A country boy from Alagoas

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By WALNICE NOGUEIRA GALVÃO*

Preface to the new edition of “Stories of Alexander”, bye Graciliano Ramos

The literature of Graciliano Ramos brings to the fore Regionalism, of which he is the greatest representative. A remarkable literary movement, Regionalism reached its peak in the 1930 Novel, with a hegemony that would last for more than half a century. Little by little, its luminaries from Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Bahia, Alagoas, Sergipe, Piauí, Maranhão, Pará and Amazonas emerged.

They would migrate to Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of the country, in search of opportunities and audiences, gradually occupying magazines and newspapers, public offices, publishing houses, teaching, and the Brazilian Academy of Letters. Its members invariably came from the Northeast and the North. In the words of the poet Manuel Bandeira, himself from Pernambuco: “It is those from the North who are coming!” – announcing the splendid literary harvest that was approaching.

Regionalism preceded the 1930s Novel. From early on in our history, there began to be clamors for artistic expression from the corners of the gigantic territory that makes up Brazil. Demands from voices from Ceará, Amazonas, Bahia, etc. reached the capital – which concentrated all the resources. The allegation, quite fair, was that the literature of the Southeast did not express these corners.

Well before Graciliano Ramos, still in the 19th century, a first Regionalism can be seen, marked by Romanticism. In an almost prophetic or at least anticipatory tone, this first Romantic Regionalism would sometimes be called “Sertanismo”, already showing its predilection for the representation of the backlands and the backlands people, which would predominate later.

Some names and dates mark this evolution, from which we have selected only the most prominent authors, representing countless others, and their most notable books…

Still attached to the romantic aesthetic, we have a group that stands out in the 1870s. They are: Bernardo Guimarães, with the slave Isaura (1875), talks about Central Brazil; Alfredo Taunay, with Inocencia (1872), talks about the Midwest; Franklin Távora, with The Hairy One (1876), speaks of Ceará. In this chapter, and also in Ceará, the presence of José de Alencar is overwhelming, since it was his project to cover all of Brazil with his novels. Thus he became a kind of founding father of Brazilian fiction, and it is difficult to assess his extraordinary importance. Among his fruitful and numerous contributions, in this specific sector, the following stands out: The countryman (1875). This mention is completed by his Indianist and urban writings.

Shortly afterwards, Naturalism emerged, rejecting the sentimental plots of Romantic Regionalism and demanding a more energetic and objective representation, focusing on social problems – in this respect very close to what would become the Romance of 1930 in the future. New authors emerged, although not much time passed, praying for this new ideal.

From the Amazon, Sousa's English with The missionary (1888). Several from Ceará: Manuel de Oliveira Paiva with Mrs. Guidinha of the Well (1892); Rodolfo Teófilo with The brilliant ones (1895); Domingos Olímpio, with Luzia-Man (1903). Afonso Arinos, author of the short stories of Through the backlands e The thugs, both from 1898. The latter tells the story of the Canudos War, which took place in the backlands of Bahia.

It is difficult to assess the impact that the publication of the hinterlands, by Euclides da Cunha, in 1902. Although it was not a novel, it was conceived in a literary language taken to the extreme and polished with great care. The book revealed a vision of the country's innermost being that is still valid today. A book of denunciation, which illuminated the cruelty with which the country regarded the poor who lay abandoned in the interior.

An ambitious project, the book provides a true cartography of themes that would predominate in the 1930s Novel and in the birth of Brazilian Social Sciences, later on. Euclides would soon be promoted to the Brazilian Academy of Letters and the Historical and Geographical Institute. Furthermore, he was a model of a conscious and committed intellectual. From then on, it would be impossible to escape his influence.

