The Logic of Paradox in GuimarãEs Rosa's "Tutameia"
Author(s): Idelber Avelar
Source: Latin American Literary Review, Vol. 22, No. 43 (Jan. - Jun., 1994), pp. 67-80
Published by: Latin American Literary Review
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20119672
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67
THE LOGIC OF PARADOX INGUIMAR?ES ROSA'S TUTAMEIA1
IDELBERAVELAR
Tutam?ia, published in 1967, was the last book to appear during
Guimar?es Rosa's lifetime. It is composed of forty short stories and four "barely
nonfictional works called 'prefaces'" (Vincent 108)2.From thebeginning, the
reader
is stmck by the careful construction
and the meticulous
of
arrangement
In the analysis of Tutam?ia, everything must be taken into account:
every detail.
theorder inwhich the stories appear, the epigraphs, the tableof contents, the title,
etc. Taken as awhole, the book has the form of amultidimensional web where
each point can be potentially connected with any other.At any given intersection
amultiplicity ofmeanings isproduced, referring the reader to other dimensions,
in a constant
toward
whole.
and deferral. I will direct my attention
game of differentiation
some of these intersections while attempting
a sense ofthe
to maintain
As Iwill show later, paradox in Tutam?ia
is often both condensed
in a
single word and displaced through the entire narrative fabric, a process that
Guimar?es
Rosa
described
with
the alchemic
formula
solve
et coagula.
All the stories in the collection range from three tofive pages. The sense
of compression and density emerges in each text. Guimar?es Rosa described
Tutam?ia
as a book
in which
not more
than two or three words
could be taken
out without damaging thewhole (R?nai 216). In these stories, every sentence is
essential even for a basic understanding
ofthe plot; each one contains
absolutely
a maximum
amount of aesthetic
In an influential article written
information.
upon thebook's publication, Paulo R?nai defined it as a collection of potential
novels condensed to theirutmost limits (220).Many readershave been puzzled
and bewildered by the text's density, even abandoning it as unreadable. It is by
far the most
experimental
of Rosa's
works:
the very efficacy
of language
as a
means of communication is challenged by an intense laborof linguistic innova
tion.
The picture ismade stillmore complex by theproliferation of paratextual
signs: cryptic drawings and symbols on the cover of thefirst edition, epigraphs,
etc. As Luiz Valente
has noted, Tutam?ia
displays
an innovative
structure where
68
Latin American
Review
Literary
such as prefaces,
elements
and indexes are
epigraphs,
text"
contents
into
the
The
table
of
(353).
incorporated
presents the stories in the
order in which they appear. They are listed in alphabetical order, except for two:
"Grande Gede?o"
and "Reminis?ao"
appear between "Jo?o Por?m, o criador de
?as
and
is placed in a strategic
"L?,
perns"
campi?as". Each ofthe four prefaces
"normally
extraneous
position, affecting theflow of reading and engaging in a dialogue with previous
and/or following stories. The entire book is framed by two quotations from
the first warning "exigir
Schopenhauer,
second concluding
that "j? a constru?ao,
ter? feito necess?rio
por vezes
a primeira
leitura paciencia"
(5), and the
e
n?o
do
emendada,
org?nica
conjunto,
ler-se duas vezes amesma passagem"
(226). The
reader is invited to solve all these riddles by deciphering a text thatoffers very
few clues. Or rather, a text inwhich
its own right.
every clue immediately
becomes
a riddle
in
The prefaces to Tutam?ia do not perform, as Lenira Covizzi would have
in the strong
didactic
function3. They are rather texts in themselves,
it, any
a
sense
As
Luiz
Barthesian
of
Valente
self-enunciating
practice of writing.
points out, they are not designed to "explain and clarify it [the book] for the
as an introduction to Tutam?ia"
(350). The relation
.they are ineffective
the prefaces
and the stories is rather one of dialogue,
therefore not
the
from
various
that
different
the
establish
connections
tales
substantially
reader..
between
themselves.
among
While
admitting
that there
a textual
is obviously
pattern
proper to the prefaces, I contend that their specificity must be searched beyond
the function of simply explicating and justifying the stories.
The enunciating voice in the prefaces does not take the form of a
in
tales and popular jokes are narrated
narrator, even though many
them. However,
such a voice cannot be reduced to a transparently
denotative
ofthe author's beliefs either. One can rather place it in a territory that
expression
fuses parables, anecdotes, metafictional
statements.
remarks, and philosophical
an
a
The result is
uncertain voice, constantly alternating
with
becoming-fictional
a becoming-authorial.
to the background
At times, Rosa withdraws
and leaves
fictional
a narrative
The authorial T
voice already fully fictional.
returns
and
takes
for
the
statement,
eventually
responsibility
only to fade away
one
can
to
subscribe
Paulo
R?nai's
claim
that
the prefaces of
again. Although
the reader with
Tutam?ia present "uma profiss?o de f? e urna arte po?tica" (217), it should be
pointed out that such poetics is to be deduced, i.e. the enunciating voice must
never
be simply
assumed
to be Rosa's.
Since my target is the constitutive role of paradox, Iwill limitmyself to
the first
preface,
"Aletria
e Hermen?utica".
These
ten pages
of riddles
and
nonsensical jokes display the richest of Guimar?es Rosa's elaborations on the
question
passages
of paradox. The preface
in Rosa's work:
opens with
one ofthe most
commonly
A est?ria n?o quer serhistoria. A est?ria, rigor, deve ser
quoted
69
The Logic of Paradox
A est?ria, ?s vezes, quer-se urn pouco parecida
anedota. A anedota, pela etimolog?a e para a finalidade,
requer
fechado ineditismo. Uma anedota ? como um f?sforo: riscado,
foi-se a servent?a (7).
deflagrada,
contra a historia.
Two major
concerns
of Rosean
emerge
poetics
here: fiction's
relation
to the real and thenotion of singularity.Rosa recovers theword est?ria from the
popular storytelling traditionwith thepurpose of highlighting fiction's indepen
as rejecting all mimetic models based on "faithful
The attack on realism continues
further down in the preface,
representations."
where
the "realista verista" is said simply to approach the "grosseiro
formal,
externo a coisa" (14). The second aesthetic statement in the opening passage
is
more often overlooked
and has rarely been dealt with in the Rosean criticism.
It
the real as well
dence vis-a-vis
to a key notion in Tutam?ia:
the instantaneous,
that
out
of
the
narrative
continuum.
empts
contingency
refers
the absolutely
singular
to any subjective
Alien
will, these singularities-events4 prove to be the stmcturing principle of most
stories in the book.
The
several anedotas
de abstra?ao.
preface proceeds
by narrating
are
to
these
Guimar?es
anecdotes
and
that
"colindem
Rosa,
According
parables
com o n?o-senso,
a ele afins; e o n?o-senso,
um
a
reflete
triz
coer?ncia
cr?-se,
por
e
nos
do misterio
envolve
cria" (8). As Luiz Valente has shown, what
g?rai, que
on absence, lack, and
ties all these stories together is "their common dependence
or actualize nothing
(353). All of them in some way conceptualize
negation"
ness. For Guimar?es
the Zen-like quality of opening
the
Rosa,
they possessed
to
state
the
the
of
where
illumination
to
the
mind
is
able
eliminate
satori,
path
a pure being-in-itself.
all thoughts and experience
In this study, I am not
concerned with themystical implications of these parables, but exclusively with
the logic underlying the constitutive role of absence in them.
Oneof
the most humorous
stories in the preface recounts the experience
a
of boy who gets lost while strolling with his parents: "garotinho..
.perdido na
na pra?a, em festa de quermesse,
se aproxima
de um pol?cia e,
multid?o,
'Seo guarda, o sr. n?o viu um h?rnern e uma mulher
choramingando,
indaga:
sem um meninozinho
assim como eu?'" (9). The vignette reverses the logic of
presence
identity.
confronted
the boy's absence
the constitutive
feature
by making
Instead of "have you seen someone
tall, dark-haired
with
"have you seen someone
without
of the parents'
... ?", one is
a kid like me?"
For the boy,
theparents can only be defined by the fact that they lack him, rather thanby the
presence
of
any personal
mark.
Absence,
far from
being
a negative
and
nostalgia-provoking lack, is thusdisplaced to thepositive and constitutive pole
of the dichotomy.
A similar
story involves
wireless telegraph is:
a man who
tries to explain
to a friend what
a
70
Latin American
Review
Literary
?
tao comprido,
que a
"Imagine urn cachorro basset,
e
a
em
a
no
se
est?
Rio
do
rabo
Se
Minas.
belisca
ponta
cabe?a
no
em
a
a
latir..."
do
rabo,
Minas,
Rio,
pega
ponta
cabe?a,
?
"E isso ? o tel?grafo-sem-fio?"
?
"N?o. Isso ? o tel?grafo com fio. O sem fio ? amesma
coisa...mas
sem o corpo do cachorro"
(9).
The image of a dog occupying the entire space between Rio andMinas is
constmcted only to give way to its subsequent absence thatwill make possible
the analogy
with
the wireless
telegraph.
That
is, a given
presence
does
not
substitute for an original absence. It is rather conceived so that it can be
"disconceived"
reveals
how
of absence
and the materiality
absence can only be conceptualized
can thereby emerge. The joke
once an original and founda
tional presence has been posited. The specifically Rosean intervention is to
as a deception,
that one creates in order to enjoy
this presence
something
of experiencing
the jouissance
the pleasure of its disappearance,
nothingness.
a tme art of disappearance5:
absence is not to be covered
The reader witnesses
process of substitution), but rather dis-covered. As Guimar?es
(by apsychoanalytic
a id?ia do
? necessariamente
"a id?ia do objeto 'n?o existindo'
Rosa explains:
de urna exclus?o desse objeto pela
objeto 'existindo ', acrescida da representa?ao
unveil
atual tomada em bloco" (10). In a sentence such as "o nada ? urna faca
sem a l?mina, da qual se tirou o cabo" (10), the nothingness
that arises as a
of an original presence:
"Trocado em
residue is the result ofthe fictionalization
esse 'nada' seria apenas um ex-nada, produzido por urna ex-faca"
mi?do:
(10).
is also inscribed as ametafictional
device. Rosa closes "Aletria
Absence
realidade
e Hermen?utica"
by saying that "O livro pode valer pelo muito que nele n?o
caber" (17). The text thus draws attention to itself in aparadoxical
fashion,
or
was
not
out.
to
That
that
is
left
the
there
reader
inviting
decipher everything
text
the
lens
the
is
becomes
which
entire
absence
through
retrospectively
deveu
interpreted. Most anecdotes
a certain presence
whereby
in the preface can be reduced to a logical movement
is posited and then deconstmcted,
giving way to the
jouissance of nothingness (nothingness as jouissance). Popular rhyme patterns
are appropriated
to convey
the same effect:
As minhas
ceroulas
n?o
n?o
ceroulas
novas
das mais modernas
t?m c?s, n?o t?m cadar?os
t?m bot?es e n?o t?m pemas.
Comprei uns ?culos novos
?culos dos mais excelentes
n?o t?m aros, n?o t?m asas
n?o
t?m grau e n?o t?m lentes..
.(11)
The Logic
71
of Paradox
stanzas positacertainobject(acertainpresence)onlytodeconstmct
One notes that Guimar?es Rosa inscribes nothingness,
Both
it progressively.
silence, etc. (i.e. the non-privileged
as a guilty and nostalgic
encounter
absence,
not
of
Western
dichotomies)
poles
age-old
or lack. The notion of
with some deficiency
an original and foundational plenitude from which we have fallen is thus
text. As such, all parallels with either the existen
completely
foreign to Rosa's
or
and absence are valid only
versions of nothingness
tialist
the psychoanalytic
in a radically different domain. The
insofar as they show that Rosa operates
nausea
the
and the Lacanian
lack, in that they still reproduce
to
remain
inherited
from
proper
every
binary opposition
hierarchy
metaphysics,
situated within the nostalgic narrative ofthe primordial Fall. Rosa,
comfortably
an affirmative
on the contrary, turns absence
into a production,
play of para
a
a
the
infinite
It
thus
of
Nietzschean
creative
force.
is
doxes,
energy:
possibility
naming and producing
signs.
can be further
The Rosean
conversion
of negation
into affirmation
existentialist
exemplified with the role of negative prefixes in Tutam?ia. Many of his
linguistic innovations originate from a single pattern,whereby the absence of an
action is transformed into an action in itsown right. Let us consider indetail some
passages
of Tutam?ia:
?
'"Doido
diacho monstro!
minha
praga. Desentend?a
fundura
?'
minha mulher
("Curtam?o"
e
44).
Se diz alias que a gente troca de sombra, por
volta dos quarenta, quando alma e corpo revezam o
jeito de se compenetrar. E quem vai saber e dizer? Em Gede?o
desprestava-se
("Grande Gede?o"
ateng?o
89).
Pois - por
hem, gostou d?la, audaz descobridor.
os avessos, conforme quem aceita e n?o conf?re?
querertamb?m
a
e vis?veis
natureza, em seus efeitos
Inexplica-o
objetos
Rom?o,
("Reminis?ao"
93).
O futuro sao respostas. Da vida, sabe-se: o que a
do mar e do rochedo. Inimaginemo-nos
ostra percebe
("SeEu Seria Personagem" 156) (emphases added).
In these passages (andothers could bementioned), the italicized verbs have
been created by the addition of a negative prefix to an existing verb. The stylistic
and grammatical
consequences
of this creation
do not concern me here, but from
a philosophical viewpoint they foreground some of the issues discussed in
"Aletria
e Hermen?utica."
Rather
than using n?o entender,
n?o prestar
ateng?o,
72
Latin American
Literary
Review
n?o
and n?o
explicar,
a
transforms
non-action
of prefixes,
Rosa,
imaginar, Guimar?es
by means
an
into
action itself (desentender,
desprestar
ateng?o,
and inimaginar). The radical difference
between
the two options
is
inexplicar,
felt by any Portuguese
n?o
Whereas
to
testifies
prestar ateng?o simply
speaker.
the lack of a certain action, desprestar
as an
absence
ateng?o
highlights
affirmative
and active
statement. Nothingness
a verb, a productive
becomes
sense
are
the
of
for
radical
and
since the
implications
logic
profound,
presence
ofthe action is no longer the paradigm for the statement of its absence.
