A DEDICATED LOVER OF LITERATURE*
by ronaldo duran**
MAN is a rebel when it comes to the rules of the game life imposes on him. Have you ever seen an ant make it to the moon? The leader of an anthill taking it upon himself to give orders to a neighboring anthill? A horse, bull or cow being commit the folly of disrupting the ozone layer?
Man is never satisfied with anything. If he's fat, he dreams about losing weight. If he's thin, he hopes he can gain weight. If he's white, he gets all worked up about getting a tan. If he's black, he paints himself white. Bald, he can't wait for an implant. Nature kMan has a go again and again with just about everything. Being fat, he dreams of being thin; thin, he hopes to put on weight. White, he gets all worked up about getting a tan. Black, he paints himself white. Balding, he goes for an implant. Nature loses out to hair dye and fake tans nowadays.
JUST like with other natural species, there are humans who are exceptionally calm as opposed to those who are overactive. Human extremes. As for the former, an observer who pays little attention to small details would swear that they are simply conformists.
Conformist? Man? Not a chance. Unless he's already dead, no one is really a conformist.
DESTINY, God, spirits from the beyond and other occult forces in the universe have given up trying to understand this strange species that crawls on the surface of the earth. They know it's a lost cause. To philosophize about what man is never has the same effect as presenting the simple day-to-day routine of a person.
SINCE we're talking about non-conformists, let's take a look at one.Robson de Braga Araújo wants to be recognized as a writer. So far, nothing unusual there. We all have our dreams.However, in this case our dreamer is on the brink of obsession.Robson takes his goal to the limits of delirium. Even though it's a scholarly, academic and critical delirium. His delirium is fame at any cost. The problem is that recognition escapes him just like some politician running from an investigation into his background.
WEDNESDAY morning, July 1996. The city of Taubaté in the interior of the state of São Paulo, waking up the same way it did the day before, despite what lovers of physics might say.
We are on the outskirts of the city, because Taubaté too has its outskirts. The house is one looked down on by snobs but dreamed about by thousands of the poor who have to deal with the cold, wet benches in a park or a corner of the sidewalk, pressed up against a building – usually the only places available in a big city unless one can find a spot in a shantytown somewhere.
Robson looks at the deranged alarm clock that bellows on and on. It's 6:30 a.m. Why should he complain? He was the one who set the darned thing to go off at that time. He should be grateful. The other one that broke last week let him oversleep.
_ LEST'S go, man, let’s go… It’s time.
IT'S not the alarm clock talking. It’s his conscience, half numb, that's yelling at him.
Of course he wants to obey the clock. But his exhaustion doesn't let him. He sleeps for another hour.
SUDDENLY he sits up and stretches. He wishes the world would come to an end, that a bomb would drop, or even worse. Anything except coming out from under the covers.
HE touches the icy floor with his bare feet. Looks around for his slippers. Damned things. Never finds them where he left them the night before. But he couldn’t say exactly where he'd left them. He finally finds them, one over here, the other over there. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't obey the admonition of his mother, Dona Eunestina
_DON'T stand on the cold floor. It’s very bad for your health.
DONA Eunestina fulfilled her role as the dedicated mother. She feared for her son's chronic chest colds. Although sporadic, Robson had had no peace from an early age. It was a battle spanning more than three decades.
WITH sleight-of-hand, he puts on his worn-out jeans and an unironed shirt. Breakfast is powdered chocolate mixed with milk and a slice of stale bread with a little butter. Making coffee is too much trouble, even the instant kind. He'd drink gallons of it at work, so why bother making it now?
HIS teeth go unbrushed. He'll take care of his dental hygiene at the notary’s office. He keeps soap, toothpaste and brush in his desk.
THE winter morning sun sometimes bothers the eyes of those who savor the recommended eight hours of sleep. Imagine the damage done to those who have the bad habit of imitating bats or owls, swapping day for night. Robson, a dedicated lover of literature, finds an opportunity to scribble some poems in the silent and empty late night hours.
HE arrives late at the office. The boss, distrustful, doesn't even get mad. As if it would do any good! The only consolation is to dock his wages at end of the month. The boss is not inclined to be overly generous.
BUT nobody likes to get docked. Not even latecomers. So one day Robson’s indignation explodes. Pay slip in hand, he summons up his courage and complains:
_ YOU docked me all of this? – he asks Mr. Antonio.
_ WHAT did you expect? This is all the time you were late.
_ ALL of this? – the employee, with a pained expression on his thin face, repeats the question, not expecting a favorable answer. He knows he was wrong.
_ I added up twenty minutes one day, fifteen another… this is the total I got. – the boss said, his eyes fixed on the paper where he had listed more than twenty days that had been docked in one way or other.
_ SIR, you know I live far from here…
THE lawyer Antonio Queiroz, owner of the notary office, smiled weakly. With more years in the law than Antonio Carlos de Magalhães in politics, he could recognize Robson’s good character. A dedicated employee. Not normally lazy at work. Nor was he absent a lot.
HE tried to find a way around the problem.
_ I know all that… and a lot more… what I can’t do is make an exception for someone. If I don’t dock your lateness, pretty soon everyone will be coming in past ten.
Antonio is exaggerating. Even so, every employer believes he's right and who can take that away from him?
ROBSON beats a retreat and goes back to his desk. He knew he was wasting his time.
AFTER taking off his typewriter cover, Robson runs to Henrique to get a mass of documents. He’ll type without stopping until lunch time. Except, that is, for going to the bathroom, smoking a Hollywood cigarette and sipping a little coffee; coffee that Guilherme, aka Zé Beiçudo, usually brings in from a restaurant. These are the rule, the things that go on at every job.
IT was a dog day at the notary’s office, and a mad dog at that. A conservative Christian would see it as an image of Dante's Inferno. Even the usual suspects are there, like the devil, personified as Dr. Antonio. What else could you think when faced with that weird human figure? A thick moustache, graying with age, yellow from smoking cigars; a big bald spot on the top of his head; wisps of white hairs over his ears; florid red cheeks during the notary office's busiest hours.
But the devil doesn’t reign alone. The customers on the other side of the counter are the fallen angels. This when one or another of the boldest ones invades the employees only area to try to make his point more forceful and intimidating.
THE daily routine involves a lot of yelling. People irritated from waiting. Fees disputed before they're settled. Dr. Antonio, generally kind to people, gets tough when it comes to earning money or avoiding losses. There are not enough employees to handle all the customers. But the greed for profit blinds him to this fact.
IT'S a Braziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilianna thing.
THE routine of important papers. Businesses opening. Businesses closing. People and companies protesting or being protested against.
THE Brazilian samba lover faces the tumult in a different way than the conservative Christian. He sees it as a kind of judicial carnival, with all kinds of carnival groups parading through the huge apotheosis known as the notary’s office. There's the swindler's group, the aggrieved group, the business group, the social group, and so on.
THEY type and handle ultra, ultra-confidential papers. They witness signatures, initials. They notarize ID and Social Security cards. They make copies of laws published in the Daily Gazette, adorned with the list of directors and associates. And recording minutes from general and special assemblies is always a good way to avoid loose talk.
CEILING fans that make it hotter rather than cooler. The air conditioner broke down a week after it was installed and it's still in the repair shop. It's winter, though, and that helps a little.
Calluses on the fingers, nothing out of the ordinary. Chewed, tooth-marked pen caps. Many would rather suck on them than to chew on a cigarette butt.
HALF past five. Robson is so tired. Who would still have any drive after all of this insanity? No one but a scoundrel. A slacker who avoids hard work, and manages to get by without getting caught up in stress. Marcos is a slacker. The only one who feels peppy enough to go to the shopping center, wait for his girlfriend who works in a boutique, and then face two hours in front of a movie screen with a bag of popcorn in his hand.
THE others drag themselves home. Most of them, after a shower and throwing a hot meal on the table, get their energy back. They arouse themselves and pay attention to the TV or the radio for the rest of the evening, waiting for bedtime.
THE man who lives alone isn't so lucky. He has to wash the dishes, put things away. Since his wife has left him for the arms of another man, who in her opinion is more reliable that he is, his house looks like some hippie pad. Robson only cleans his house when his son and daughter come to visit him.
THE ex-husband deposits child support, whatever the law demands, in his wife’s account. He is not tightfisted. When needed, he opens his wallet. His ex-wife and her current husband, both of them with good jobs, don't insist on Robson paying, but if he wants to, so much the better.
ANINHA got tired of living with Robson. He had a good family life, but lost it because of his pig-headedness. He turned to a habit that he had nourished in his youth: his love for poetry. Without even thinking of the consequences, he made up his mind to pursue it wholeheartedly.
On the weekends Robson clung to his books with a vengeance. It made his wife angry. No more strolling around town together, or watching TV, no more soccer games, no more bickering, no more anything.
ALL he did was read. As if Saturday and Sunday were not enough, he spoiled every night of the week, not to mention early mornings. She's left all alone while he reads and writes. It was the last straw. She wasn't born for this. As soon as he'd finished his second volume of poetry, Aninha left him.
ROBSON sent the volumes to various publishers. Two of them turned him down on the spot. The others sent rejections slips around six months later. The publishing houses are kind. Even when they turn something down, they claim: our publishing schedule for the next few months is already filled. Although we are unable to publish your works, we thank you for your interest. The lack of explicit terms condemning his work builds up the writer's ego and keeps him in the struggle, nourishing the hope that one day he'll get lucky.
“ART is born destitute of profits. But if the artist gets rich some day, good for him.” That's Robson’s opinion. By holding that conviction our Don Quixote of unappreciated literature dedicates body and soul to the job. Just between us, the poor fellow actually derives pleasure from his martyrdom.
WHAT matters, woman, peace? There's a strange substance in a non-conformist’s brain. Is it the nectar of confidence or the virus of illusion? It doesn't matter. What matters is that it fights for a place in the sun with its very blood, watering its dreams and moods.
* Translated by American journalist Amy Duncan from Portuguese Title: Letras Desvalorizadas.
** Ronaldo Duran, novelist, writes for newspapers every week.
CONTACT: ronaldo@ronaldoduran.com
by ronaldo duran**
MAN is a rebel when it comes to the rules of the game life imposes on him. Have you ever seen an ant make it to the moon? The leader of an anthill taking it upon himself to give orders to a neighboring anthill? A horse, bull or cow being commit the folly of disrupting the ozone layer?
Man is never satisfied with anything. If he's fat, he dreams about losing weight. If he's thin, he hopes he can gain weight. If he's white, he gets all worked up about getting a tan. If he's black, he paints himself white. Bald, he can't wait for an implant. Nature kMan has a go again and again with just about everything. Being fat, he dreams of being thin; thin, he hopes to put on weight. White, he gets all worked up about getting a tan. Black, he paints himself white. Balding, he goes for an implant. Nature loses out to hair dye and fake tans nowadays.
JUST like with other natural species, there are humans who are exceptionally calm as opposed to those who are overactive. Human extremes. As for the former, an observer who pays little attention to small details would swear that they are simply conformists.
Conformist? Man? Not a chance. Unless he's already dead, no one is really a conformist.
DESTINY, God, spirits from the beyond and other occult forces in the universe have given up trying to understand this strange species that crawls on the surface of the earth. They know it's a lost cause. To philosophize about what man is never has the same effect as presenting the simple day-to-day routine of a person.
SINCE we're talking about non-conformists, let's take a look at one.Robson de Braga Araújo wants to be recognized as a writer. So far, nothing unusual there. We all have our dreams.However, in this case our dreamer is on the brink of obsession.Robson takes his goal to the limits of delirium. Even though it's a scholarly, academic and critical delirium. His delirium is fame at any cost. The problem is that recognition escapes him just like some politician running from an investigation into his background.
WEDNESDAY morning, July 1996. The city of Taubaté in the interior of the state of São Paulo, waking up the same way it did the day before, despite what lovers of physics might say.
We are on the outskirts of the city, because Taubaté too has its outskirts. The house is one looked down on by snobs but dreamed about by thousands of the poor who have to deal with the cold, wet benches in a park or a corner of the sidewalk, pressed up against a building – usually the only places available in a big city unless one can find a spot in a shantytown somewhere.
