Fotografía de autor
17 Obras 84 Miembros 2 Reseñas

Sobre El Autor

Incluye los nombres: João Almino, João Almino, João Almino

Obras de João Almino

Etiquetado

Conocimiento común

Fecha de nacimiento
1950
Género
male
Nacionalidad
Brazil
Lugar de nacimiento
Mossoró, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil

Miembros

Reseñas

Enigmas of Spring was first published in 2015. Majnun, a young man (early 20s) lives with (and is supported by) his grandparents in the Brazilian federal capital, Brasília. He has no job and has failed university entrance exams. He greatly respects and is somewhat envious of this grandparents, who have led lives of accomplishment and action, but Majnun himself is a dreamer, and the greater part of his human interactions are anonymous, taking place online. He is obsessed with an older, married woman, Laila. Of the young women in his life, he lusts after the sexy Suzana, but wants only to be friends with the straightforward, caring Carmen. Majnun's other great obsession is Moorish Spain, an era he idolizes as one of Moslem tolerance towards Christians and Jews, though a professor he meets through his grandfather insists on clueing him in to the fact that the truth was much more complicated and nowhere as rosy as he supposes. The bottom line to all this is that Majnun is mostly living in his own head. He has intellectual promise, but stupefied by all the possible options open to him, seems incapable of spurring himself to action. Instead, he spins self-referential fantasies about the things he might do, the causes he might fight for. He is endlessly chewing away at writing a novella about the Spain of his fantasies. All of this we get in the very early stages of the story.

Almino skillfully portrays Majnun as an example of that cohort of his generation that has been pulled down--or jumped--into the whirlpool we now call social media (I don't recall Almino using that term). Causes and plans emphasized one day disintegrate and swirl out of sight to be replaced by something else the next. The possibilities seem endless, but Majnun cannot rouse himself to pursue any. In short, he is waiting for life to happen to him.

Of Majnun's time and the people he meets down that rabbit hole, the omniscient narrator tells us:

"More than what was around him, he was interested in the vast world to be discovered; the territories of absence, infinitely larger than the territory of the present, richer and more complex, a space suitable to his imagination. Perhaps for this reason he preferred strangers, whom he met on his computer. And how did these strangers behave? What did they think and say? They lived in a flexible, malleable universe, and assumed characteristics adequate to whatever their mood might be. He didn't need to feel any responsibility to them or even remember their names. . . . They were like passersby spotted from afar or someone you've only heard about. He didn't need to be moved by their dramas, attenuated as they were by a hygienic distance. If he mourned their deaths or suffered with their suffering, it was because he had compassion for humanity, rather than the people as individuals. . . . "

And:

"{He} couldn't resign himself to the world in which he lived. . . . If he could, he would make reality less dense, lighter, wiping it down, simplifying it, as in the story he intended to tell. But he had a fundamental problem: he didn't now where he was, nor where to go. . . .

In truth, he wasn't at a crossroad. At a crossroad there are possible directions and destinations. He had entered a highway with no traffic laws, where everyone was on their own, unsure of both direction and destination."


Slowly, Majnun's obsessions, and his mental state in general, spin out of control, and our understanding of events often becomes hazy as well. Are we in reality or in Majnun's head? Sometimes it's hard to tell.

The writing in this book I found quite good, and as a cautionary tale about the intellectual dangers of the age, I found it very effective. Majnun is a character that we believe, but it is often unpleasant to be in his head, and it frequently became frustrating for me to listen to his endless imaginings about the various futures that may or may not open up for him, at the same time understanding that this is Almino's point. There is a particularly unpleasant (though brief) scene about two-thirds of the way through that it is not possible to forgive Majnun for. But again, I don't think that Almino means us to. The novel is thoughtful and Almino's treatment is nuanced and deft most of the time. And because at only 194 pages, one need not stay in Majnun's reality too long, and because, perhaps paradoxically, we do come to care about where Almino is going to take him in the end, I recommend the book to anyone interested in the themes it explores.
… (más)
½
 
Denunciada
rocketjk | Aug 3, 2023 |
Almino ci narra la storia di Ana, una donna che ha lasciato l'insegnamento e spera in qualcosa che rechi entusiasmo e luce nell'esistenza sonnolenta, ma ci parla di Brasilia, di una città che affronta il modernismo, le contraddizioni di una metropoli. Ana parla in prima persona di relazioni umane, amicizie, amore, delle briciole che restano nel suo presente, dei sogni che hanno difficoltà a morire.
Interessante il progetto grafico editoriale che fa di questo piccolo libo un prodotto fine, innovativo, ben curato nel colophon e nei materiali utilizzati. Una casa editrice a cui si deve augurare un fulgido avvenire.… (más)
 
Denunciada
cometahalley | Mar 29, 2012 |

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Estadísticas

Obras
17
Miembros
84
Popularidad
#216,911
Valoración
3.2
Reseñas
2
ISBNs
26
Idiomas
5

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