Shortly before I left Brazil, I was wandering through a bookstore in Rio when I stumbled upon a book with a stunning cover, a night scene of a street near where I lived for the two years I spent in the Cidade Maravilhosa. I knew nothing about the book or author, but facing the prospect of leaving for a long time and deeply missing the neighborhood that had become my home, I grabbed the book and added it to my pile of "to-read" books when I got home. Months passed before I picked it up, when I was back in New York starting a new job. I started reading during my commute, and I fell so in love with the book that I purposely read only bits at a time to stretch it out as much as possible.
That book, called O Rio é Assim: a crônica de uma cidade by José Carlos Oliveira, is by far the best book I have ever read about Rio de Janeiro and is one of the most realistic, jarring, heartbreaking, inspiring, hilarious, and truly Carioca literary visions you will find of the city. It's little snippets of life in the city, snapshots of a city during nearly four decades.
José moved to Rio from Espirito Santo, so in a sense, he had an outsider's perspective, even though he became a Carioca himself living there for many years. His sense of detail and his ability to take a step back and see things from a different angle is what sets the book apart from other more "scholarly" books about Rio. Granted, he has plenty of prejudices; the usual touch of xenophobia mixed with an adoration of European culture, a somewhat machista view of women, and a little bit of classe media syndrome. And there are times when he gets just a little Manoel Carlos on you. But nonetheless, he manages to rise above with his incredibly sharp eye and critical analysis, and shows his readers the city in an unexpected and refreshing way. Basically, he is what I have aspired to be and do by writing this blog.
One of the scary things about the book, a collection of essays, is that they were all written between 1953 and 1984, but so many things have changed very little since then, particularly the poverty, violence, and urban chaos. Though José tries to be optimistic, his general consensus is that change in Rio never quite seems to stick, and that old habits die hard, and sadly, in many ways, he was right.
Nevertheless, the book isn't all gloom and doom. It's partially a love story, where Rio is the object of his affections. There's plenty about soccer and Rio teams, of the beaches and forests, of Rio's many neighborhoods, of the seasons, of pop culture, of music, of restaurants and bars, and of Rio's great festivals. Homenagem is not a good enough word to describe his reverence for the city - it really is a declaration of love, despite his frustrations and anger with the negative aspects of living there.
Despite his clear affections for Rio, José is most certainly damning. He condemns the corruption, the murders and robberies, the police, and all of the problems that still plague the city today, with words like this that left me weeping on the subway:
"Nesse dia descobri a cisão irremediável entre os miseráveis e nós. Lamentei não perceber, em nenhum desses homens, o sentimento revolucionário por excelência: a vergonha. Mas tive medo do dia em que esses infelizes se reunissem para marchar sobre a cidade decadente. Palavra de honra, não devemos ter orgulho de ser cariocas." - Criminosos, 1960
Don't let that turn you off - just be prepared for in your face, no BS, raw emotions and real eyewitness accounts of both wonderful and horrible events. I'd love to include more snippets here, but you'll just have to read the book yourself.
O Rio é Assim is available on Amazon and Livraria Cultura, amongst other sites. It's also available on Google Books, where you can read a good portion of the book for free. But it's so wonderful, it's worth buying. Confie em mim!
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