João Almino
Autor de The Book of Emotions (Brazilian Literature Series)
Sobre El Autor
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
Listas
Premios
También Puede Gustarte
Autores relacionados
Estadísticas
- Obras
- 17
- Miembros
- 84
- Popularidad
- #216,911
- Valoración
- 3.2
- Reseñas
- 2
- ISBNs
- 26
- Idiomas
- 5
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)