Synopsis
Fiction. Latin American Studies. Translated by Alex Ladd. Still relatively unknown in the United States, Nelson Rodrigues (1912 -1980) is considered by many to be Brazil's greatest playwright. The fifty-eight stories in this collection are gathered from his newspaper column, A Vida Como Ela E (LIFE AS IT IS). Written in the 1950s, these stories have since been republished numerous times in Brazil, where they have been adapted for theater, television and cinema. Available in English for the first time, LIFE AS IT IS provides a beguiling showcase for the mordant wit and biting insights of one of the twentieth century's most singular talents.
Review
No nonsense British philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously described man's life as it is as 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.' In this hypnotic collection of brusque short stories -- originally written for a weekly newspaper column during the 1950s -- Brazilian writer Nelson Rodrigues poignantly and sometimes hilariously illustrates this glum vision through the fated lives of Rio de Janeiro's middle class, hapless bourgeois puppets whose strings are pulled by a Freudian laundry list of outre sexual hang-ups, psychological insecurities, and self-destructive obsessions. 'Life As It Is' is a tragicomic Gatling gun, its stories perfectly aimed gunshots at the hypocrisies of a Catholic culture. Usually only about four to five pages long, with minimal characterization and little physical description, Rodrigues's tales shape tawdry subject matter -- incest, infanticide, homicide, fetishes, death wishes - with mathematical precision, economically serving up memorably corrosive images, from crushed parrots to dead babies in shoeboxes. The contradiction between the clinical and the seamy accounts for the stories' snub-nosed power, which is limited by their mechanical, almost monomaniacal, focus on perversity. But once you start reading the collection it is difficult to stop curiosity grows about how Rodrigues will adroitly package yet another crippling case of infidelity, another death-dealing fetish, another sadistically displaced mania.... Perhaps the sensationalized seediness of the stories explains why, at least so far, there has been so little critical attention paid to this entertaining volume. In Brazil, Rodrigues is a giant, best known for his ground breaking plays, such as 'The Wedding Dress' (anybody in America willing to stage a translation of this or any other Rodrigues play?), though he also cranked out an enormous amount of prose, including writing pulp fiction under the pseudonym of Suzana Flag on his way to becoming an acclaimed sportswriter (!). The stories in the volume have provided the basis for a number of movies and TV programs in Brazil. Given how much raunchy pleasure these stories contain, why has Rodrigues remained a regional enthusiasm? Ladd argues that the author's language, which draws heavily on slang, has curtailed his appeal elsewhere. Perhaps the racy richness of the author's Portuguese is missing, but Ladd's sensible compromise -- a moderately juicy English -- catches the undeniable merits of 'Life As It Is,' its lively vision of the louche sex lives of the middle class. --World Books Review, The Arts Fuse
Rodrigues is a fountain of inspiration and delight. Not to have discovered him yet is a sin for a writer, and a theft from the reader. This translation will fill a real need for that elusive bridge between life, art, scandal, and amusement that only a great writer can combine and make lasting. Rodrigues is the Chekhov of our contemporary bourgeoisie with all its traumas and absurdities. His brilliant slices of the sentimental life of contemporary families is just what the doctor (Chekhov) ordered for our day and age. --Andrei Codrescu, author of The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess
Nelson Rodrigues stories in Life As It Is are a rollercoaster of suspense and a lesson in narrative concision. Alex Ladd's translations are equally commendable. The task of any translator is not only to make comfortable in one tongue that which exists in another, but to subtly suggest what distinguished those two languages from each other, and the cultures they convey. Ladd accomplishes this brightly. --Ilan Stavans, author of The Hispanic Condition and editor of The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature
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