From Publishers Weekly
The death of the title refers to a recent event, but
Times Literary Supplement writer Robb gets his mysterious subtitle most directly from Machado de Assis, a 19th-century Brazilian novelist considered at length for his ability to weave discussion of the nation's racial and economic disparities into his wildly popular serial fictions for women's magazines. The term's origins, however, are biblical; First and Second Chronicles were called "Omissions" because they contained information left out of the preceding Books of Kings. Although Robb tries to fill in some of the gaps in recent Brazilian history, he doesn't so much uncover new data on the spectacularly corrupt 1990â€"1992 presidency of Fernando Collor as pull together some of the many disparate sources. Collor's rise and fall, and the murder of his chief henchman, form a solid backbone for the book, but one from which Robb frequently wanders to ruminate on centuries of Brazilian history filled with eroticism and violent upheaval. He also recounts his own travels through modern Brazil, devoting as much attention to the sensual delights of
buchada de bode (stuffed goat's stomach) as he does to a threatening encounter with the military police. The overall result is a bit of a jumble, but it's a delightful jumble: a
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil with a Latin beat. At various points, Robb compares the unfolding Collor scandal to the soap opera staples of Brazilian television, and he's managed to capture the story's lurid surrealism with a deft, erudite touch.
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From Booklist
Brazil is a country so vast and varied that the Sao Paolo banker and the Amazonian tribesman live centuries apart, acquainted with each other, perhaps, only through television. Making sense of it may only be possible through a subjective approach. In this fascinating work, Robb draws on firsthand observation and literary research to explore Brazil's history, politics, and culture, focusing in particular on the manipulations and massacres that shaped events far from its sunny beaches. Beauty and ugliness are inextricably intertwined in what he calls "the oddest and most thrilling country in the Western hemisphere." Following the threads of stories and ideas, Robb shuttles back and forth in time: colonization, slavery, military rule, general strikes, the crippling Collor presidency, and the rise of Lula unfold, not as dry chronology, but as cause, effect, and definition of a national character. Running ruminations on food, literature, and sexuality add even more color to a tapestry that's beautiful from a distance and motley up close. Similar in approach to
At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig [BKL Ja 1 & 15 04], about Paraguay, but with considerably more art and decorum.
Keir GraffCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
