Matraga is not Matraga

"Augusto Matraga's Hour and Turn" by João Guimarães Rosa, in Sagarana, translated by Harriet de Onís (Knopf, 1966)


Sagarana was João Guimarães Rosa's first book, a nine-story cycle published in 1946, a decade before the appearance of his back-to-back masterpieces: the novel Grande Sertão: Veredas and the seven interlinked novellas in the two-volume Corpo de Baile. The title, as noted by Franklin de Oliveira in the introduction to the translation, is an amalgam of "Saga, an Old Norse root, a verbal creation at the service of the epic, and the Tupi suffix rana (in the manner of)." In the manner of a saga, the stories explored the poignant, comic, and earthy territory of the backlands of Minas Gerais, Brazil.

The last story in the cycle—"Augusto Matraga's Hour and Turn"—was significant for anticipating the concerns of Grande Sertão: Veredas. After an almost fatal and life-changing experience, the titular character underwent a radical self-invention after making a pact with—who would have guessed it—no less than God. This was an almost anti-Faustian tale, a fine complement to the novel that succeeded it.

But "Matraga is not Matraga, or anything", announced the first sentence of the story.

Matraga is Estêves. Augusto Estêves, the son of Colonel Afonsão Estêves, of Pindaíbas and Saco-da-Embira. Or Mr. Augusto, Nhô Augusto—the man—on that evening of a novena, at an auction behind the church in the village of Our-Lady-of-Sorrows-of-the-Creek-of-Muricí.

In the rest of the story, the name "Matraga" was no longer mentioned, a conspicuous absence that says something about the validity of names as determinant of a person's identity. Aren't the various salutations and configurations of the names (as Estêves, as Nhô Augusto, as Augusto Matraga) preconditions for one's changing status in life?

Nhô Augusto was a rich, patrician and cruel hacendado about to fall on hard times due to his wanton lifestyle and mismanagement of assets. He was as evil as he was impulsive: he treated people like animals and was himself described like an animal—"hard, rough, and unbridled, like a huge beast of the forest"—so evil he was "worse than a poison snake, which whoever sees it is duty-bound to kill." We are squarely in the middle of Guimarães Rosa's territory, in the mêlée of maelstrom, the middle of the whirlwind. It is the territory of "permanent crisis" wherein the dichotomy of good and evil was ever shifting, playing out its many erratic manifestations.

When Augusto's wealth diminished, he was left by those close to him. It was but the beginning of his downfall: "with crushing debts, on the losing side politically, his credit gone, his lands neglected, his ranches mortgaged, and the outlook hopeless, all doors closed, like a blank wall". Dona Dionóra, his wife whom he had estranged with his unfaithfulness and plain badness, ran off with another man. His men, whom he had neglected, deserted him for better pay as henchmen of Major Consilva. The latter was the instrument to his destruction. He was left for dead by his own men at the behest of Major Consilva who later appropriated all his properties and consolidated the power he once enjoyed.

"Matraga" was also a close study of revenge, a feeling associated with savagery and inhumanity. Despite the biblical undertones and apparent seriousness, the story was told like a brooding musical, with characters suddenly breaking into singing solo or in chorus. The prose was epigrammatic and onomatopoeic—"In the distance a dog spelled out one single, meaningless name"—and with its self-questioning tone parodied its own artifice: "This is a made-up story and not something that happened, no indeed"; "And everything happened just like this because it had to, inasmuch as it did." The third person narrator was pedantic, just like Riobaldo, the indefatigable narrator of Grande Sertão.

Crushed and destroyed, Augusto was taken in by a black couple who revived him not only through traditional medicines and procedures but with unceasing prayers and religiosity. Consulting and confessing to a priest, the man was comforted by a single certainty that will dictate the rhythm of his revenge. The priest had given him a powerful code, what for him was a mantra or spell to be whispered in times of trials and temptations, akin to an amulet: words to deal with the blows of fate: "Everyone has his hour and his turn; and yours will come."

With the underlying themes of the use of religion to temper the inherent ugliness in man and the use of violence to enforce the idea of goodness and decency, "Matraga" was a classic case of human conversion and transformation, the spectacular metamorphosis of a sinner's worldview into that of someone "half mad and half saint". This renewal of life, the curbing of animal temper and invocation of goodness in daily life transactions, was sealed under ritual oath.

Nhô Augusto knelt in the middle of the road, opened his arms wide, and swore: "I am going to heaven, I really am, by fair means or foul. And my turn will come. To Heaven I am going, even if I have to use a club."

Nhô Augusto and his adoptive parents went away to live a new life, in a new place. He became true to his promise.

He lived trying to help others. He hoed for himself and for his neighbors out of the warmth of his heart, wishing to share, giving out of love what he possessed.

Even so, the animal instinct was branded in him. He was constantly gnawed by thoughts of consummating his vengeance, tempted every which way to go back to his old evil ways, to secure the power lost to him. Time passed and the charitable life and work he demonstrated did not give him peace of mind. What is the price of penance and penitence? What is the cost of atonement for sins if salvation and liberation call for an itching beyond human comprehension and control?

And it was only then that he realized how he was lashed to his penitence and understood that this business of signing up with religion and trying to snatch his soul from the mouth of the devil was the same as entering a swamp where going forward or backward or to the sides is always hard and always drags you deeper into the mire.

The idyll was broken when a band of jagunços passed the village. Its leader exuded power and violence his old life knew too well.

And the leader—the strongest and tallest of all, with a blue handkerchief rolled around his leather hat, his white teeth filed to sharp points, of commanding gaze and a hoarse voice, but with a pretty, gentle face of a maiden—was the most famous man in the two backlands of the river ... the stump-puller, the earth-shaker, the fire-eater, the boast-stopper, the measure-taker, the question-settler, the no-obstacle-brooker: Mr. Joãozinho Bem-Bem.

The charisma of the jagunço chief certainly contained shades of gallantry that only exemplary individuals possessed (and also shades of characters in his future novel). Joãozinho Bem-Bem was in fact so famous and mythical he was mentioned at least four times in the first half of The Devil to Pay in the Backlands. (Riobaldo called him the fiercest among all jagunços of old. Zé Bebelo wanted to follow his example. He considered the late chief as the only man-jagunço he could respect. Diadorim also made example of the "iron-clad rule of Joãozinho Bem-Bem, who never took a woman but was as brave as they come.")

At first sight, the two men—the repentant convert Nhô Augusto and the famous chieftain Joãozinho Bem-Bem—showed instant liking for each other. For Augusto, Bem-Bem's friendship represented a resurrection of a life of constant violence that once pumped in his lungs with unadulterated oxygen blood. The arrival of the bandits "equipped with an extravagance of arms—carbines, almost new; muzzle-loading pistols of one or two barrels; revolvers of good make; knives, daggers, pigstickers with carved handle, clubs and machetes—and wearing an excess of scapularies around their necks" was enough for him to once again smell the intoxicating blood in the air. He did not hesitate to offer hospitality to the leader and his troop. Joãozinho Bem-Bem awakened the possibility of finally avenging the death sentence pronounced on him by Major Consilva, along with the betrayal of his men and the treachery of his wife.

Joãozinho Bem-Bem saw through Augusto's old instincts, detecting the stain of his past. He liked the hospitable and friendly man so much he even offered him a job in his group, to be part of a band of warriors who will bring order to the whole sertão. What more, he offered him a favor he could exploit to his advantage: "If you need anything, if you have an unpleasant message to send to somebody ... If you have some frisky enemy anywhere, just you give me his name and address."

Both proposals Augusto refused, going against a part of his nature that cried for full-bloodied vengeance. He refused because the time is not yet ripe. Augusto was always, always waiting for the right time, the apocalyptic moment of his hour and his turn.

Harriet de Onís, the co-translator of Grande Sertão, translated the story with a sure touch although she confessed in the book's preface that the task "has not been easy".

