Literature

Rubem Fonseca, Bufo and Spallanzani«

4 reading minutes

written by Alexandre Wälti · 09 October 2018 · 0 comment

Tuesday's books - Alexandre Wälti

And yet the request was simple: a novel that's hard to put down and that's not a thriller. Nothing exceptional, it's true. We just had to avoid the classic pattern of murder, investigation and assassin. It didn't fall on deaf ears, because the bookseller, as soon as these words came out of my mouth, immediately chose the novel. Bufo and Spallanzani. Without saying too many words, just what was needed, the context and a few details about Rubem Fonseca's piquant writing. I was convinced.

Reading begins as soon as you get home. The first pages reveal a character to whom Tolstoy, Nabokov, Flaubert, Saint-John Perse, Moravia, Maupassant, Simenon and Baudelaire appear one after the other, or to whom he appeals for no real reason. Ivan Canabrava is the writer who plans to write Bufo and Spallanzani, who quotes the author of the novel in which he appears, saying after the (un)fortunate explosion of a water heater:

«I think it was on that day, when I realized the superiority of a hard-on over pain, that I decided to write... Bufo and Spallanzani.»

«What a joke,» I said to myself, feeling as if I'd been duped. What is this novel? The question becomes more acute on reading the second chapter. Guedes appears in the middle of a crime scene. The stereotypical dirty cop who «only owned an old suit, which he never wore, so old that it had already gone out of fashion and come back in fashion several times.» Colombo! I said no investigation! In the same place, Delfina Delamare, wife of billionaire Eugênio Delamare, is found dead in her car. No murder either! The investigation begins. But of course!

So we have four characters and a murder right from the start, just like any good thriller. Everything I didn't ask for! Did the bookseller misunderstand me? What's more, as the story unfolds, another murder conceals the first, and new potential defendants crop up by the dozen. This makes the initial nod to Tolstoy all the more understandable, since the Russian author was never short of characters in his writings.

The investigation begins but never ends, like the writing of Bufo and Spallanzani by Ivan Canabrava. The same title as the book we're reading. As if the reader were fully participating in the novel. Moreover, the investigations are constantly interrupted by Rubem Fonseca's ramblings. One time, Ivan's «dark past» is detailed. Another time, a hippie, Minolta, enters his life and changes him completely. The next time, he isolates himself at the Pic-de-l'Epervier refuge to finish his novel.

At first, these continual digressions are untimely. They even irritate the reader before he finally realizes what a farce he's reading and experiencing. I kept going right to the end of the novel, with lots of unexpected laughter and a few moments of loneliness on public transport. That's Rubem Fonseca's art! Using the drama and codes of crime fiction to make them funny. Parodying the rhythm of a detective story to make it exciting. The author shines in this exercise, which he renews ad infinitum without ever tiring the reader. He does, however, take the opportunity to point out some of the dysfunctions of Brazilian power with intelligence and irony.

Now I understand why this novel was recommended to me! It was indeed worth reading just for the absurd episode of the interrogation of the main defendant in the murder of Delfina Delamare in a Rio de Janeiro café, which begins here:

«The next day, he arrived even earlier than usual at XIV^th. He went to the depot. It was a large cell crowded with inmates. Agenor was lying on a small mattress, covered with a thin gray blanket. He was still asleep.
“Take Agenor to my office,“ said Guedes to the guard.
Agenor entered Guedes' office with a yawn.
“Did you sleep well?" asked Guedes.
- I slept. I was very tired," says Agenor.
- How did it go? The cell isn't too full?
- Yes, but the guys are nice, we work things out, nobody argues, you know how it is, when everyone pitches in, things always get better.
- Yes, I see they're nice, they've even got you a mattress. Shall we go for a coffee?“
The other policemen saw Guedes go out with the prisoner, but the filthy cop was too respected for anyone to stop him, or even criticize him.
They had a coffee on Ataúlfo de Paiva Avenue.»

Just goes to show: trust the booksellers! An excellent conclusion. And why is that? Because all you have to do is walk into a bookshop, the Boutique du Livre in Neuchâtel, give two reading criteria and you've discovered an author with a playful pen: Rubem Fonseca.