The logical, Platonic
of absence upon presence
is overthrown,
dependence
insofar as absence no longer negates presence, but simply affirms itself as well
as the possibility
of every presence. Guimar?es Rosa indirectly reveals, within
force. The
the space of a single word, a central issue: the extent towhich our linguistic signs
are accomplices
in the violent hierarchy
that organizes all binary oppositions.
A further instance of Rosa's strategic use of absence lies inhis rewriting
of popular Brazilian
His deconstruction
proverbs.
of proverbs
has been analyzed
by Luis Costa Lima (49-65) andLivia Santos (536-61). Rosa's procedures range
from
inversion
to combination
and condensation
of different
and overt
proverbs
parody (Santos 547-50). Iwill limitmyself to a few examples that display the
paradoxical logic I have highlighted. One will notice the same structuring
a logic
generating
expresses
(Deleuze, Logic
anything negative"
in an affirmative mode:
its own existence
principles
no longer
in all statements,
operating
"the negation
136), but rather states
sabe o por n?o vir ("Arroio-das-Antas"
23).
Foi nessa altura que ele n?o caiu em si ("Est?ria No.
3" 61).
Deus
? quem
Atento...ao
The
inwhich
estrangement
que n?o se passava
effect
conveyed
("Grande Gede?o"
by
these
91).
re-elaborations
of fixed
linguistic forms isproduced by certainprocedures thatentail the same logic. One
a clause
invariably finds a given action (saber, estar atento, etc.) introducing
can
in
a
state
its
usual
certain presence
that,
form,
(to know
linguistic
only
to pay attention to something,
Rosa maintains
the
etc.). Guimar?es
something,
active statement, but makes
it affirm an absence. The result is once again one of
materialization of absence in language, in that a character is forced to pay
attention to emptiness; God is said to know what is not to come; etc. The use of
negative particles does not, therefore, express some "transcendental
negativity",
but rather an affirmative
in the statement "Deus ? quem sabe
thrust. For example,
o por n?o vir", Guimar?es
Rosa plays upon the reader's expectation
of future
facts by affirming
the non-fact
as that which
is about to come. The very absence
of facts is thus to be interpreted in its singularity.
Itwould be a seriousmisreading of Guimar?es Rosa to suppose that such
linguistic
constmctions
are simply
"stylistic"
devices
to produce
unexpected
73
of Paradox
The Logic
in
forms. Although
analyzable from a stylistic point of view, their function
from a linguistic
Rosean
poetics extends much further than a mere deviation
norm. For Guimar?es Rosa, each word is, in and of itself, a philosophical
tension.
form and content, style and theme, etc. are in Rosa's
between
The distinctions
text more obsolete than in any other. In the writerly text of Guimar?es Rosa every
content isnecessarily a form,while every form is always already aphilosophical
statement.
attention
be read with
should also, therefore,
innovations
His
linguistic
to the philosophical
they impose. Such displacements
displacements
will become more clear as I link the linguistic subversion with the stmcturing
logic ofthe
innovations will then emerge as
linguistic
that ultimately
of a larger paradigm
operates
fabric of Tutam?ia.
text as a whole.
Rosa's
i.e. condensations
paradoxemes,
upon the entire narrative
In "La, nas Campinas",
to the story's central
issue:
the epigraph introduces the reader
for example,
eu mesmo
t?o minhas
"...nessas
lembran?as
desapareci" (97).The passage highlights the tension ofmemory/subject, amajor
concern of Guimar?es
Rosa's
throughouthis
work. The story recounts Drijimiro's
fixation on his childhood, combined with his inability to recall any significant
facts, images, or people: "Drijimiro tudo ignoravade
is thus structured
a, demais"
(97). His memory
eternally defers and eludes
n?o tirava memoria...Que
sua infancia; mas
by a constitutive
recordava
void
that
"De pessoas, m?e ou pai,
o que ele pretend?a mais que
the efforts of remembrance:
jeito recobrar
aquilo,
tudo?" (97). Drijimiro's only persistent recollection can be reduced to a single
phrase
that vaguely
-
recalls a landscape:
'L?, nas campi?as...
de no nenhum
"frase ?nica, ficara-lhe,
'inconsoante, adsurda"
desinformada,
as apure singularity,
i.e. it evokes neither
lugar antigamente:
(97). The phrase erupts in his memory
a particular place nor a general idea or concept. This empty signifier, as pure
a deterritory:
in language, preserves
the memory
of a non-place,
materiality
"urna campi?a..
