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In this instance, L. F. Veríssimo was engaged in contributing to the thematic collection

‘Literature or Death’ of the Companhia das Letras publishing house. The idea was to create a parody with the lives of world celebrity authors centred on some sort of mystery. The series focused on a single Brazilian author, Olavo Bilac, and the foreign authors J. L. Borges, Moliére, Marquis de Sade, F. Kafka, R. L. Stevenson and E. Hemingway. The choice of the author Olavo Bilac (1865-1918), who was given the accolade of being named as The Prince of Poets by his contemporary peers, also wrote a short novel O crime .

Initially, six Brazilian and two Latin American writers were chosen for the Literature

or Death series: L. F. Veríssimo, Rubem Fonseca, Bernardo Carvalho, Ruy Castro, Moacyr Scliar, Patrícia Melo, Alberto Manguel, and Leonardo Padura Fuentes. Luis Fernando Veríssimo has always been a keen admirer of the Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges. Borges e os orangotangos eternos achieved the sales objective of the publisher in the first years but not all the works in the series sold as much.

Commissioning literary texts to maximise sales has increasingly become a strategy of

commercially minded publishers. The practice has often been frowned upon or even scorned, and its products usually regarded as lesser works. Many argue that, in such business practice, the commissioning editor and/or publishing house taints or/and hinders the individual author’s independence and creativity by setting up such contrived rules and patterns. These types of works seem to try and create bridges between pulp literature/best sellers and great literature. Commissioning may have a covert element of product placement as well. Great, timeless literature is the work mirroring the limitless capacity of human imagination and unique creative minds. Obviously, the ethical dimension in editorial commissioning practices is brought to the fore.

In the twentieth century, publishers in Brazil eagerly adopted theme-based

commissioning. Various publishers began to engage in creating popular series in the first half of 20th century. However, in the second half, they adopted a much more targeted and aggressive strategy. For example, the publishing house Civilização Brasileira Editora (founded in 1929), now part of the Record Publishers Group, commissioned a short-story anthology based on the theme of the seven capital sins in 1964 from writers who had already achieved a degree of success: Mário Donato, Guilherme Figueiredo, Carlos Heitor Cony, Otto Lara Rezende, José Condé, Lygia Fagundes Telles and João Guimarães Rosa. In 1965, they commissioned another anthology on the theme of the ten commandments engaging the following authors: Guilherme Figueiredo, Carlos Heitor Cony, Jorge Amado, Marques Rebelo, Orígenes Lessa, Campos de Carvalho, João Antônio, Moacir C. Lopes and Helena Silveira. The two volumes achieved satisfactory sales and inspired other publishers to do the same.

In 1998, the publishing house Editora Objetiva (purchased by Penguin Random

House in 2014, now part of the German private multinational conglomerate Bertelsmann, and by Companhia das Letras in 2015) revisited the theme used by Civilização Brasileira, the seven capital sins, adopting the heading ‘Plenos Pecados (Fully-fledged Sins)’ commissioning established writers: Zuenir Ventura, José Roberto Torero, Luis Fernando Veríssimo, João Ubaldo Ribeiro, João Gilberto Noll, Ariel Dorfman and Tomás Eloy Martínez and the work was published in 2002. It innovated by inviting two South American writers (Chile and Argentina). Other publishers, such as Nova Fronteira, and Rocco also embarked on such commissioning editorial strategies in the awareness that they would be able to generate





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profit. The ploy attracted the attention of the national media helping publishers in their commercial endeavours.

The editor Luiz Schwarcz (1956-), who had worked for the Editora Brasiliense

publishing house founded the Companhia das Letras in São Paulo in 1986, launched the fictional thematic series called ‘Literatura ou Morte’ as rejoinder to ‘Plenos Pecados’. The editor gave an account of how the idea took shape. So the story goes, that Leandro Konder (1936-2014), a lawyer, university lecturer, marxist philosopher and writer submitted a short novel entitled A morte de Rimbaud (Rimbaud’s Death) in 2000. Luiz Schwarcz invited established writers to comply with two requirements: a crime plot and a dead writer who had gained acclaim. Controversially, the publisher excluded younger or unknown authors in Brazil and has been criticised for that.

Luis Fernando Veríssimo’s short novel Borges e os orangotangos eternos contains a

multiplicity of references to other books, most of which seem to have originated in quotes by Jorge Luis Borges as his essays and commentaries in particular refer to multiple world sources, albeit without much detail. However, there are pitfalls too as J. L. Borges invented some hoax references which appear to be real. In Borges e os Urangotangos the cross-references are somewhat fleeting and, skim the surface of the content of some world classics.

The novel opens with a quotation from Jorge Luis Borges from Ibn-Hakamal-Bokari,

Murdered in His Labyrinth*, in The Aleph (1949) in Spanish: Unwin, cansado, lo detuvo.

— No multipliques los misterios — le dijo. — Éstos deben ser simples. Recuerda la carta robada de Poe, recuerda el cuarto cerrado de Zangwill. — O complejos — replicó Dunraven. — Recuerda el universo.

Jorge Luis Borges, "Abenjacán el Bojari, muerto en su laberinto"

The titles of L. F. Veríssimo’s six chapters are: O crime (The Crime), X, O, W, M, La

Cola (in Spanish for The Tail). A clue is contained in the epigraph that Borges e os orangotangos eternos is a sort of locked room mystery evident in the reference to Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) and Israel Zangwill (1864-1926). Locked room mystery stories have ancient origins in the deuterocanonical Old Testament story, Bel and the Dragon and in the tale of a thief whose headless body was found in a sealed stone chamber told by Herodotus (c.484-c.425 BC) in the 5th century BC.

Crime fiction has a long history. Solving crimes seems to have fascinated humanity

for millennia. Finding a fictional solution to a crime puzzle or riddle appears in the earliest literature. From the late eighth or early seventh century BC, there is a reference to a murder of father by his son, followed by incest in Homer’s epic poems Odyssey and Ilyad. The former makes a single reference to the mythical Greek king Oedipus (Book 11) and the latter (Book 23) confirms that Oedipus continued to rule. The myth appears metamorphosed some two centuries later Oedipus Tyrannus/ Oedipus Rex (c. 429 BC) by Sophocles (c. 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC).

Early whodunnit narratives feature in The Arabian Nights (One Thousand and One

Nights ), which brings us The Three Apples, narrated by fabled Scheherazade, a story about a fisherman who discovers a heavy locked chest with gruesome contents (a cut-up woman’s





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body), along with the earliest fictional detectives featuring in The Merchant and the Thief and Ali Khwaja.

Most readers will certainly be acquainted with Edgar Allan Poe. He was a literary

pioneer, a poet, a short story writer, an aggressive literary critic, editor with interest in cryptology in the United States of America and became famous for his mystery stories. Those who read his The Fall of the House of Usher (1839), The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841), The Raven (1845), The Black Cat (1843) and The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) will certainly remember his skill in creating chilling horror, terror of the soul and mind, grotesque scenes with violent murders, and awe. He put forward the notion of tales of ‘ratiocination’, that is, deductive reasoning, for the creation of detective stories. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) and others would follow in his footsteps. E. A. Poe’s life was full of paradoxes, he secretly married his thirteen-year-old cousin, drank heavily, attempted to live off writing and died early. His death is surrounded by mystery, very fittingly. At the time, Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), E. A. Poe's pioneering translator, described his death as 'almost a suicide, a suicide prepared for a long time'. The Smithsonian published a piece on the top nine theories on Poe’s ‘still mysterious death’ in 2014! https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/still-mysterious-death-edgar-allan-poe-180952936/

The second writer mentioned in the epigraph is Israel Zangwill. He was a British author, son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, a novelist, playwright and a leader at the forefront of cultural Zionism during the 19th century, who later embraced the territorial movement. He became known as one of the earliest English interpreters of Jewish immigrant life in England. He wrote some of his works under the pen names: J. Freeman Bell (for works written in collaboration with other writers), Countess von S., and Marshallik. He started as a teacher and then went into journalism doing miscellaneous journalistic work in London and edited Ariel and The London Puck. Various of his works were adapted for the cinema. He appeared on the Time cover on 17th September 1923.





https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/still-mysterious-death-edgar-allan-poe-180952936/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/still-mysterious-death-edgar-allan-poe-180952936/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Zionism

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Not to be missed is an almost concealed clue in Borges And The Eternal Orang-Utans. Intentionally or whimsically, L. F. Veríssimo’s narrator adopts a pen name ‘Machado’ in his dealings with the Joachim Rotkopf. A closer examination of the text reminds us of Machado de Assis a great deal. Did L. F. Veríssimo mean to hint at yet another overlooked link?

