Lima Barreto by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Não sou economista, nem financista, nem juristinista, mas um tal fato me causa pasmo e assombra-me. (pp. 93–94)

[Political economy, official or officious, should declare why such wealth is always so poor; why São Paulo, the richest state of Brazil, which lives off of coffee, is for that very reason, the richest.

I am not an economist, nor financial expert, nor jurist, but one such fact stupefies and frightens me.]

Lima Barreto’s object of attack is the state of São Paulo, and he, astonished, and sarcastically, ends the text, appealing to the experts of the Bible to explain this kind of miracle of nature (“pedir aos sábios das escrituras explicação para esses milagres da natura”) (p. 94).

Nevertheless, Lima Barreto proposes to rescue the coffee industry, in his “A Defesa do Café” [“The Defense of Coffee”]. Mocking the economic policy put in place by financial authorities, the author suggests collecting money from the underpaid editorial department, deeply concerned with the cause, to rescue “Mr. Coffee,” to “minorar os sofrimentos de tão rico mendigo que nos batia à porta” [“minimize the suffering of such a wealthy beggar knocking at our door”] with the amount of “$1700 (mil e setecentos réis)” (p. 94). The help comes, however, not without critique and sarcasm from the author: “Sabíamos também que os usuários sórdidos, com as arcas cheias de ouro, esmolam; mas não é o caso de que tratamos, pois o Senhor Café luxa, gasta, fascina a todos com o seu trem de vida” [“We also knew that the sordid users, with their chests full of gold, also cadge; but that is not the case here, since Mr. Coffee flaunts, spends, and fascinates all with his lifestyle”] (p. 95).

In writing about Lima Barreto’s Os Bruzundangas, Alfredo Bosi calls attention to the satiric aspect of Lima Barreto’s work. According to the critic, “Valendo-se do feliz expediente de Montesquieu nas Cartas Persas, imaginou um visitante estrangeiro a descrever a terra de Bruzundanga, nada mais nada menos que o Brasil do começo do século” [“Taking advantage of Montesquieu’s Persian Letters, Barreto pictured a foreign visitor describing the land of Bruzundanga, precisely Brazil at the turn of the century”] (p. 323).[5] Although in his essay Bosi focuses on Lima Barreto’s novels, he points out a very important element in this particular work: “Escrita nos últimos anos, a obra traz forte empenho ideológico e mostra o quanto Lima Barreto podia e sabia transcender as próprias frustrações e se encaminhar para uma crítica objetiva das estruturas que definiam a sociedade brasileira do tempo” [“Written in his later years, the work brings forth strong ideological perspectives, and demonstrates how well Lima Barreto knew how to transcend his own frustrations and move toward an objective critique of the structures that defined Brazilian society of the time”] (p. 323).

In the preface to Os Bruzundangas, Lima Barreto tells the reader what his book will be about. He starts the text by stating that “Na arte de furtar, que ultimamente tanto barulho causou entre os eruditos, há um capítulo, o

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