.estando nem onde nem longe" (98). This utterly non-Oedipal,
takes the form of a nomadic flight through the past. Such
non-neurotic
memory
a relation between memory
the latter in a space alien to
and subject constitutes
?
where
the
both the Cartesian
controls and
subject supposedly
omnipotence
the
its
the
Freudian
guides
memory?and
nostalgia?where
subject is trapped
in the paradisiac (repressed) remembrance of a primordial unity6.Drijimiro is
rather the deterritorialized
castrative
of memory,
nomadism:
singularity-event
family, etc.
non
in the vicinity of &positive,
subject, constituted
blasted out ofthe temporal continnum. The absence
(i.e. territories) places him in a state of perpetual
?
orfandante, por todo canto e parte
o que soubesse acaso. Tinha ningu?m
'L?, nas campi?as?...'
lhe
De
menino,
para
passara por incertas familias e
responder.
o
era
como
comum,
m?os;
que
quando v?m esses pobres,
as
vezes
os
davam
filhos, vendiam filhas peque?as"
migrantes:
"Antes
(98).
ele buscara,
74
Latin American
A
typically
Rosean
"orfandante"
word,
portmanteau
Literary
Review
(orphan + walk
ing), foregrounds the character's deterritorialized state. The description of his
is actually a description
origins
in the endless
his movement
ofthe
flow
of all origin which underscores
no
No father, no mother,
absence
of becoming.
primordial unity, no castration.From thebeginning (if one can still speak of such
a thing),Drijimiro is a point circulating throughvarious series.His memory can
a non
and parricidal:
and uncertain,
paradoxical
only be nomadic
as itwere. To reorder his past experience,
he counts on the singularity
memory,
of his life.
thai crosses every present moment
la, nas campi?as
therefore
Rather thansearching for thispast experience, Drijimiro (dirijo+miro?)
settles
down
simulacra
as a cattle
ofthe
By a process
the images available
farmer.
past using
of
he produces
substitution,
in the present:
mas achava, j? sem sair do lugar, pois onde, pois como,
do de nas viagens aprendido, ou o que tinha em si, dia com
sobras de aurora. Notava: cada pedrinha de areia um redarg?ir
reluzente,
Reaching
at? os v?os
amoment
dos passarinhos
when
the character
eram atos (99).
enjoys
a certain plenitude
and the
singularity-event from the past no longer disturbs him, the story seems to have
a fellow farmer who
is about to die brings up the
to go. However,
is
revealed
the
inner
void
and
again: "Rix?o... vinha, para passar.
magical phrase
- 'La nas
?
o
S? rever Drijimiro,
segredo:
campi?as...'
pedir-lhe perguntado
ousava estar inteiramente
mas que Drijimiro n?o sabia mais de cor... Doravante...
nowhere
becomes
triste" (99). Forgetfulness
again a source of pain, but not for too long.
Two paragraphs he in between this passage and the subsequent death of
Drijimiro
himself.
However,
in Tutam?ia
two paragraphs
rewrite
an entire
life.
Drijimiro, at themoment of his death, isovertaken by an illumination ofmemory
thatbrings back the original territory,with all itsmeaning and richness:
Falou, o que guardado
sempre sem saber lhe ocupara o
o
a casa entre bastas
luz,
campo, p?ssaros,
peito, rebentado:
com miriquilhos
amarelo o quintal da vo?oroca,
folhagens,
... Tudo
e mais,
nos barrancos
trabalhado
borbulhando
?
?
como
o
tanto
revalor
agora,
que raia pela
completado,
a
refletem o
agua azul das lavadeiras,
indescri?ao:
lagoasque
os
as ?rvores e
pedidores de esmola (100).
pico dos montes,
A Romantic/Realist/Modernist
end here. The narrative
story would
to have been brought to a full circle. Despite
the non-nostalgic
nature of
one
within
the
the
could
still
read
usual
memory,
story
plenitude
Drijimiro's
and originless,
the
loss-recovery
cycle. Even though his itinerary is nomadic
seems
reader
certainly
feels
tempted
to narrativize
it in Oedipal
terms,
i.e. as a
The Logic
75
of Paradox
original territory." Since he is overtaken by the image evoked
and remembrances
return, he seems to
phrase l?, nas campi?as
to reterritorialize
the past in the present. However,
the last
the paradox: "Ent?o, ao narrador foge o
statement by the narrator reestablishes
fio. Toda est?ria pode resumir-se nisto: Era urna vez urna vez, e nessa vez um
sem sofrer, diz, afirma: - 'L?...' Mas n?o acho as palavras"
h?rnern. S?bito,
"recapture
ofthe
by the magical
have managed
(100).
The crisis that had haunted the character invades the act of narration
recovers plenitude,
itself. As ofthe moment when Drijimiro
the narrator finds
to tell his story. The narrator's
of powerlessness
confession
himself unable
in the air as to what
the reader and again leaves him/her
bewilders
l?, nas
cannot be told and
campi?as
really means. The text implies that completeness
that narratives dwell in the realm of deferral.
A paradox
two
is construed from the disharmonious
relation between
through which
series,
a paradoxical
element
circulates.