In Brazil, crime fiction began to appear mostly in short stories in the nineteenth

century. The world master storyteller Machado de Assis published an excellent crime short story O enfermeiro (1884), later reprinted in Várias Histórias (1896). As mentioned above, Olavo Bilac wrote O crime which appears in his Chronicas e novellas: 1893-1894.

Enthusiasm for crime fiction effervesced in the first decades of the twentieth century

in Brazil as in many corners of the world including Britain. A curious joint enterprise resulted in a series of crime novels published under the name O Mystério by Medeiros e Albuquerque (1867-1934), Afrânio Peixoto (1876-1947), Coelho Neto (1864-1934) and Viriato Correia (1884-1967) in feuilleton format in A Folha from 20th March to 20th May 1920. On the other hand, investigations of a crime also feature in various guises in numerous novels. For instance, this is the case of The Apple in the Dark (1964) by Clarice Lispector (1920-1977).

Reading the oeuvres of both Machado de Assis (1839-1908) and Jorge Luis Borges

(1899-1986) in depth in the original languages, one can clearly find evidence that the latter read the former, despite claiming that he had not. J. L. Borges said he read Euclides da Cunha (1866-1909) but was also dismissive of him, and adopted much of Malba Tahan/ Júlio César de Mello e Souza (1895-1974) without ever acknowledging the fact. Salman Rushdie (1947-) read three main novels by Machado de Assis in his twenties and was enthralled; he stated that J. L. Borges was an offspring of Machado de Assis (2005) as various Latin American authors. Importantly, in a 2017 article, ‘Borges Reads Machado: A Translation of “A Cartomante” in Revista Multicolor De Los Sábados’ Marcelo Mendes de Souza provides evidence of this. (see Comparative Literature Studies Vol. 54, No. 3 (2017), pp. 540-560 https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/complitstudies.54.3.0540?seq=1).

The Revista Muticolor de Los Sabados was a literary supplement to the Diario Crítica,

Buenos Aires, founded in 1933 and edited by Jorge L. Borges and Ulyses Petit de Murat. There is also a 1995 book Borges en Revista multicolor. The Archives are available from https://www.ahira.com.ar/revistas/revista-multicolor-de-los-sabados/ The stories published in the literary supplement appeared as a book Historia universal de la infamia (A Universal History of Iniquity) in 1935, and revised by the writer in 1954.

Another point of stylistic confluence, between Machado de Assis and J. L. Borges are the chronicles or essays, pieces written for periodicals and newspapers. In addition to writing short stories, novels, plays and poems, Machado produced witty and humorous chronicles





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https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/complitstudies.54.3.0540?seq=1

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dealing with contemporary Brazilian and world affairs and debates. A recent addition of Machado de Assis’s chronicles in English is the 2018 bilingual edition of the Bons Dias! 1888-1889 translated by Ana Lessa-Schmidt and G. P Bellin, published by the New London Librarium, under the auspices of the Brazilian National Library Translation Grant Programme. In the Bons Dias! Series, Machado de Assis conspicuously writes about slaves and slave owners with a sharp critical stance and his usual sense of humour, well-balanced approach combined with witty arguments.

This series has often been disregarded by biographers and researchers who went on

to claim that Machado de Assis never wrote about slavery. This is far from true. One only needs to read his original works to see how much witty and pointed commentary he made about slavery in his oeuvre. Often significant names in Brazilian literature displayed self-interested criticism of Machado de Assis (e.g. Lima Barreto and J. Guimarães Rosa, who passed value judgements echoing to this date). Disregard the short abstracts appearing before each chronicle in the 2018 bilingual edition, instead, go directly to the chronicles written during a very significant period of the Brazilian history and be surprised!

Borges e os orangotangos eternos overlaps references with further reference to world books, ideas and authors across ages. Some are more relevant. For example, John Dee (1527–1609) is introduced in chapter ‘O’, described as ‘a magus and cosmographer, astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I’, a rather biased blurb. And a thought-provoking reference. As we are in Britain, let us briefly look at this extraordinary Renaissance polymath and enigmatic figure in Tudor England. The Royal College of Physicians tells us that

‘He served Elizabeth I at court, advised navigators on trade routes to the ‘New World’, travelled throughout Europe and studied ancient history, astronomy, cryptography and mathematics. He is also known for his passion for mystical subjects, including astrology, alchemy and the world of angels. Dee built, and lost, one of the greatest private libraries of 16th century England. He claimed to own over 3,000 books and 1,000 manuscripts, which he kept at his home in Mortlake near London, on the River Thames.’

A delightful biography of John Dee is Benjamin Woolley’s The Queen's Conjurer: The Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee, Adviser to Queen Elizabeth I (2001). Peter Ackroyd (1949- ) CBE FRSL wrote the excellent The House of Doctor Dee in 1993.





https://www.amazon.co.uk/Benjamin-Woolley/e/B001IO9OM2?ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vu00_tkin_p1_i0






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Borges e os orangotangos eternos was translated in English as Borges And The Eternal Orang-Utans by Margaret Jull Costa (1949- ), and published by Harvill Press, Random House, as a hardcover, in 2004 and reprinted in 2005 by Vintage. An e-book version is also available. The translation was awarded a Brazilian National Library grant.

Margaret Elisabeth Jull Costa OBE is a British translator of Portuguese- and Spanish-

language fiction and poetry, including the works by Eça de Queiroz, Fernando Pessoa, Javier Marías, Bernardo Atxaga, José Régio and the Nobel Prize winner José Saramago.

The original Borges e os orangotangos eternos is dotted with quotations and phrases in Spanish, which set the mood, add humour along textual references. The English translation, Borges And The Eternal Orang-Utans, removed all such instances including the epigraph quoted in Spanish in the original. Furthermore, the reference to the Argentinian tango in the rhyming play on the word orangotango – orango+tango was lost in the translated title. The translation did not follow the original punctuation, thus, removing some of the key conversational tone in various sections. Also, some original lexical items were substituted unnecessarily, ensuing in an editing of the original register and/or its sarcastic tone, for example: sonho (dream) replaced by ‘sleep’, raizes (roots) by ‘origins’, apartes (asides) by ‘comments’, presa (prey) by ‘trapped animal’, voou (flew) by ‘fled’, etc.

The translation of the following well-known quotation from the last stanza poem

Ajedrez (Chess or a Game of Chess) by J. L. Borges on page 6 (2005), is muddled: ....peças e inicia a ronda de pó e tempo e sonho e agonia do seu poema, Jorge. …pieces and begins the round of dust and time and sleep, and dying in your poem,

Jorge.





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The original J. L. Borges reads

Dios mueve al jugador, y éste, la pieza. ¿Qué Dios detrás de Dios la trama empieza

de polvo y tiempo y sueño y agonías

A translation in English of the passage reads, ‘God moves the player as he the pieces|But what god behind God plots the advent|Of dust and time and dreams and agonies?’

In the closing chapter of the novel (2005:131), the famous Poe’s refrain The Raven

‘Nevermore’, quoted in Spanish, appears as two words “Never more” in English (!?): ...Indagado sobre a possibilidade de o caso ser reaberto se aparecesse, por exemplo, uma confissão por escrito, mesmo romanceada, disse el Cuervo: Nunca más’

Apropos, the splitting of syllables in the wrong place at the end of a line in both the hardcopy and paperback versions are annoyingly random. Editors and publishers need to adapt a suitable technology to avoid such flaws which are invariably a source of irritation for the readers.

Although the translation Borges And The Eternal Orang-Utans reads satisfactorily in

general, the points highlighted above, provide evidence that the editor and publisher have been less than careful in reviewing the translated text before publication. Regrettably, not the best practice. It is often the case with various Brazilian translated texts in English that there is limited commitment to upholding the highest quality standards, which I have been able to identify in (re-)reading the translations for our book club during these six years. When outstanding features of any literary work are made less sophisticated than the original, or the sentence structure is edited by some personal and quirky criteria by the translators and/or editors on the presumption that the translation will sell better perhaps (bias!?), the outcome










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is usually that once one or two literary works have been published in English, the Brazilian writer fades away and vanishes. The funding programme for translations is equally wasted. There is a further consequence, a domino effect. Translations into other languages usually use the text in English as source, the overseen items will be thus replicated in many ways. Coincidentally and ironically(!) the character Vogelstein in Borges And The Eternal Orang-Utans, is a translator and discusses issues in his translation practice.