I have been in constant communication with the author, and at times I have felt like a sick-bay steward delivering a baby by radioed instructions from a doctor on land. The author, incidentally, is a doctor, though at present attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil with the rank of Minister. ... It is abundantly clear that he is aware of all the literary trends and ferments in the world today and employs them in his own way, yet nobody could be more Brazilian.

In spite of the difficulties de Onís encountered, the stories in her rendering (I have read two from the cycle so far, the first and the last) exuded mysticism and grandeur that must be a part of the sense of place that gave birth to them. The odd registers and diction and unusual sentence constructions lent an authority to the text. For her work in Sagarana, she received the PEN Translation Prize in 1967.

"Matraga" had been twice adapted to the big screen, in 1965 and 2011. The more recent adaptation directed by Vinicius Coimbra was awarded Best Fiction Feature by both jury and audience in the Rio International Film Festival (here's the trailer).

Twelve stories by Machado de Assis

The stories I've read of Machado are: the 10 collected in Oxford Anthology of the Brazilian Short Story (ed. K. David Jackson), one from The Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories (ed. Roberto González Echevarría), and the two online from Words Without Borders (one of which was in an earlier translation in Oxford Anthology). Amateur Reader (Tom) has listed the primary source translations of these stories (here), most of which are canonized as "masterpieces of world literature". A substantial number of them is yet to be translated and collected in a comprehensive English edition. Tom has been writing a series of attentive posts on the Brazilian literary genius's novels and short stories. I committed to a read along of some of the stories and here I note a few of my general impressions of the Machadian.

Readers are almost always privileged to read/hear a Machado story. This privilege arises from the confession of a secret that weighs heavily on a conscience. The narrators often feel they must set the record straight. The mystery cannot be long suppressed.

In "The Nurse" (also translated as "The Attendant's Confession" in Brazilian Tales), the eponymous narrator writes his confession from his death-bed:

So you think that what happened to me in 1860 can be printed in a book? Do whatever you please, but with only one condition: do not divulge anything before my death. You will not have to wait long, perhaps a week, if not less; I am incurable.
    Look, I could tell you about my entire life, during which time other interesting things took place; however, in order to do that, one needs time, spirit, and paper, and I have only paper. My spirit is weak and time resembles a night lamp at dawn. It will not be long before the sun rises on another day. It is the sun of demons, as impenetrable as life. Good-bye, my dear sir. Read this and wish me well; forgive me for whatever seems improper to you. Do not mistreat the rue if it does not smell like a rose. You asked me for a human document, and here it is.... [Oxford Anthology, 61]

The reader asks for a story, and it is given, began in earnest, imparted in a unique voice. The story is of great human interest, a mock-display of unstable emotions and the ensuing crime of passion. The nurse is caring for the sick Colonel who has a serious attitude problem—"If he had only been grouchy, it would not have been so bad; but he was also mean." The nurse is honoring his own end of the bargain, telling the secret story in graphic details, another Machado quality. The reader will have to keep the story to himself, for it is a privilege to be told this by a nurse harboring a criminal past.

In "The Secret Heart", the reader is again privileged to encounter a secret heart. The opening is a domestic scene.

Garcia, who was standing, studied his finger nails, and snapped them from time to time. Fortunato, in the rocking chair, looked at the ceiling. Maria Luiza, by the window, was putting the final touches to a piece of needlework. Five minutes had now passed without their saying a word. They had spoken of the day, which had been fine, of Catumby, where Fortunato and his wife lived, and of a private hospital that will be explained later. As the three characters here presented are now dead and buried, it is time to tell their story without pretense. [68]

The true story is then recounted with characteristic linguistic verve and, as promised, without pretense. The pertinent details of a "love triangle" and "forbidden love" (favorite Machado topics) are laid bare. The reader is once more treated to priceless instances of beastly and saintly human behavior. The plot ambling along and to the point. The stories are generous in the serving of delicious gossip.