The
non-correspon
dence between the two series produces a logic according towhich the paradoxi
in one series and lacking in the other. In "L?, nas
is always excessive
is
this
element
itself and the two series are set
memory
Campinas"
Drijimiro's
the
between
?nonc?
and
That is, the ?nonciation
within
?nonciation.
up
opposition
can
as long as this
to
remembrance
(the narrator's voice)
only refer
Drijimiro's
cal element
to an
is lacking in the character. It thus inhabits the ?nonciation
a
non
the whole
revolve
around
the
void
of
extent, making
story
memory. When Drijimiro finally recaptures the past image, the lack of memory
The narrator can no longer tell
is displaced from the ?nonc? to the ?nonciation.
remembrance
excessive
the story of an achieved memory,
because
the character's
achievement
entails
one
in
the narrator's failure. The excessive
of
series produces
presence
memory
its absence in the other.
One
could
Tutam?ia.
reveal
purpose
similar
in reading
in other stories from
foundational
paradoxes
that
"L?, nas Campinas" was to demonstrate
My
the paradoxical
Rosa's
also
creations
logic underlying Guimar?es
linguistic
as
a
to
nas
In
one
structure
the
fabric
narrative
whole.
"L?,
operates
Campinas",
notes the same joyful, non-nostalgic,
and non-Oedipal
of
absence
appropriation
sentence. The story's emphasis on Drijimiro's
that animates the Rosean
relation
to his memory
leads me
to ask: given
the structure
of paradox,
what
are the
specific conceptions of subject and temporality that emerge therefrom?
As
ment:
stories
itwas
far as the subject is concerned,
once labeled a "book without
are neither
types nor unique
Tutam?ia
characters."
individuals,
some estrange
provokes
The protagonists
ofthe
since
the compactness
of the
texts precludes anymoral or psychological development. Tutam?ia isdefinitely
not a study of individual depths, inner conflicts or dilemmas. The book marks
a break with
the tradition of bourgeois
literature centered around the personal
In
nas
the
of
is merely
the locus
"L?,
sphere.
example
Campinas",
Drijimiro
a
are
no
certain
which
circulates.
There
traumas
to be
memory
through
personal
a
return to the past. There is simply a singularity-event
resolved by
that crosses
76
Latin American
the subject to constitute him/her. All
singularities-events
lives. The subject
a different
Literary
Review
thatmatters in Tutam?ia are these
at certain moments
to punctuate
individual
than a collateral residue ofthe event. Through
Luis Costa Lima has reached a similar conclusion when he
that emerge
is nothing more
analysis,
states that "em Guimar?es
o personagem,
em simesmo,
no curso de sua
Rosa...
?
?ndice
da
eventualidade"
Costa
Lima goes on
existencia
apenas
(57).
privada,
on
to contrast Machado
to Rosa's
de Assis'
individual
emphasis
psychology
residual characters,
the latter's unique place in Brazilian
literature.
showing
The moments of illumination thatusually appear at the end of each story
are not
in "L?, nas Campinas")
(e.g. the return of memory
are
no
in
to an
the
since
attached
sense,
Joycean
they
longer
"epiphanies"
In "L?, nas Campinas",
return
individual consciousness7.
the past remembrances
in Tutam?ia
as ifby themselves. Drijimiro is simply overtaken by them.The love scenes that
close
some
stories are not rituals of seduction,
but rather instantaneous
events. They are never prepared or arranged, but simply take place
the individuals.
singular
involve
and
and
The subject inTutam?ia isone thatemerges by synthesizing singularities
events
that completely
the individual
escape
will.
However,
relativizing
and
situating the subject, depriving it of its Cartesian power does not amount to
in the negative
its constitution
positing
inversion
such a claim would be mere
terms of castration
of the Cartesian
and lack. To make
problematic,
since
it
would endow another subject (the castrator)with an all-powerful attribute.A
of paradox reveals where Cartesianism
reading of Tutam?ia from the viewpoint
touch each other, since both posit a subjective,
constitutive
and Freudianism
event.
the
agency beyond
At times, the event takes the form of a riddle that characters are forced
in the
to decipher.
In "Intruge-se",
the event is the murder of a gang member
the gang leader, is caught in a game of deciphering
and
backlands.
Ladislau,
no
is
that
the
entire
Once
information
story.
occupies
again,
interpretation
or
as
are
as
to
the
characters'
not-yet
purposes. They
depicted
origins
provided
constituted
contingent
subjects who need,
event. They must,
for their emergence,
in Deleuze's
words,
to respond to an absolutely
of what
"become worthy
happens to us [them], and thus to will and release the event, to become the
of one's
offspring
own
events"
(Logic
149). Ladislau's
detective-like
search
differs from murder mysteries in that there is no all-powerful mind collecting
proofs and testing hypotheses. The solution to the crime is instantaneous like
everything
in Tutam?ia.