Robson looks at the deranged alarm clock that bellows on and on. It's 6:30 a.m. Why should he complain? He was the one who set the darned thing to go off at that time. He should be grateful. The other one that broke last week let him oversleep.
_ LEST'S go, man, let’s go… It’s time.
IT'S not the alarm clock talking. It’s his conscience, half numb, that's yelling at him.
Of course he wants to obey the clock. But his exhaustion doesn't let him. He sleeps for another hour.
SUDDENLY he sits up and stretches. He wishes the world would come to an end, that a bomb would drop, or even worse. Anything except coming out from under the covers.
HE touches the icy floor with his bare feet. Looks around for his slippers. Damned things. Never finds them where he left them the night before. But he couldn’t say exactly where he'd left them. He finally finds them, one over here, the other over there. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't obey the admonition of his mother, Dona Eunestina
_DON'T stand on the cold floor. It’s very bad for your health.
DONA Eunestina fulfilled her role as the dedicated mother. She feared for her son's chronic chest colds. Although sporadic, Robson had had no peace from an early age. It was a battle spanning more than three decades.
WITH sleight-of-hand, he puts on his worn-out jeans and an unironed shirt. Breakfast is powdered chocolate mixed with milk and a slice of stale bread with a little butter. Making coffee is too much trouble, even the instant kind. He'd drink gallons of it at work, so why bother making it now?
HIS teeth go unbrushed. He'll take care of his dental hygiene at the notary’s office. He keeps soap, toothpaste and brush in his desk.
THE winter morning sun sometimes bothers the eyes of those who savor the recommended eight hours of sleep. Imagine the damage done to those who have the bad habit of imitating bats or owls, swapping day for night. Robson, a dedicated lover of literature, finds an opportunity to scribble some poems in the silent and empty late night hours.
HE arrives late at the office. The boss, distrustful, doesn't even get mad. As if it would do any good! The only consolation is to dock his wages at end of the month. The boss is not inclined to be overly generous.
BUT nobody likes to get docked. Not even latecomers. So one day Robson’s indignation explodes. Pay slip in hand, he summons up his courage and complains:
_ YOU docked me all of this? – he asks Mr. Antonio.
_ WHAT did you expect? This is all the time you were late.
_ ALL of this? – the employee, with a pained expression on his thin face, repeats the question, not expecting a favorable answer. He knows he was wrong.
_ I added up twenty minutes one day, fifteen another… this is the total I got. – the boss said, his eyes fixed on the paper where he had listed more than twenty days that had been docked in one way or other.
_ SIR, you know I live far from here…
THE lawyer Antonio Queiroz, owner of the notary office, smiled weakly. With more years in the law than Antonio Carlos de Magalhães in politics, he could recognize Robson’s good character. A dedicated employee. Not normally lazy at work. Nor was he absent a lot.
HE tried to find a way around the problem.
_ I know all that… and a lot more… what I can’t do is make an exception for someone. If I don’t dock your lateness, pretty soon everyone will be coming in past ten.
Antonio is exaggerating. Even so, every employer believes he's right and who can take that away from him?
ROBSON beats a retreat and goes back to his desk. He knew he was wasting his time.
AFTER taking off his typewriter cover, Robson runs to Henrique to get a mass of documents. He’ll type without stopping until lunch time. Except, that is, for going to the bathroom, smoking a Hollywood cigarette and sipping a little coffee; coffee that Guilherme, aka Zé Beiçudo, usually brings in from a restaurant. These are the rule, the things that go on at every job.
IT was a dog day at the notary’s office, and a mad dog at that. A conservative Christian would see it as an image of Dante's Inferno. Even the usual suspects are there, like the devil, personified as Dr. Antonio. What else could you think when faced with that weird human figure? A thick moustache, graying with age, yellow from smoking cigars; a big bald spot on the top of his head; wisps of white hairs over his ears; florid red cheeks during the notary office's busiest hours.
But the devil doesn’t reign alone. The customers on the other side of the counter are the fallen angels. This when one or another of the boldest ones invades the employees only area to try to make his point more forceful and intimidating.
THE daily routine involves a lot of yelling. People irritated from waiting. Fees disputed before they're settled. Dr. Antonio, generally kind to people, gets tough when it comes to earning money or avoiding losses. There are not enough employees to handle all the customers. But the greed for profit blinds him to this fact.
IT'S a Braziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilianna thing.
THE routine of important papers. Businesses opening. Businesses closing. People and companies protesting or being protested against.
THE Brazilian samba lover faces the tumult in a different way than the conservative Christian. He sees it as a kind of judicial carnival, with all kinds of carnival groups parading through the huge apotheosis known as the notary’s office. There's the swindler's group, the aggrieved group, the business group, the social group, and so on.
THEY type and handle ultra, ultra-confidential papers. They witness signatures, initials. They notarize ID and Social Security cards. They make copies of laws published in the Daily Gazette, adorned with the list of directors and associates. And recording minutes from general and special assemblies is always a good way to avoid loose talk.
CEILING fans that make it hotter rather than cooler. The air conditioner broke down a week after it was installed and it's still in the repair shop. It's winter, though, and that helps a little.
Calluses on the fingers, nothing out of the ordinary. Chewed, tooth-marked pen caps. Many would rather suck on them than to chew on a cigarette butt.
HALF past five. Robson is so tired. Who would still have any drive after all of this insanity? No one but a scoundrel. A slacker who avoids hard work, and manages to get by without getting caught up in stress. Marcos is a slacker. The only one who feels peppy enough to go to the shopping center, wait for his girlfriend who works in a boutique, and then face two hours in front of a movie screen with a bag of popcorn in his hand.
THE others drag themselves home. Most of them, after a shower and throwing a hot meal on the table, get their energy back. They arouse themselves and pay attention to the TV or the radio for the rest of the evening, waiting for bedtime.
THE man who lives alone isn't so lucky. He has to wash the dishes, put things away. Since his wife has left him for the arms of another man, who in her opinion is more reliable that he is, his house looks like some hippie pad. Robson only cleans his house when his son and daughter come to visit him.
THE ex-husband deposits child support, whatever the law demands, in his wife’s account. He is not tightfisted. When needed, he opens his wallet. His ex-wife and her current husband, both of them with good jobs, don't insist on Robson paying, but if he wants to, so much the better.
ANINHA got tired of living with Robson. He had a good family life, but lost it because of his pig-headedness. He turned to a habit that he had nourished in his youth: his love for poetry. Without even thinking of the consequences, he made up his mind to pursue it wholeheartedly.
On the weekends Robson clung to his books with a vengeance. It made his wife angry. No more strolling around town together, or watching TV, no more soccer games, no more bickering, no more anything.
ALL he did was read. As if Saturday and Sunday were not enough, he spoiled every night of the week, not to mention early mornings. She's left all alone while he reads and writes. It was the last straw. She wasn't born for this. As soon as he'd finished his second volume of poetry, Aninha left him.
ROBSON sent the volumes to various publishers. Two of them turned him down on the spot. The others sent rejections slips around six months later. The publishing houses are kind. Even when they turn something down, they claim: our publishing schedule for the next few months is already filled. Although we are unable to publish your works, we thank you for your interest. The lack of explicit terms condemning his work builds up the writer's ego and keeps him in the struggle, nourishing the hope that one day he'll get lucky.
“ART is born destitute of profits. But if the artist gets rich some day, good for him.” That's Robson’s opinion. By holding that conviction our Don Quixote of unappreciated literature dedicates body and soul to the job. Just between us, the poor fellow actually derives pleasure from his martyrdom.
WHAT matters, woman, peace? There's a strange substance in a non-conformist’s brain. Is it the nectar of confidence or the virus of illusion? It doesn't matter. What matters is that it fights for a place in the sun with its very blood, watering its dreams and moods.
* Translated by American journalist Amy Duncan from Portuguese Title: Letras Desvalorizadas.
** Ronaldo Duran, novelist, writes for newspapers every week.
CONTACT: ronaldo@ronaldoduran.com