* I used the title from the skilful 1998 translation of Jorge Luis Borges by Andrew Hurley – Collected Fictions.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

LUÍS FERNANDO VERÍSSIMO (26th September1936-)

Luis Fernando Verissimo – photo by Eduardo Nicolau/Estadão https://goo.gl/images/HU2g28





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LUÍS FERNANDO VERÍSSIMO is one of the most recognized contemporary writers in Brazil, a national top bestseller, an inveterate satirist, cartoonist, translator, television writer, publicist, poet, playwright and novelist and musician. He plays the saxophone with band called Jazz 6. He has published over 60 titles and is a master wordsmith who has excelled at creating delightful satirical sketches. This ability to use language to maximum effect turning his writings into bestsellers has also awarded him the playful sobriquet ‘Gigolô das Palavras’ (literally, the ‘Gigolo of Words’).

He was born on 26th September 1936 in Porto Alegre, the capital city of the state of

Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. He is the son of Brazilian writer and diplomat Érico Veríssimo (1905-1975). He lived with his father/family in the United States during his childhood and teenage years. His father lectured at the University of California Berkeley (1943–1945) and served as the cultural director at the Organization of American States in Washington (1953–1956). The author attended primary school in San Francisco and Los Angeles and, completed high school at the Roosevelt High School in Washington. The author is married to Lúcia Helena Massa (1963) with three children: Fernanda, a journalist, Mariana, a writer, and Pedro, a musician. He lives with his wife in Porto Alegre.

He started his working life at the Editora Globo in Porto Alegre in 1956. From 1962

to 1966, he lived in Rio de Janeiro, where he worked as a translator and copywriter and got married there. In 1967, he returned to his hometown working for the newspaper Zero Hora, initially as copy desk and, in 1969, he started his daily column in the newspaper as he was capable of creating good texts at great speed. His first columns were about football, the new Beira-Rio stadium and the matches of his football club, the ‘Internacional’. In the same year, he became editor of the advertising agency MPM Propaganda. In 1970, he moved to the newspaper Folha da Manhã, where he would hold his daily column until 1975, writing short satirical stories about sport, cinema, literature, music, food, politics, society, attitudes and much more.

His 1981 book O Analista de Bagé, launched at the Book Fair of Porto Alegre, sold out

its first edition in two days becoming a bestseller throughout Brazil. The story is about a character who is an orthodox Freudian psychoanalyst, who uses the Rio Grande do Sul, the gaúcho variety of Portuguese with its accent, in a comical narrative, originally created for a TV series. From 1982 to 1989, L. F. Veríssimo published a weekly delightfully sarcastic and humorous page with funny characters in the magazine Veja, which was very engaging and created a loyal readership for many years. This is the opening satirical shot entitled ‘Self-interview’ on 15th December 1982 issue of Veja:





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porto_Alegre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erico_Verissimo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_of_American_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Hora

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalyst

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veja_(magazine)






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‘The champion of humour’ - VEJA cover 7 July 1982

In 1983, he created one of the most delightful characters - A Velhinha de Taubaté (The Old Lady of Taubaté), cast as ‘the only person who still believed in government’. Throughout the 1980s, L. F. Veríssimo became a phenomenon achieving huge popularity rare among Brazilian writers, with weekly columns in several newspapers, publishing at least one book, which would make the bestseller lists, and writing sitcoms for the Globo TV. In 1986, he covered the World Cup from Rome for the Playboy magazine living there with his family for six months. In 1988, he was commissioned by MPM Propaganda, to write his first novel, The Devil's Garden. In 1999, L. F. Veríssimo quit drawing As Cobras (The Snakes) comic strips and changed publishers, leaving the publisher L&PM and choosing Objetiva instead, which went on to republish all of his works. One of the anthologies, As Mentiras que os Homens Contam (The Lies that Men Tell, 2000), has sold over 350,000 copies. In 2003, he decided to reduce his workload in the press, from six to just two columns a week, published in Zero Hora, O Globo and O Estado de São Paulo.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taubat%C3%A9

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Globo

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=L%26PM&action=edit&redlink=1

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Objetiva&action=edit&redlink=1






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His publishers instigated him to publish a series of novels and romances: Gula - O

Clube dos Anjos (The Club of Angels) for the Plenos Pecados (Fully-fledged Sins) series by Objetiva (1998), Borges e os Orangotangos Eternos (Borges and the Eternal Orangutans, 2000) for the series Literatura ou Morte (Literature or Death) of the Companhia das Letras; O Opositor (2004) for the Objetiva anthology Cinco Dedos de Prosa (Five Fingers of Prose), A Décima Segunda Noite (The Twelfth Night) (2006) for the series Devorando Shakespeare (Devouring Shakespeare), and even Sport Club Internacional, Autobiografia de uma Paixão (Autobiography of a Passion) (2004), for the series Camisa 13 published by Ediouro.