The
subject
is again overtaken
by a singular
individual event:
Urn vaqueiro passou, Lioc?dio,
agradou o c?o que latiu ou
n?o latiu, n?o se ouviu. Ladislau falou, bateu na m?o do outro
- era
atentado,
por repetida vez! de uso, de esquecido? Aquele,
em risco se rebelou, drempente,
sacando faca a fura-bucho...
no meio do movimento,
Mas Ladislau num revira-vaca,
and non
The Logic
77
of Paradox
em ffgado lhe desfechou
encostadamente
de doze
aparabellum
o
amassou
de
ferrabruto
moita
balas, boa arma! Espichado
caiu como v?tima. Rigriz
mentrasto,
"Remexam
por algum
Ladislau
nos dobros
trato ou furto!"
disse, que viu, que piscou:
dele, que o assassino
ele era,
(85).
thus proves worthy of what happens
does not connect with any previous
leads to the solution
to him. The
event
that
search, but rather takes
place and forces the subject to respond to it.One could say that the solution finds
the character,
rather than the opposite.
There
are no development
of possibilities
or speculative intelligence: in this anti-detective story, the final discovery
the character aware that "nada sabia de si" (85), which
simply makes
underscores
the primacy of the event over the subject.
further
Another feature ofthe subject inTutam?ia lies in itsperpetual condition
of being deterritorialized and nomadic. The book is peopled by originless,
orphan, free-moving subjects. Rather than the exiles (alienated or far from
home)
that one finds
Estar?as, characters in Tutam?ia are nomads
In "Barra da Vaca", Jeremoavo
is said to
altogether).
in Primeiras
(alien to the idea of home
be "desterrado, desfamilhado" (37). In "Orienta?ao", Joaquim is described as a
no p?-rapar, fulano-da-china
ido" (123). At least
vindo, vivido,
"jo?ovagante,
three stories ("Fara? e aAgua do Rio", "O Outro ou O Outro", and "Zingaresca")
confer the main roles on gypsies,
the embodiments
of nomadism par excellence.
Several
of Rosa's
portmanteau
words
(e.g. "orfandante"
and "malandante")
foreground the perpetual flow of becoming proper to nomads.
As nomads,
the characters in Tutam?ia have very little in common with
the modernisthomelessness.
They are not deprived of ahorne or exiled from one,
as nomads in apositive
but rather state themselves
fashion. Again, one does not
find any negativity or cult of lack inGuimar?es Rosa. Nomads do not lack a
home; rather, homes lack themovement and energy of nomadism. In "Zingaresca",
the gypsies occupy a farm, leave the proprietors and the priest in amazement,
and
abandon the place when everybody
least expects it. The story is simply a filmic
shot of one point of an itinerarywithout origin or destination, foreign to all
territories.As Deleuze andGuattari point out, "if thenomad can be called the
Deterritorialized
it is precisely because there is no
par excellence,
reterritorialization afterward aswith themigrant" (Plateaus 381).Many of the
paradoxes in Tutam?ia are related to the fact that the characters portrayed are
neither at home nor exiled from it, but rather situated in a constant state of
deterritorialization. As paradoxical subjects, they dwell in the realm of pure
becoming.
Having analyzed the subject of paradox in Tutam?ia, we are still left
withthe question of temporality, amajor concern in thebook. The readeris likely
to be struck by the strange temporal structure of these narratives that do not seem
to tell any story. I have noted that the characters' past and future are hardly ever
78
Latin American
Review
Literary
to. In fact, the very sense of diachrony
is shattered in each story. There
is rarely a progression
of actions, not even a shuffled and chaotic one. Guimar
alluded
?es Rosa breaks radically with the age-old framework of a story (action A,
complicator B, resolution C) by halting thenarrative in thefirst stage.The reader
is simply
confronted
with
an event thai stretches
itself out for three or fourpages
amidst a tme delirium of language. A good example of this can be found in
a story whose
"Hiato",
very
title
indicates
the in-between
of
the Rosean
temporality.
are confronted with the frightening
In "Hiato", two vaqueiros
sight of
a bull, which
in the end turns out to be a tame steer. The whole story narrates the
intangible moment when they believed they were in the presence of a wild
In the nowhere ofthe sert?o, they are overtaken by the fear that provides
a
for three entire pages. Guimar?es
Rosa makes
the narrator with material
use
to
flow
the
halt
the
actions
and
of
of
commentary
suspend
strategic
the impression
that time itself is reduced to an
thereby conveying
temporality,
animal.
and incorporeal
intangible
instant. Rather
than a narrative,
"Hiato" comes
across
as a purely descriptive story (which is obviously a paradox in itsown terms). Jon
Vincent
has correctly pointed out that "Hiato" is an "antiplot piece centered on
of events" (123). No temporal markers are found in the whole
text;
narrator
in
"tudo
As
the
that
moment
it.
points out, during
truly happens
the absence
nothing
e n?o acontecido"
(73). The erasure of past and future is also alluded
erapossivel
to: "err?tico, a retrotempo, recordava-se
sobre nos o touro, escuro como o futuro,
mau objeto para a memoria"
itself out to
(74). The instant simply stretches
Rosa put it, this is the
embrace past and future and delete both. As Guimar?es
time of the "infinitemonosyllable" (23).
