Book: Doramar or the Odyssey: Stories
Author: Itamar Vieira Jr.
Country: Brazil 🇧🇷
Format: e-book
Pages: 160
Publication: 2021
We need to start this review talking about the author, rather than the work. Itamar Vieira Jr. has become a sensation in literary circles in and out of Brazil, especially since his book Crooked Plow was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize this year. This book was translated into several languages and his other works will likely be published in English too.
Doramar or the Odyssey is his second book, a collection of 12 short stories, for now only published in Portuguese. The author once more turns his attention to those often left to the margins of history: domestic workers, enslaved men, simple fishermen, executioners, the insane. And yet his writing has some weightless quality to it, as if he’s building these different worlds with magic.
I’m not much of a short stories kind of person (although this year’s books seem to all prove me wrong) but this book captivated me from the first page. In the first story, The Forest of Farewell, we meet Luís and Rosa, who grew up together under the generous wings of several mothers and aunts and now, separated by a fence, desire each other from a distance.
The way Vieira describes their passion is mesmerizing.
“The tumid rose of my body, useless flower without his presence, without having where to lean, perfume, vile rose that steps on dead leaves, that drags in its vain grace, body that dances without music, bread that bakes without embers, the untamed gypsy, burning in its young body, dragging itself with the aunts of many skirts and the uncle chosen to be my father.”
Doramar (free translation)
In an award-winning short story called The Executioner’s Prayer, he talks about a man whose job is to execute other men. The character finds himself at a loss when he has to kill a poet condemned by his verses.
In those pages, Vieira lists several men and women who were executed for their thoughts, from John Lennon to Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and Jesus. And he does that without actually saying their names, he just recites what they were killed for saying, and we know who they are.
“When my noose wraps around your neck, and the firm knot, that I can make without shaking hands like the first time, rests under your right ear, your thoughts will have life, and only in life will you think.”
Doramar (free translation)
There’s still another story, called Alma, about a woman who escapes slavery, travelling for weeks on foot through the jungle, in search of a place to rebuild herself, after stealing her mistress’ fine dress.
“I am a woman who walks always forward and doesn’t go back to what she left far away, much further behind now, I walk this way, hoping to find soothing in a place where freedom exists, I, a woman who was born chained to the desires of my masters, I that had no name because I was nothing.”
Doramar (free translation)
As you can see, he likes very long sentences, which leaves us with the feeling of a thought that keeps floating around in the breeze, for a long time before touching the ground. But Vieira takes this to the extreme in the last story.
Entitled presentation mantle (with no upper case), this story is made of a single sentence that runs 10 pages long, in a single paragraph without any capital letters. Yes, the guy wrote a 10-page long sentence, and meanwhile, I’m worried when mine reaches 3 lines.
The result is not exactly perfect, because he uses semicolons, and some of the words could use a period between them without losing their meaning. But even still, you got to give it to him. The result is one long sequence of convoluted thoughts that come one on top of the other, chaotic, but clear.
That is very fitting because the main character of this story is no one less than Bispo do Rosário, a Brazilian visionary artist who spent more than 50 years locked in sanatoriums working feverishly on his masterpieces. His most famous work is precisely called Presentation Mantle, a meticulously embraided piece that he intended to wear on Judgement Day.
Bispo do Rosário is the perfect character for what Vieira wants to highlight: those who live in the shadows of society. I hope this book gets translated soon, and I can’t wait for his next works, because I’ve read all of them by now.
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