Crimes on campus

01/08/2024

Culture • Literature • Books

By ADELTO GONÇALVES*

Commentary on the detective novel by Flávio R. Kothe

Although the presence of mystery literature in the Brazilian literary tradition is fragile, there are many renowned authors, such as Jorge Amado (1912-2001), Antônio Callado (1917-1997), Dinah Silveira de Queiroz (1911-1982), Guimarães Rosa ( 1908-1967), Rachel de Queiroz (1910-2003), Orígenes Lessa (1903-1986) and, more remotely, Coelho Neto (1864-1934), ventured into the area, it is a very popular genre in the United States and in Europe and which has often served as a pretext for the analysis of society, acting as an instrument for reflection on the relationships between those in power and subordinates.

This is what the reader will find in a recent work in the detective genre, Crimes No. campus: novel de detective, in which its author, Flávio R. Kothe, retired professor of Aesthetics at the University of Brasília (UnB), provides an overview of what was experienced at the time of the amnesty promoted by the military dictatorship (1964-1985), already in its throes, which provoked, among other episodes, the return of the amnestied masters to their former places of work at the public university.

As is known, by law, the military regime began to grant amnesty to all those who, in the period between September 2, 1961 and August 15, 1979, had committed acts that had been considered political crimes and electoral crimes, having their political rights suspended, which included direct or indirect administration employees.

As in other places in the federal, state or municipal administration, in the public university the return of those amnestied did not happen smoothly and many people started to be treated with stones precisely because of their merits, especially because, behind it, was the fear of who could occupy the space conquered by those who had gone through the period without contesting (or even supporting) the disastrous dictatorship.

Due to many conflicting interests and even the envy of those who had remained here or entered the teaching profession after the period of witch hunts promoted by the military and their acolytes, those amnestied began to suffer countless political persecutions, which, this time, would be done only behind the scenes or in the dead of night. After all, many of those amnestied returned with degrees obtained from foreign universities and even books published abroad.

Especially because by that time the time had already passed when younger people were only able to enter as professors in public universities if they were invited by a professor, who, generally, as he would be a bad researcher, ended up giving preference to portfolio carriers who could also subject ourselves, as researchers, to swallowing the dust of the archives.

With the extinction of the chair, however, dominant groups were formed that would take care of competitions that often turned into marked card games, with the choice of favored candidates, without taking into account fundamental requirements, such as CV, title or classroom performance. This is what the reader can understand in more depth if they also read the article “Academic merit”, by Flávio R. Kothe, posted on the website the earth is round.

Flávio R.Kothe, although he uses fiction, shows that he knows very well what the behavior of those who did not peacefully accept the return of those amnestied to their home departments was like. In the plot that he masterfully devises, the rectory of a public university decides to create an institute that would house these returnees. However, what seemed to be a good solution to isolate the amnestied people would immediately become a source of fear on the part of the dominant groups about what those gathered people could plot.

It is worth remembering that Flávio R.Kothe was a professor at UnB from 1974 until the beginning of 1979, when he lost his job due to a decision by the dictatorship, through an intervenor. At the time, he had proposed the creation of a teachers' association. Afterwards, he returned to UnB as an amnesty.

In the book, what triggers the investigation that will reveal the reaction of those who were already accustomed to the arbitrariness of the military regime is the episode that follows a murder that takes place in a new building in the campus at the university where the victim is “a young man under thirty years old”, who appears “with his head blown off”. He was a student who worked there in his spare time as an assistant to the director of the informally called Instituto dos Retornados. And at the same time, he was developing research work.

Therefore, a detective, named Moia, is tasked with unraveling the plot that would have resulted in the death of that student. At his side, a young assistant works who would report on the investigations, which, after all, would end up forming the narrative of the soap opera. Obviously, this character's performance allows us to conclude that this is a kind of alter ego, which would go in depth in exposing the retrograde structure that has always marked the existence of public universities in Brazil.

Here is an excerpt from chapter II that marks the beginning of the investigation and that, as in the best works of detective literature, draws the reader into the unfolding of the plot until the last pages: “It was my first death in the profession. My job forced me to see the dead up close, and to read them as if they were a book spread out on the floor. I wasn't used to it. We don't forget the first deceased. I felt like I was going to blow my socks off.”

From then on, new crimes would end up occurring and the detective and his young assistant would try to understand the tensions that could have motivated them. Behind everything, what apparently existed was a group that, formed at the time of the dictatorship, would be dominated by a respected professor, with a reputation as a leftist, who aspired to become recognized as the greatest critic of Brazilian culture, but who, Behind the scenes, he did exactly what pleased the military and the oligarchy that supported them, which meant preventing any intellectual who would question the regime from joining the group.

Therefore, what mattered in the selection boards was if the candidate had qualities that were suitable for the dominant group or one of its leaders, which sometimes put subordinate interests at stake, regardless of titles, works or teaching experience. And, especially, that he could not call into question the power that the boss had accumulated over the years, which included the right to distribute scholarships, jobs, trips abroad and benefits.

Here it can be seen that Crimes No. campus follows the structure of the classic detective novel, that is, a detective like Sherlock Holmes and someone who accompanies him like Watson, creations of the English writer Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). This is a model that has already been revived in O name da (1980), by Umberto Eco (1932-2016), considered one of the great books of the second half of the XNUMXth century.

Not to mention that, personally, Flávio R.Kothe never hid his admiration for Crime e punishment (1866), by the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), in which this author takes up the structure of the genre to shift the discovery of the criminal to a theme such as social misery and mercy. In the case of Kothe's recent work, he, who in his book A narrative trivial (1994) had already studied detective novels and wanted to take advantage of the genre to discuss themes such as envy, arrogance and arrogance.

Anyway, Crimes No. campus, composed within the traditional parameters of the soap opera or detective novel, a genre for many critics still considered paraliterature, brings a fundamental and still little explored reflection on one of the saddest facets of the “years of lead” in Brazil.

*Adelto Gonçalves, journalist, has a doctorate in Portuguese literature from the University of São Paulo (USP). Author, among other books, of Bocage – the lost profile (Imesp).

Reference

Flávio R. Kothe. Crimes on Campus: Detective Novel. São Paulo: Editora Cajuína, 2023, 194 pages. [https://amzn.to/3YzSH6W]