SELECTION OF WORKS: Chronicles and short stories: O popular. Rio de Janeiro: Editora José Olympio, 1973; A grande mulher nua. Rio de Janeiro: Editora José Olympio, 1975; Amor brasileiro. Rio de Janeiro: Editora José Olympio, 1977; O rei do rock. Porto Alegre: Editora Globo, 1978; Ed Mort e outras histórias. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1979; Sexo na cabeça. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1980; O Analista de Bagé. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1981; A mesa voadora. Porto Alegre: Globo, 1982; O gigolô das palavras. [seleção Maria da Glória Bordini]. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1982; Outras do Analista de Bagé. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1982; A velhinha de Taubaté. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1983; A mulher do Silva. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1984; A mãe de Freud. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1985; O marido do Doutor Pompeu. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1987; Zoeira. [seleção Lucia Helena Verissimo e Maria da Glória Bordini]. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1987; Orgias. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1989; São Paulo: Objetiva, 2005; Pai não entende nada. (coleção jovem). Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1990; Peças íntimas. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1990; O suicida e o computador. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1992; Comédias da vida pública. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1995; A versão dos afogados - novas comédias da vida pública. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1997; Histórias brasileiras de verão. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva; Aquele estranho dia que nunca chega. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 1999; A eterna privação do zagueiro absoluto. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 1999.

Anthologies: As noivas do Grajaú. (antologia). Porto Alegre: Editora Mercado, 1999; As mentiras que os homens contam. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2000; As mentiras que os homens contam. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2000; A mesa voadora. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2001; Sexo na cabeça. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2002; Todas as histórias do Analista de Bagé. (antologia). Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2002,Banquete com os Deuses. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2003; O nariz e outras crônicas. (coleção para gostar de ler). São Paulo: Ática, 2003; O melhor das comédias da vida privada. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2004; A mancha. (coleção vozes do Golpe). São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2004; O mundo é bárbaro: e o que nós temos a ver com isso. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2008; Comédias brasileiras de verão. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2009; Time dos sonhos - paixão, poesia e futebol. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2010; Crônicas para se ler na escola. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva; Ed Mort: todas as histórias. (antologia). Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2011; Em algum lugar do paraíso. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2011; Diálogos impossíveis. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2012; Os últimos quartetos de Beethoven e outros contos. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2013; Amor Verissimo. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2014; As mentiras que as mulheres contam. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2015.

Novels: O jardim do diabo. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1987; Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2005. Gula: o clube dos anjos. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 1998; Gula: o clube dos anjos. (edição de bolso). Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2009,; O opositor. (coleção cinco dedos de prosa). Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2000. A décima segunda noite. (coleção devorando Shakespeare). Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2006; Borges e os orangotangos eternos. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2009, Os espiões. Rio de Janeiro: Alfaguara, 2009. Cartoons and comics: As cobras. Porto Alegre: Editora Milha, 1975; As cobras e outros bichos. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1977; As cobras do Verissimo. Porto Alegre: Editora Codecri, 1978; O Analista de Bagé em quadrinhos. [ilustrated by Edgar Vasques]. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1983; Aventuras da família Brasil. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1985; Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2005.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companhia_das_Letras

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ediouro&action=edit&redlink=1






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SOURCES:

➢ The Brazilian Bilingual Book Club read Luís Fernando Veríssimo’s The Spies (2009) in January 2017; post available at https://sistemas.mre.gov.br/kitweb/datafiles/Londres/en-us/file/cul-bookclub-13-osespioes.pdf

➢ For the Bel and the Dragon story in the Bible see https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611_Bel-and-the-Dragon-Chapter-1/

➢ Clarice Lispector (1920-77) interviewed Érico Veríssimo in the series she did (see: LISPECTOR, Clarice. Clarice Lispector entrevistas. Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 2007

➢ A good profile at http://www.elfikurten.com.br/2016/04/erico-verissimo-entrevistado-por.html