This temporality is the realm of "the empty present of the Aion"
(Deleuze, Logic 63): the temporal dimension of the perpetual present that
engulfs both past and future.As opposed to Chronos (the circular time of the
eternal
nature,
which,
return), Aion is inhabited by singularities-events
by their very
are alien to all diachrony8. Since they neither remain nor change, they
elude both being and becoming. The event (and the "appearance"of thebull in
"Hiato" triggers an event in the tme philosophical sense ofthe word) belongs in
the incorporeal temporality of the instant, therefore outside the oppositions
being/becoming
and permanence/transformation.
"Hiato",
like most
stories
in
Tutam?ia, dwells in the intangible temporality of the event: always singular,
uncapturable,
and unrepeatable.
DUKE UNIVERSITY
The
time of paradox.
The Logic
of Paradox
79
NOTES
ll am grateful to the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento
Cient?fico e
from Brazil, for a grant thatmade possible this research.
Tecnol?gico,
2Jon Vincent's Jo?o Guimar?es Rosa is the best English introduction to
Tutam?ia and to Guimar?es Rosa's work as a whole.
3See, for example, her assessment of Tutam?ia as a "livro did?tico, orientado,
in that it
que n?o deixa cada quai senti-lo e/ou dissec?-lo em paz", a misreading
an
the
the
of
view
of
from
that they
function
point
approaches
prefaces
explicative
simply do not have (89).
4For a philosophical
inquiry into the event as a singularity that erupts out of the
see
The Logic of Sense, especially "Of Singularities"
Gilles
Deleuze's
continuum,
temporal
(100-8) and "Of the event" (148-53).
5I borrow the expression "art of disappearance" from Baudrillard. He has
theorized disappearance as a game in his Forget Foucault (76). See also Paul Virilio's
de laDisparition.
UEsth?tique
6I take Cartesianism and Freudianism as privileged comparisons because they
represent two major paradigms of modern reflections on the subject, i.e. the subject as
rational cogito and the split and nostalgic subject of psychoanalysis. For an alternative
see Deleuze
to both modem rationalism and psychoanalysis,
and Guattari's Anti
A
Thousand
Plateaus.
and
Oedipus
7Lu?sFernando Valente has demonstrated the absence of epiphanies inGrande
in Grande Sert?o: Veredas" (83). In
Sert?o: Veredas. See his "Affective Response
Tutam?ia, themoments of illumination emerge, but as non-individual, non-conscious
sets Guimar?es Rosa apart from, for
ness-centered epiphanies. Such desubjectification
example, his contemporary Clarice Lispector, whose work obssessively revolves around
the torments of consciousness.
8Aion and Chronos are the two dimensions of temporality in Stoic philosophy.
have
been reappropriated for modem thought by Gilles Deleuze in his The Logic
They
Schuhl's account in Les Stoiciens.
of Sense. See also Pierre-Maxime
WORKS CITED
Baudrillard, Jean. Forget Foucault. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series. New York:
1987.
Semiotext(e),
Costa Lima, Lu?s. "Mito e Proverbio em Guimar?es Rosa." A Metamorfose
do Silen
cio. Rio de Janeiro: Eldorado, 1974.
Covizzi,Lenira Marques. O Ins?lito em Guimar?es Rosa e Borges. Colec?oEnsaios49.
S?o Paulo: ?tica, 1978.
Deleuze, Gilles. The Logic of Sense. Trans. Mark Lester and Charles Stivale. European
Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.
?.
Nietzsche and Philosophy. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson. New York: Columbia Univer
sity Press, 1983.
80 Latin American
Literary
Review
?
and F?lix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
Trans. Robert
Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1988.
?.
A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi.
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Santos, L?viaFerreira. "A Desconstru?ao em Tutam?ia." Eduardo Coutinho, Guimar?es
Rosa. Cole?ao Fortuna Cr?tica. Rio de Janeiro: Civiliza?ao Brasileira, 1983.536
77.
Schuhl, Pierre-Maxime. Les Stoiciens. Trans. Emile Br?hier. Paris: Gallimard, 1962.
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Review 23 (1988) 349-62.
"Affective
Response
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Sert?o: Veredas."
Luso-Brazilian
Review
23
(1986): 77-88.
Vincent, Jon V. Jo?o Guimar?es Rosa. Twayne's World Authors Series 506. Boston:
Twayne, 1978.
Virilio, Paul. L'Esth?tique de laDisparition. Paris: Balland, 1980.