    The sharing of a common interest tightened the bonds of friendship. Garcia became a familiar of the house. He dines there almost every day, and there he observed Maria Luiza and saw her life of spiritual loneliness. And somehow this loneliness of hers increased her loveliness. Garcia began to feel troubled when she came into the room, when she spoke, when she worked quietly by the window, or played sweet, sad music on the piano. Gently, imperceptibly, love entered his heart. When he found it there, he tried to thrust it out, that there might be no other bond but friendship between him and Fortunato. But he did not succeed. He succeeded only in locking it in. Maria Luiza understood—both his love and his silence—but she never let on. [72]

It's fascinating how that single paragraph propelled the plot from easy friendship to familiarity and then to love. Clichés are quickly embraced and also dispensed with, "gently, imperceptibly", the story is coaxed forward and the scene set up for the great conflict. Machado had a way with inner psychology, sometimes tactless, sometimes full of tact, always respecting the delicacy of human feelings. But he also had the propensity to mix the lyrical with the ugliest of human tendencies. "The Secret Heart" not only captures the unraveling of a secret love but that of corruption inside men. Readers had to endure a sickening description of animal mutilation. Within the spaces allotted to tenderness and infatuations, Machado had prepared a place for the baseness of humanity—"It was like a moral tapeworm, which, although torn into many pieces, always regenerated itself and kept on going." [66]

The mastery of Machado's fine short stories is contemporary. His words and metaphors are exquisite at the level of the sentence. A story is cut to the quick, exceptionally, efficiently told.

    He came back to the house, and he did not go away. Dona Severina's arms enclosed a parenthesis in the middle of a long, tedious sentence of the life he led. And this added clause contained a profound, original idea specially invented by God and the angels for him alone. He stayed on, and his life went on as before. Finally, however, he had to leave, never to return. Here is how and why. ["A Woman's Arms", 78]

The "how and why" is the very resolution of the story in question.

The milieu and contexts of Machado are important in the appreciation of his shorts, all period pieces. His nudge to the years the stories were set in is a permanent marker.

Just imagine that it is 1813. ["Wedding Song"]

This was the selfsame explanation that was given by beautiful Rita to her lover, Camillo, on a certain Friday of November, 1869, when Camillo laughed at her for having gone, the previous evening, to consult a fortune-teller. ["The Fortune-Teller"]

Garcia had obtained his M.D. the year before, 1861. ["The Secret Heart"]

The above scene took place on the Rua da Lapa in 1870. ["A Woman's Arms"]

It was May 1882, and Venancinha hadn't seen her aunt since Christmas. ["Dona Paula"]

The lawyer died two years later, in 1865. ["Wallow, Swine!" and "Justice Unbalanced"]

The years don't lie but they might as well happen in 2016. Machado seems to be writing specifically for posterity. The mischief in his tales is the mischief a week ago. The active lust of his characters does not go out of date. His depiction of male and female, free and slave, old and young, wants and needs is astute. Irrespective of century, incorporated in each story is the tangibility of dreams and desire.

“The Dinosaur” (Augusto Monterroso)

Note to the reader: The following review may contain spoilers. Please read no further if you have not read the story yet.


Sleeping giant: review of “The Dinosaur,” a short story by Guatemalan writer Augusto Monterroso


Yesterday I read (for the second time) in one sitting Augusto Monterroso’s story called “The Dinosaur.” I re-read it many times, fourteen times maybe, I lost count. I tried to analyze the story in terms of prehistoric literary theories: stunted evolution, creationist realism, posthumous savagery. It was a radical novel. Anyway, after I wrote a first draft of my review, I checked my email, and then I slept afterward. It was not a peaceful sleep. I was trashing left and right on my bed. I dreamt of a Uranusaurus rex just like the one in Stephen Szpilman Bergman’s movie Triassic Park, based on a TV show created by Michael Flintstonnes (pronounced flight-stuns).

When I woke up, I read again my review. I worked on it some more, polishing the paleontological arguments. After some not-so-extensive revisions, I saved the file. I looked behind me and jumped. The U. rex was still there.