Tag: Literature

City by the book: Rio de Janeiro & de Assis

Once again, my novel picked for Rio de Janeiro turned out to cover a much broader space of land than just Rio, but so did our trip, so it worked out quite well. For Rio de Janeiro, or for Brazil, I picked Don Casmurro by Machado de Assis, written in 1899.

Rio and religion!

We were only in Rio itself for two days but I’m not sure we could afford anymore! It was a phenomenal city with amazing views over the most bizarre geography, but it was also a damn sight more expensive than every other city we had visited so far. From Rio we went to the equally phenomenal Iguassu Falls, hoping for some tropical weather. But of course we arrived the week the region was experiencing freak cold weather.

Foz do Iguaçu!

I found Don Casmurro a little slow to start, and when I was failing to make progress with it I sat down in Iguassu and just decided to power through. Then of course, I began to really enjoy it. Once I again I was confronted of the weight of religion in South American culture, as the protagonist Bentinho tries to resist disobeying his mother’s promise for him to become a Padre but cannot fight his love for childhood sweetheart Capitú nor the fact he has not received ‘the call’.

When the theme of jealously begins to emerge Don Casmurro begins to get really good. It is very dramatic of course; ‘(anything is an excuse to a heart in agony)’ and it’s unlike me to side with a miserable husband over the free, adulterous wife in stories like these, but Bentinho is so miserable that you can’t not join in. Especially when the wife’s lover is who it is – I won’t spoil it. Though you do wonder if it is all just extreme paranoia and jealousy, only actually happening in his head.

Undoubtedly though, the reason I side with Bentinho so much has to be because of the narrative voice. It’s addictive and personal. He makes it clear that every piece of information you hear has passed through him, he is totally biassed. But for some reason, you just let yourself buy into the whole thing. I also love the way he addresses that he is writing it, and writing it to be read too, in moments like:

‘There is some exaggeration in this, but it is good to be overemphatic now and again, to pay off this devil of exactitude that torments me’

‘Perhaps I’ll scratch this out when it goes to press, unless I decide otherwise. If I decide otherwise, it stands. And until then let it stand, for after all it is our defence’.

I can’t say Don Casmurro taught me much about Brazil but it taught me other things and towards the end there, it got me turning pages as quickly as one can on a Kindle.

Rio dog rating: 7/10 – lots of golden retrievers!
Iguassu dog rating: 6/10 – it was going to get a 2 but right as we were getting the bus to the airport I found a dog with bunches in its ears and that, obviously, changed everything.

City by the book:
Cartagena & Márquez
Lima & Llosa
Amazon & Ibbotson

A rio sunset from sugar loaf mountain

August 16, 2017
City by the book: Amazon/Manaus & Ibbotson

Perhaps my favourite read from my trip was, unsurprisingly, a children’s book. Mid way through our trip we arrived in a small city close to the Colombian and Peruvian borders of Brazil – Tabatinga. From Tabatinga we took a four day boat to Manaus, a bustling city in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. While most people on the boat were saving their pennies in hammocks, my sister and I splashed out for a cabin. To our surprise, it ended up being the most luxurious part of our trip, and allowed for a lot of reading time.

Enjoying the luxury

And the views!

The boat was really quite spectacular, as we covered 1200km of the Amazon river, accompanied by daily sunsets and sunrises, dolphins, lots of birds and obscene amounts of pasta, rice and potato brought to our door three times a day. The absolute joy of the boat trip was made even more magical for me as I read the celebrated children’s story Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson.

Not joking about those varied carbs…

Or the sunsets!

The story is about a British school girl, Maia who is orphaned and sent to live with her long lost relatives on the edge of the Amazon river, near Manaus. What she hopes to be a jungle adventure full of local delicacies and cultural exchange turns out to be Little Britain with added disinfectant as her relatives are nothing like how she imagined them to be. Luckily her governess Miss Minton and fugitive Finn save the day, offering her all the adventure she could have imagined.

It is actually pretty dark at times for a children’s story, but it is one of those unforgettable adventure stories that leaves your mind wondering, not least over questions raised by Maia. My favourite was probably ‘why can’t grown-ups understand that we might know what is right for us just as well as they do?’

Teatro Amazonas

More than that though, Journey to the River Sea educated me about the area as I drifted down the Amazon. I learnt about the rubber industry, the origin of the Amazon’s nickname ‘River Sea’ and the Teatro Amazonas which I was excited to see right behind our hostel when we arrived in Manaus.

Miss Minton is a bit of a feminist hero in the book too, if I say so myself. Her corset seems to act as the image for all the restriction she experiences, physically, intellectually and proffessionnaly. The way she tosses it off when she’s free is very empowering, and even though the moment is sad, when the corset returns it is not an un-funny moment:

‘Miss Minton had spent the night with her sister and bought another corset because the good times were gone’.

I loved this book and I loved the boat portion of our trip. It provided the perfect opportunity to transition from Spanish to Portuguese, playing Uno with new friends who spoke no English in the evenings and meeting a man from France who happened to grow up in the tiny town I taught in during my year abroad. However, I was rather suddenly dropped into the Portuguese as the sniffer dog, Alaska, before we got on the boat took a liking to my bag. Trying to explain English Breakfast Tea turned out to be much harder than one might expect… let’s just say we didn’t get very far with them screaming “marijuana?” at me and me replying with “PG TIPS!” Not quite Maia and Ibbotson’s adventure, but it was an adventure nonetheless!

Amazon dog rating: 9/10 – all for Alaska!

Alaska the sniffer dog and me

Previous City by the Book:

Cartagena & Márquez
Lima & Llosa

August 10, 2017
City by the book: Lima & Llosa

Also from Peru – Mashed Potatoes Saved My Life: An Alternative Route to Mach Picchu

I have to admit, Lima was not our favourite stop on the trip. Perhaps because we had just descended from the excitement of a four day Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu as well as the general hubbub of Cusco, or because we hadn’t the time or energy to venture out of Miraflores. That being said, after a week of non-stop altitude sickness, I greatly appreciated Lima’s sea level location.

My sister, not exactly ‘loving’ Lima!

The truth is, Lima appeared to us to be a bit nothing and it seems to be that way in Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Storyteller too. This novel picked for Lima because wikipedia classed it as ‘set in Lima’ instead offered much more insight into the more tropical areas of Peru that I had the opportunity to experience during the Salkantay trek.

There were of course references to Lima, that were very relatable as Llosa writes of how in Lima “even bright sunlight has a grayish cast” – while it is physically true of Lima’s haze it seems like a good metaphor too…

Yet since the characters of The Storyteller are fascinated with ethnology – the study of different groups of people and the relationships between them – much of the novel’s insight was very connected with the impression our trek guide Juan Carlos gave us of Peruvian, and particularly Inca culture, but also of the Amazonian world I would come to experience in Brazil, later in the trip.

My favourite part of the novel is probably more to do with the characters than the setting. I love when Saúl realises his passion for ethnology, I think Llosa has a really poetic way of describing the moment:

“He had discovered, without the slightest doubt, what it was that interested him in life. Not in a sudden flash, or with the same conviction as later; nonetheless, the extraordinary machinery had already been set in motion and little by little was pushing him one day here, another there, outlining the maze he eventually would enter, never to leave again”.

I can’t say I’ll be returning to Lima, but the rest of my Peruvian adventure was rich in stories, history and potatoes. I look forward to writing about Cusco, the trek and Machu Picchu!

Lima dog rating: 4/10 (but Peru as a country gets an 8!)

Last week: Cartagena & Márquez

August 3, 2017