➢ The Publisher Objetiva: http://www.objetiva.com.br/autor_ficha.php?id=264 ➢ Companhia das Letras Group

https://www.companhiadasletras.com.br/autor.php?codigo=01244 ➢ One view about the novel: https://www.in-spite-of-it-all-trots-allt.se/products/books-have-

their-destiny-about-mirrors-and-prophesies/

➢ John Dee : Dee's books are displayed alongside loans from the Science Museum, the British

Museum and the Wellcome Collection and include Dee's mirror and crystal ball, and a specially commissioned film by acclaimed artist Jeremy Millar. One of his main works is General and Rare Memorials pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation (1577)

➢ See also: Royal College of Physicians also see their exhibition ‘Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee’ ran from 18 January 2016 to 28 July 2016. https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/news/lost-library-john-dee ; https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/john-dee’; https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co104490/john-dees-crystal-europe-1582-amulet John Dee became obsessed with the occult during his later years and the following books, written by him reflect this interest in the supernatural, they can be read at: http://www.esotericarchives.com/dee/

• Propaedeumata Aphoristica about Mathematics, Astrology and magic

• Compendium Heptarchiae Mysticae - An early version of John Dee's primary magical text

• Five Books of Mystery (Mysteriorum Libri Quinque) - These secret books recorded his experiments with 'angel magic' and contained the earliest versions of Angelic or ‘Enochian’ script

• Mysteriorum Liber Sextus et Sanctus (Liber Loagaeth) - This book is described as 'a Book of Secrets and Key of this World' and as The Book of Enoch. The contents were said to have been revealed to John Dee by the angels

• De Heptarchia Mystica - A summary by John Dee of his techniques for communicating with angels and practical benefits there from.

• The Hieroglyphic Monad contains information about symbolic language

➢ On simians and bestiaries https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/middle-english-bestiary# https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/bestiary https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8797&CollID=8&NStart

=4751







https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611_Bel-and-the-Dragon-Chapter-1/

http://www.elfikurten.com.br/2016/04/erico-verissimo-entrevistado-por.html

http://www.elfikurten.com.br/2016/04/erico-verissimo-entrevistado-por.html

http://www.objetiva.com.br/autor_ficha.php?id=264

https://www.companhiadasletras.com.br/autor.php?codigo=01244

https://www.in-spite-of-it-all-trots-allt.se/products/books-have-their-destiny-about-mirrors-and-prophesies/

https://www.in-spite-of-it-all-trots-allt.se/products/books-have-their-destiny-about-mirrors-and-prophesies/

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/

http://www.britishmuseum.org/

http://www.britishmuseum.org/

http://wellcomecollection.org/

http://www.jeremymillar.org/

https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/johndee

https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/johndee

https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/news/lost-library-john-dee

https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/john-dee

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co104490/john-dees-crystal-europe-1582-amulet

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co104490/john-dees-crystal-europe-1582-amulet

http://www.esotericarchives.com/dee/

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/middle-english-bestiary

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/bestiary

https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8797&CollID=8&NStart=4751

https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8797&CollID=8&NStart=4751






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➢ Edgar Allan Poe http://famous-and-forgotten-fiction.com/writings/poe-the-murders-in-the-rue-morgue.html The raven https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbc0001.2003gen37813/

➢ Israel Zangwill

• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Israel-Zangwill • Main works: A Study of a Peculiar People (1892), Grandchildren of the Ghetto (1892), The

Premier and the Painter (1887), The Big Bow Mystery (1892), The Bachelors' Club (1891), The Old Maid’s Club (1892), The King of Schnorrers (1894), The Master (1895), Without Prejudice (1896), Dreamers of the Ghetto (1898), Ghetto Tragedies (1899), The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes (1903), The Serio-Comic Governess (1904), Merely Mary Ann (1904); Ghetto Comedies (1907), The Melting Pot (1909), Chosen Peoples, (1919).

HAPPY READING!

2020: #aFeastofBrazilianLiteraryDelights

Attendance is free, but booking is essential: [email protected]

©Nadia Kerecuk Creator and Convenor of the ©Virtual Brazilian Bilingual Book Club at

the Embassy of Brazil in London





http://famous-and-forgotten-fiction.com/writings/poe-the-murders-in-the-rue-morgue.html

https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbc0001.2003gen37813/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Israel-Zangwill

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bow_Mystery

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schnorrer

https://archive.org/details/withoutprejudice00zang/page/n8/mode/1up

https://archive.org/details/withoutprejudice00zang/page/n8/mode/1up

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