Barely two decades had passed since the previous outbreak when an extension of this naturalist Regionalism appeared, already tinged with Pre-Modernism. These authors are important because they raised the issue of regional language more clearly, which they sought to imitate in their writings, creating a kind of new branch, identified with country culture. Monteiro Lobato stands out with his numerous works in many areas – especially for children and young people, which to this day is unbeatable among us –, with Urupes (1918). The works of Valdomiro Silveira contribute to this trend, with The caboclos (1920), and, in the extreme South, Simões Lopes Neto with Gaucho tales (1912) and Romualdo's Cases (1914)

A few years pass and the noisy irruption of the 1930 Novel takes place, with the bagaceira (1928), by José Américo de Almeida, from Paraíba. Thus was unleashed the powerful and original current that would dominate the Brazilian literary scene for half a century, presenting followers until today, when it has already lost its hegemony. Everyone knows its main names: Graciliano Ramos, Rachel de Queiroz, Amando Fontes, José Lins do Rego, Jorge Amado – to name just the most notable.

The 1930 Novel resumed a line of evolution interrupted by Modernism, which abhorred the localism and particularism of the regionalists, as well as their fixation on the rural. Modernism was urban and international, and its best expression was in prose. Macunaíma, by Mário de Andrade, who deliberately mixes regions and typical phenomena, recommending the practice of “degeographicization”. Its characteristics make it more readable, since its medium is prose, not poetry.

In the absence of social sciences, which would soon come, it functions as an “introduction to Brazil”, as it shows other sides of a huge country. In the wake of the hinterlands, shows that Brazil is not limited to the civilized and cosmopolitan coastal strip, facing Europe, which it seeks to imitate. Brazil and Brazilians, as the 1930 Novel insists, is also composed of the backlands and the backlands people, whose harsh living conditions the authors denounce; and they develop a huge number of themes.

In it we find drought, migrants, coronelismo and bossiness, religiosity and fanaticism, misery, oppression of the powerful and submission of the humble people, the vote of halter, banditry and bandits, violence, etc. And also the practices and routines of daily life.

If the 1930 Novel rejected Modernism's experimentalism and avant-garde ideals, it also benefited from its stripped-down language and, although conceived in different terms, its engagement with the here and now. But precisely for this reason it won over the reading public, being easier to read than the avant-garde prose of the heroes of 1922. As a whole, the 1930 Novel took stock of Brazil and established literature as an instrument for understanding the country. This is how the 1930 Novel changed the panorama of Brazilian literature.

As a backdrop to this important prose, we had the Great Migration, in which millions of Brazilians began in 1930, slowly at first, but increasing over time, a new demographic trend. This trend had a dual nature, as Brazilians began to move to large and small cities, leaving the countryside, while at the same time moving from the Northeast and North to the Southeast of the country. This was the largest population transfer in our history.

This is how they came to contribute to the verticalization of the metropolises of the Southeast, as well as to the industrialization of São Paulo. This would result, decades later, in the creation of a strong and organized working class, which would found its own party and elect the president of the Republic several times.

Little by little, the 1930 Romance, whose greatest name is Graciliano Ramos, began to work specifically with the backlands and the backlands people, as our author demonstrated in the masterpiece that is Dry lives. Famous for the confluence between the theme, expressed in the title, and the style, this novel will serve as an example when expressing itself in language: lean, uncluttered, free of ornaments that do not match the narrative.

Much has been written and continues to be written about the backlands and the backlands people. And what was an initial trend would become a trend that would predominate in what I call the “symbolic complex of the backlands’ imaginary”. It began with the exploration of the country’s interior, its immense wild and unknown territory, which insinuated itself into the imagination and actions of men. Gradually, it acquired the contours of a representation that connoted the “real Brazil”, in contrast to the coastal region, where urban civilization predominated.

Even before the emergence of the 1930 Novel, this tendency can already be noted, interwoven in regionalist literature. The aforementioned is an example. Through the backlands (1898), by Afonso Arinos, which brings stories in which the setting is that landscape. In his novel The thugs (1898), This same author narrates the War of Canudos, which took place in the wildest hinterland of Bahia.

But what most impacted the imagination of Brazilians, at least the literate ones, was the publication of the sertões (1902), by Euclides da Cunha. Readers in the country's only metropolis at the time, Rio de Janeiro, as well as in other less important urban centers, had already followed the development of the conflict in the newspapers. The newspapers, the only media at the time, had taken charge of controlling public opinion, spreading slander, systematically defaming people and publishing falsified documents.

The inglorious end of the war, which had been portrayed as an international conspiracy to overthrow the Republic, whose focus of open belligerence was Canudos, had revealed the lie. These were miserable backwoodsmen, who didn't even have decent weapons, willing to defend themselves against the offensive of the Brazilian army equipped with the most modern weaponry in the world, including 23 cannons. The “focus of belligerence” was nothing more than an improvised camp of very poor shacks made of mud and mud… The word genocide It was not used because it did not exist yet and would only be created after the Second World War. But that was what it was, a genocide against Brazilians committed by Brazilians.

When the war ended and the excesses of the troops came to light, such as the practice of beheading handcuffed prisoners in full view of the commanding generals, the scandal was enormous. And the book came to meet the awareness of collective guilt. This was enough to give an enormous boost to the gradual construction of the symbolic complex of the backlands and the backlands people.

But after the 1930s and the hegemony of its novel in the following decades, the complex would gradually spread to other artistic areas. It would gradually permeate cinema, theater, painting, crafts, and popular song. And it would enter the university, through the creation of the Social Sciences at that time.

The backlands and the backlands preside over the height of Cinema Novo in the 1950s and 1960s, with Glauber Rocha filming God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun e The dragon of evil against the holy warrior, Nelson Pereira dos Santos with Dried lives, and several others. The trend includes the set of medium and short films entitled Ciclo Thomaz Farkas, which is the documentary counterpart of Cinema Novo. In the theater, Auto da Compadecida, by Ariano Suassuna, and Severina death and life, by João Cabral de Melo Neto, setting an example for many other pieces.

In painting, Portinari covers monumental canvases with the series retreatants, among others. In popular song, Luiz Gonzaga, bard of the backlands, provides a kind of complete ethnographic coverage of his region, with his powerful voice and great art.

In crafts, the pioneer is Mestre Vitalino, from Caruaru, in the interior of Pernambuco, who spent his life sculpting clay figurines that represented different aspects of rural life, making countless disciples who are still following in the master's footsteps. Recently deceased, J. Borges, from Bezerros, also in Pernambuco, took flight from a poet to an engraver, always devoted to the themes of his region in beautiful woodcuts.

The cover of the cordel, usually illustrated by a woodcut, became autonomous in his hands, reaching large dimensions and being able to be hung on the wall. His predecessors were artists such as Mestre Noza, from Pernambuco and living in Juazeiro do Norte, who, in addition to woodcuts, sculpted thousands of small effigies of Father Cícero; Gilvan Samico, from the Armorial Movement; and Raimundo de Oliveira, from Feira de Santana, among others.

Cordel literature was discovered and studied with the refinement of great art. At the University, research and studies on the backlands and the backlands are implemented and continue to be developed to this day.

Antonio Candido, in relation to the Romance de 1930, observed the peculiarity that a new literary model, emerging at that time, already began to speak of decadence – which, after all, in its deepest layers, is the theme of every regionalist novel. The answer, evidently, lies in the class sector to which the authors belonged, which was indeed in decadence – that of the landowners. The Romance de 1930, therefore, spoke of the Big House. Here again we note the singularity of Graciliano Ramos: when writing Dry lives, he decidedly descends from those heights and places the narrative among the most destitute of the refugees.

By appropriating the backlands and the backlands, our author ended up writing these stories about Alexandre, which are part of the great popular tradition of “liar stories”, of which there are charming examples all over the world. Even among us, they are the crux of certain mischiefs by Pedro Malazartes. And Macunaíma himself was not averse to spreading lies, to the point that, when caught in one of them, he candidly responds: “I lied”…

Very entertaining and, as always with this author, admirably well written, characteristic of his style that tends towards the traditional and the traditional, the adventures of Stories of Alexander They are absorbing not only old Portuguese authors but also the language impregnated with the archaic that is preserved in the backlands. Over to you, Alexandre.

*Walnice Nogueira Galvão Professor Emeritus at FFLCH at USP. She is the author, among other books, of Reading and rereading (Sesc\Ouro over Blue). [amzn.to/3ZboOZj]

Reference


Graciliano Ramos. Stories of Alexander. Commemorative edition of the 80th anniversary of the original edition. São Paulo, Literary Praxis Publishing House e Editor Anita Garibaldi, 2024.


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