Volume 8, Number 8 · May 4, 1967
Versions of Pastoral
By John Wain
Shepherds of the Night
by Jorge Amado, translated by Harriet de Onis
Knopf, 364 pp., $5.95
Mother and Son: A Brazilian Tale
translated by Barbara Shelby, translated by Gilberto Freyre
Knopf, 233 pp., $4.95
In Orbit
by Wright Morris
New American Library, 160 pp., $3.95
I have never been to Brazil, know little of its history and literature, cannot read or speak Portuguese, and am therefore in a good position to fire off generalizations about Luso-Brazilian culture, secure in the knowledge that I cannot contradict myself. It is, for instance, obvious to my all-seeing eye that the Brazilian writer must face, in a very acute form, the problem of national identity. Any writer is to some extent judged, in his own day, by whether he supports or attacks the national stereotype; Yeats, in his most passionately. Irish phase, encouraged Synge to write The Playboy of the Western World, staged it, and then had to face the fury of the Dublin Catholic middle class who assumed that this 'passionate and simple' dramatist was mocking at Irish manhood in his portrait of Christy Mahon. For the Brazilian, the problem must be even more difficult.
Review, 2483 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |