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O anjo do adeus
O Anjo do Adeus, publicado quando Ignácio de Loyola Brandão comemorava trinta anos de literatura, representou uma novidade e um desafio em sua obra romanesca, um mergulho sem limites nas podridões da sociedade contemporânea. O subtítulo já diz (quase) tudo: "Sacanas honestos jogam limpo jogos sujos".
Em ambiente de sujeira explícita e clima meio de pulp fiction, O Anjo do Adeus se desenrola num ritmo alucinante, de tirar o fôlego e o sono, revelando a face brutal de uma pequena cidade do interior brasileiro, Arealva. Uma história de ambição e luta pelo poder, pontilhada de sadismo, com uma sucessão de assassinatos, vinganças, mistérios, mentiras, sexo em desespero, farto consumo de drogas, ódios velhos e persistentes, que o cronista narra com cinismo, sarcasmo, alguma zombaria e absoluta fidelidade, segundo garante ao leitor no capítulo inicial, quando alguns envolvidos nos fatos tentam suborná-lo para alterar a história. Afinal, eliminar a memória ou disfarçar a realidade é uma atitude típica do povo local, com a qual, felizmente, o narrador não concorda. Nem tudo está podre em Arealva.
Em ambiente de sujeira explícita e clima meio de pulp fiction, O Anjo do Adeus se desenrola num ritmo alucinante, de tirar o fôlego e o sono, revelando a face brutal de uma pequena cidade do interior brasileiro, Arealva. Uma história de ambição e luta pelo poder, pontilhada de sadismo, com uma sucessão de assassinatos, vinganças, mistérios, mentiras, sexo em desespero, farto consumo de drogas, ódios velhos e persistentes, que o cronista narra com cinismo, sarcasmo, alguma zombaria e absoluta fidelidade, segundo garante ao leitor no capítulo inicial, quando alguns envolvidos nos fatos tentam suborná-lo para alterar a história. Afinal, eliminar a memória ou disfarçar a realidade é uma atitude típica do povo local, com a qual, felizmente, o narrador não concorda. Nem tudo está podre em Arealva.
- GenresFiction
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 13, 2011
About the author
Ignácio de Loyola Brandão
120 books87 followersIgnacio de Loyola Brandao (born 1936 in Araraquara in São Paulo) began his career writing film reviews and went on to work for one of the principal newspapers in São Paulo. Initially banned in Brazil, his novel Zero went on to win the prestigious Brasilia Prize and become a controversial bestseller. Brandão is the author of more than a half-dozen works of fiction, including Zero, Teeth Under the Sun, and Angel of Death, all of which are available or forthcoming from Dalkey Archive. In his career he has won the Prêmio Jabuti, the most important literary prize in Brazil.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 1, 2014
Previous Brandão reads Teeth Under the Sun and Anonymous Celebrity were five-star smashers, respectively an elegiac cineaste’s wet dream and a coruscating assault on the billion or so nonentities whose tendrils touch us irrespective of how much we hide from the men attempting to implant telescreens in our eyes while we sleep. This novel is obdurately “down and doily,” as a former GR friend was fond of saying and relates an exhausting and labyrinthine plot of murder and more murder among a gaggle of Brazilian lowlives out-limboing each other to be the lowest of the low(lives). Narrated in a loquacious and informal manner with impish footnotes, the tone is darkly comedic, verging on the “explainy” (or “telly” as those brats in creative writing courses are fond of saying) until the story moves into dialogue-driven sections where each lowlife becomes more or less interchangeable than the last, and the incoherent plot shenanigans become nothing other than a page-flicking ritual, despite the slightly clever framing device. Disappointing.
July 5, 2013
Brazil offers a pair of portraits to the rest of the world. First there is the smiling samba carnival which is featured in every announcement concerning the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. Then there is the nihilism of City of God http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317248/?... . The Good-Bye Angel harkens closer to the latter, but it does maintain a hope, even if such is welded to aspirations of celebrity.
This novel is one of the gossip pages, its events unfold after hours in pool halls and 24 hour pharmacies, past the junkies and the homeless, just outside a nightspot where the derelict and dreamy hope to catch a glimpse of “the people who matter.”
The novel opens with a pair of deaths. A celebrity has been found murdered on the same night a struggling public worker sets himself aflame. No one cares about the latter. Could it be the work of Good-Bye Angel, a serial killer known for religious symbolism via mutilation? Could it be a member of the elite -- all of whom are dripping in motivation? The novel unfolds as a piece of journalism, rife with footnotes and a bibliography. The prose captures the sordid edge of affairs and maintains a lean approach to the larger social questions.
This novel is one of the gossip pages, its events unfold after hours in pool halls and 24 hour pharmacies, past the junkies and the homeless, just outside a nightspot where the derelict and dreamy hope to catch a glimpse of “the people who matter.”
The novel opens with a pair of deaths. A celebrity has been found murdered on the same night a struggling public worker sets himself aflame. No one cares about the latter. Could it be the work of Good-Bye Angel, a serial killer known for religious symbolism via mutilation? Could it be a member of the elite -- all of whom are dripping in motivation? The novel unfolds as a piece of journalism, rife with footnotes and a bibliography. The prose captures the sordid edge of affairs and maintains a lean approach to the larger social questions.
November 22, 2010
4 1/2 stars.
Like Zero, Teeth Under the Sun, and Anonymous Celebrity Brandão’s fourth novel published by Dalkey Archive never fails to dazzle even as it confounds the reader: the inhabitants of the city Arealva—“a beautiful city in which to kill people”—construct a tortuous maze of truths, half-truths, and lies in the pursuit of their desires. A departure from his categorically irregular structures, The Good-Bye Angel unfolds... http://shorts.nthword.com/2010/11/goo...
Like Zero, Teeth Under the Sun, and Anonymous Celebrity Brandão’s fourth novel published by Dalkey Archive never fails to dazzle even as it confounds the reader: the inhabitants of the city Arealva—“a beautiful city in which to kill people”—construct a tortuous maze of truths, half-truths, and lies in the pursuit of their desires. A departure from his categorically irregular structures, The Good-Bye Angel unfolds... http://shorts.nthword.com/2010/11/goo...
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews