VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB|LUÍS FERNANDO VERÍSSIMO|GULA -O CLUBE DOS ANJOS| THE CLUB OF ANGELS 2021 Celebrating the Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

17th JUNE 2021, 18.30-21.00 GMT

(Gula:)O Clube dos Anjos (1998)

by LUÍS FERNANDO VERÍSSIMO (1936-) translated as

The Club of Angels (2001)

1

Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK

VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins: ten affluent men nurture their unquenchable desire to feast wallowing in increasingly more sophisticated gourmet dishes; they satiate their desire for exceptional food with some good conversation but watch out for grotesque twists in Luís Fernando Veríssimo’s second novel!

A wickedly humorous story with biting dark bizarre satirical content. A commissioned novel for a series revisiting the seven capital sins, a theme reiterated by the Brazilian publisher Objetivain the late 1990s.

Why is there a discordance between the ‘Picadinho’ Club (Brazilian Beef Stew Club) and the title of the novel? Is it a club of fallen dark angels engaging in profane transgressive behaviours?

Is the novel easy to digest? Yes, readers can enjoy skimming through the surface narrative, and being gripped by the plot totally disregarding everything else: Those ten gourmand friends continue the dining club meetings for twenty-one years. At one point one member dies (as we are all bound to), a rather mysterious replacement chef is found by a chance encounter at a wine shop. It is sprinkled with snippets of recent Brazilian history.

The plot thickens with a twist reminiscent of the satirical humour of Dalton Trevisan (1925-) or/and Rubem Fonseca (1925-2020).

Or readers could try and discern what the writer’s ploy was in adding layers of overt and covert parody and reference, for instance: various Ancient and Mediaeval Angel tales, Trimalchio's Dinner in the ancient Roman novel Satyricon, the diseased foot of Philoctetes in The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Cypria, and The Little Iliad, and numerous quotations and borrowings from William Shakespeare’s King Lear, the pre-Roman Celtic king of Britain at the time of a collapse of civilisation and some of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Poirot.

Our book club read and discussed two novels by Luís Fernando Veríssimo, see details and download the posts:

The Spies https://sistemas.mre.gov.br/kitweb/datafiles/Londres/en-us/file/cul-bookclub-13-osespioes.pdf

Borges e os orangotangos eternos http://sistemas.mre.gov.br/kitweb/datafiles/Londres/en-us/file/cul-bookclub-52-verissimo.pdf

DETAILS OF AVAILABLE PUBLICATIONS:

ENGLISH

2001- The Club of Angels translated by Margaret Jules Costa (1949- ) published by New Directions ISBN-10: 0811217558 ISBN-13: 978-0811217552 ASIN B005F3GMFE 2

https://books.google.com.et/books?id=G5cn9BrD6d0C&printsec=copyright Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK

VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

PORTUGUESE 1998 - Gula: O Clube dos Anjos, Plenos Pecados, Objetiva. ISBN-10: 9722019171ISBN- 13: 978-9722019170

Various reprints in Brazil, the most recent of which is the 2019 by the publisher Alfaguara ISBN-10: 8556520847 ISBN-13: 978-8556520845

Free downloads: ➢ https://lelivros.love/book/download-clube-dos-anjos-luis-fernando-verissimo-em- epub-mobi-e-pdf/ ➢ https://www.sjose.com.br/download/bruno/Clube%20Dos%20Anjos%20- %20Luis%20Fernando%20Verissimo.pdf ➢ https://sites.google.com/site/reitafirspa/nm6bhjrwfdhj1qve9l

SHORT HISTORY OF THE BOOK AND TRANSLATION

Luís Fernando Veríssimo is very prolific and has always pursued profit-making writing ventures. Many appreciate his satirical humour and comic television series have made him popular. The story of how he wrote Gula: o Clube dos Anjos or O Clube dos Anjos: Gula reflects his chosen approach to writing his version of whodunits. The novel was commissioned by the publishing house Objetiva for its series ‘Plenos Pecados (Fully-fledged Sins - N.K.) in the 1990s. It was not the first series on the theme of seven capital sins in Brazil but Objetiva revived it in novel format.

Commissioning literary texts to maximise sales has increasingly become a strategy of commercially minded publishers everywhere. The practice has often been frowned upon or even scorned, and its products usually regarded as lesser works. Many argue that, in such business practice, the commissioning editor and/or publishing house taints or/and hinders the individual author’s independence and creativity by setting up contrived rules and patterns.

These types of works seem to try and create bridges between pulp literature/best sellers and great literature. Great timeless literature is creative work which mirrors both the

limitless capacity of human imagination and uniquely creative minds. Obviously, the ethical

3 Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK

VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

dimension in editorial commissioning practices is brought to the fore in instances of commissioning fiction.

In addition, the practice may include a covert/overt element of product placement as well. Readers will certainly not miss the reiteration of the name of a foreign wine in Gluttony: The Club of Angels. Further to exhibiting a degree of hubris as a wine connoisseur, at one point the reader finds that the novel snobbishly derides the local Brazilian wine, particularly bad as the state of is one of the major wine producers in Brazil.

In the twentieth century, publishers in Brazil eagerly adopted theme-based commissioning. Various publishers began to engage in creating popular series in the first half of 20th century. However, in the second half, they adopted a much more targeted and aggressive commercial strategy. For example, the publishing house Civilização Brasileira Editora (founded in 1929), now part of the Record Publishers Group, commissioned a short- story anthology based on the theme of the seven capital sins in1964 from writers who had already achieved a degree of success: Mário Donato, Guilherme Figueiredo, , Otto Lara Rezende, José Condé, and João Guimarães Rosa.

In 1965, Civilização Brasileira commissioned an anthology on the theme of the ten commandments engaging the following authors: Guilherme Figueiredo, Carlos Heitor Cony, , Marques Rebelo, Orígenes Lessa, Campos de Carvalho, João Antônio, Moacir C. Lopes, and Helena Silveira. The two volumes achieved satisfactory sales and inspired other publishers to purse the same approach.

In 1998, the publishing house Editora Objetiva (purchased by Penguin Random House in 2014, now part of the German private multinational conglomerate Bertelsmann, and by Companhia das Letras in 2015) revisited the theme used by Civilização Brasileira, the seven capital sins, adopting the heading ‘Plenos Pecados (Fully-fledged Sins)’ commissioning established writers: , José Roberto Torero, Luis Fernando Veríssimo, João Ubaldo Ribeiro, João Gilberto Noll, Ariel Dorfman and Tomás Eloy Martínez and the publication was completed in 2002. It innovated by inviting two South American writers (Chile and Argentina). Other publishers, such as Nova Fronteira, and Rocco also embarked on such commissioning editorial strategies in the awareness that they would be able to generate profit. The ploy attracted the attention of the national media helping publishers in promoting their commercial endeavours.

Gula: o Clube dos Anjos has ten short chapters and just over 130 pages. The epigraph at the start of the novel is ‘Todo desejo é um desejo de morte possível’ (All desire is a desire for a possible death) followed by ‘a Japanese maxim’.

Original English translation MJC 1 O Encontro The Meeting 2 A Escama The Fish Scale 3 O Primeiro Jantar The First Supper 4 A Teoria do Cio The Discourse on Sexual Desire

5 As Xipófagas Lésbicas The Lesbian Siamese Twins 6 A Escama 2 The Fish Scale II 4

7 Wanton Boys Wanton Boys Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK

VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

8 Chocolate Kid - Detective The Chocolate Kid - Detective 9 O Cluble das Moscas The Club of Flies 10 A Visita do Sr. Spector Mr Spector’s Visit

The original cover is by the graphic artist Victor Burton (1956-) featuring the illustration ‘Gukla’ the by the Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes (1960-), who has exhibited in London(e.g. Gloucester Road Underground Station).

Gula: o Clube dos Anjos is thematically linked to his first novel O Jardim do Diabo (The Devil’s Garden) published in 1987. In that novel, in chapter seven, which contains a great deal of parody and appropriation of foreign authors (classics), there is an ironic argument that the parts of the world could be reduced to three types of hunger: hunger after weapons, drugs or spirituality. The aim of hunger after weapons is to settle disputes, after drugs - a means of achieving rapture and/or oblivion and after spirituality - a search for some atonement of sins and salvation as all humans age and die. This novel has not been translated in English.

Therefore, the ideas about gluttony, the seven capital sins and death in Gula: o Clube dos Anjos have been reworked to some extent. Similarly to the first novel by Luís Fernando Veríssimo, the second novel has plenty of parody and reference to world classics and to theological texts. The text is satirical and some of the fictional content seems to border on sacrilegious. There is a considerable amount of male banter with swear words. Most of the novel is written in short paragraphs with much informal or colloquial dialogue in between. The translation in English edited various sections aggregating three or four shorter paragraphs into a single paragraph for some unknown reason, thus, losing the effect of the ‘silences’ within the sections (minor shifts in tone, register, allowing the reader to take in what was said, allowing the reader to laugh at or with as in comedy skits), which are typical of Luís Fernando Veríssimo’s writing style in Portuguese.

The narrator also touches on various taboo subjects and includes significant references to what currently would be regarded matters of mental health and disability, or to matters of personal ethical beliefs. I should like to add a word of warning to take this novel with a large pinch of salt and to remember that the sensational content is part of a commercial enterprise (a tabloid type of sensationalism=profits) and that the writer’s fictional humour is often dark.

A brief examination of some of references in the novel seems to be worthwhile. Luís 5

Fernando Veríssimo is the son of the notable author and diplomat Érico Veríssimo (1905- Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK

VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

1975). Luís and his sister Clarissa grew in a privileged homestead and were partly educated in the United States with access to excellent libraries. Luís Fernando Veríssimo’s references to world literature is therefore no surprise. His father’s ouevre has taught him a great deal and is a vast resource.

Luís Fernando Veríssimo’s clever choice of the name Lucindo, a common name in Italy and Portugal, for his character as the novel opens with the commentary that Lucindo is not one of the many names for Lucifer. The chosen name harks back to the name of one of various masked characters in the Commedia dell’arte, an early form of theatre, ensuing from Carnival parties. It is an allusion to the comic line in the novel.

By referring to the name of Lucifer, the writer is also referencing various Ancient and Mediaeval Angel concepts and tales, specifically hosts of fallen or dark angels. Our book club discussed his Borges e os orangotangos eternos (2000), Borges and the Eternal Uragnutans, in which there are references to Dr. John Dee (1527-1608/9), his Enochian language and angels. The Biblical texts are also referenced in Gula: o Clube dos Anjos.

Another component is the reiteration of a reference to Gaius Petronius (c. A.D. 27- 66) and fragments of his ancient Roman novel Satyricon (late first century A.D.), and specifically to the banquet or Trimalchio's Dinner (chapters 26-78). Another mention is of the diseased foot of Philoctetes and shipwreck which is one of those good Ancient Greek stories featured in The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Cypria, and The Little Iliad.

Luís Fernando Veríssimo also chose numerous quotations and borrowings from William Shakespeare’s King Lear (1604-6), the pre-Roman Celtic king of Britain at the time of a collapse of civilisation. It was a bold choice and nuanced too. One wonders which theme or aspect of King Lear the writer considered in the writing of his novel.

The story of King Lear and his three daughters is an old story well known in England/Britain centuries before the best Shakespearean tragedy had been written. The anonymous 1605 The True Chronicle History of King Leir, and his three daughters, Gonorill, Ragan, and Cordella was performed at the Rose Theatre in London and seems to be one of the sources for Shakespeare together with Geoffrey of Monmouth (c.1095- c. 1155). Earlier versions of this old story finish in a happy ending unlike that of William Shakespeare. 6

Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK

VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

Leir of Britain was a legendary king of the Britons according to the De gestis Britonum (On the Deeds of the Britons), the title under which it was first published around 1136-40, known as Historia regum Britannie (The History of the Kings of Britain), by the medieval chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth which is pseudohistorical. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth's genealogy of the British dynasty, Leir's reign would have occurred around the 8th century B.C., around the time of the founding of Rome.

Geoffrey of Monmouth's account spawned several 16th-century narratives about Lear, including renderings in Holinshed's Chronicles (first edition, 1577) and in The Mirror for Magistrates (1574). Even the great poet Edmund Spenser recounted Lear's tragedy in Canto 10, Book II of The Faerie Queen (1590). All of the aforementioned versions of the tale, and possibly dozens more, were readily available to Shakespeare and shaped the main plot of his own drama. However, it is clear that Shakespeare relied chiefly on King Leir, fully titled The True Chronicle History of King Leir, and his three daughters, Gonorill, Ragan, and Cordella, the anonymous play published twelve years before the first recorded performance of Shakespeare's King Lear. (as in http://www.shakespeare- online.com/plays/kinglear/kingleir.html) Luís Fernando Veríssimo’s choice of quotations is peculiar. (1839- 1908) referred to William Shakespeare in his works. Over four hundred quotations from William Shakespeare have been located in the oeuvre by Machado de Assis, who was clearly critical of the versions of the Bard from French which arrived at the theatres in Brazil in the 19th century. In the book of chronicles Bons Dias! 1888-1889, which our book club discussed this May, there are translations of Shakespearean plays which Machado de Assis used clearly different from ‘official’ translations. As I have long argued, he read and quoted from the plays from early on in his writing career and can be given the accolade of having introduced William Shakespeare to the literary circles in Brazil.

There were numerous performances of King Lear since the 1830s in Brazil performed by local actors working for mainly Italian companies which came to Brazil using French translations. The translations of William Shakespeare’s works in Portuguese began to appear more systematically in the 20th century in Brazil and the first translation of King Lear was published in 1948 (Jackson Publishers). There is a revised 21st century translation of the tragedy in Brazil and numerous performances in theatres all over Brazil.

The Brazilian actor Paulo Autran (1922-2007) was an exceptional Shakespearean performer and in 1996 he played the role of King Lear. His appearances, for example, at the Teatro Guaíra in Curitiba were legendary and memorable. Luís Fernando Veríssimo may have been inspired by Paulo Autran’s rendition of the tragedy if one considers the date of publication of his novel.

The following quotations from King Lear appear mostly at the end of the chapters and in two chapter titles of Gula: o Clube dos Anjos:

chapter King Lear 3 Let me wipe it first, it smells of mortality - Act 4 Scene 6 4 The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices make instruments to plague us. - Act 5, Scene 3 5 You are much more attasked for want of wisdom

Than praised for harmful mildness. - Act 1 Scene 4 7 Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK

VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

NB. A mistaken part of quotation in translation: ‘ I would rather be attacked (sic!) from want of wisdom than praised for harmful mildness’ 6* The worst is not, So long as we can say “This is the worst.” - Act IV Scene1 Quoted as ‘The worst is not, so long as we can say ‘This is the worst’. 7* " As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport?" - Act 4 Scene 1 8 The art of our necessities is strange, that can make vile things precious. - Act 3 Scene 2 9 As flies to wanton boys are we to gods; they kill us for their sport. - Act 4 Scene 1

Dost thou know the difference between a bitter fool and a sweet fool? - Act1 Scene 4 10 Things that love night love not such nights as these. - Act 3 Scene 2 + Shakespearean storm

The theme of the seven deadly sins is an integral part of the Grand Dame of detective stories, Agatha Christie (1890-1976) in the tales with her great detectives Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. The publishers and Luís Fernando Veríssimo were obviously aware of her many short stories and novels.

Not all references in The Club of Angels are reliably accurate. For example, the fugu fish, bogeo in Japanese, which is a pufferfish or porcupine fish, does not have any scales. In the novel, the writer gave fugu scales!

Gula: o Clube dos Anjos was translated as The Club of Angels by Margaret Elisabeth Jull Costa OBE, published as a hardcover by New Directions in New York in 2002. The jacket of the book features ‘The Supper’ is by Fernando Botero (1932-), published as a courtesy of the Marlborough Gallery in New York and the design is by illustrator Semadar Magged.

Margaret Elisabeth Jull Costa (1949-) OBE is a British translator of Portuguese- and Spanish-language fiction and poetry, including the works by Eça de Queiroz, Fernando Pessoa, Javier Marías, Bernardo Atxaga, José Régio, , José Saramago, Michel Laub, and more recently Machado de Assis. She has been publishing her translations (including retranslations) since 1984 (first for Granta) and she has often worked with various co-translators, some of whom are acknowledged or mentioned in her publications. 8

Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK

VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

The translation, The Club of Angels, is in American English in the main. The Club of Angels has numerous raw expletives and vulgar words/phrases, which are never easy to render. The characters have additional hilarious nicknames or epithets, most have been translated except Cascão (augmentative form of ‘casca’, meaning bark, peel, crust, scab, husk, and in this context ‘Big Scab/Crust/Grime), Daniel’s nickname. All foreign words do not come in italic. A word is misspelled in the quotation in Latin ‘Si recte calculam ponas, ubique naufragium est’ (If you reckon rightly, shipwreck is everywhere.) which should be, ‘Si recte calculum ….’ The original has the correct form.

The editing of the novel fails to deal with the splitting of syllables in the wrong place at the end of a line in both the hardcopy and paperback versions. The split syllables are annoyingly random. Editors and publishers need to adapt a suitable technology to avoid such flaws which are invariably a source of irritation for the readers.

The novel was adapted for the cinema as O Clube dos Anjos by the film director and screenwriter Angelo Defanti (1983-), released in November 2020.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8608144/

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

LUÍS FERNANDO VERÍSSIMO

(26th September1936-)

9

Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK

VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

Luis Fernando Verissimo – photo by Eduardo Nicolau/Estadão https://goo.gl/images/HU2g28

LUÍS FERNANDO VERÍSSIMO is one of the most recognized contemporary writers in Brazil, a national top bestseller, an inveterate satirist, cartoonist, translator, television writer, publicist, poet, playwright and novelist and musician. He plays the saxophone with band called Jazz 6. He has published over 60 titles and is a master wordsmith who has excelled at creating delightful satirical sketches. This ability to use language to maximum effect turning his writings into bestsellers has also awarded him the playful sobriquet ‘Gigolô das Palavras’ (literally, the ‘Gigolo of Words’).

He was born on 26th September 1936 in , the capital city of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. He is the son of the Brazilian writer and diplomat Érico Veríssimo (1905-1975). He lived with his father/family in the United States during his childhood and teenage years. His father lectured at the University of California Berkeley (1943–1945) and served as the cultural director at the Organization of American States in Washington (1953– 1956). The author attended primary school in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and completed high school at the Roosevelt High School in Washington. The author is married to Lúcia Helena Massa (1963) with three children: Fernanda, a journalist, Mariana, a writer, and Pedro, a musician. He lives with his wife in Porto Alegre.

He started his working life at the Editora Globo in Porto Alegre in 1956. From 1962 to 1966, he lived in , where he worked as a translator and copywriter and got married there. In 1967, he returned to his hometown working for the newspaper Zero Hora, initially as copy desk and, in 1969, he started his daily column in the newspaper as he was capable of creating good texts at great speed. His first columns were about football, the new Beira-Rio stadium and the matches of his football club, the ‘Internacional’. In the same year,

he became editor of the advertising agency MPM Propaganda. In 1970, he moved to the newspaper Folha da Manhã, where he would hold his daily column until 1975, writing short

satirical stories about sport, cinema, literature, music, food, politics, society, attitudes and 10

much more. Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK

VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

His 1981 book O Analista de Bagé, launched at the Book Fair of Porto Alegre, sold out its first edition in two days becoming a bestseller throughout Brazil. The story is about a character who is an orthodox Freudian psychoanalyst, who uses the Rio Grande do Sul, the gaúcho variety of Portuguese with its accent, in a comical narrative, originally created for a TV series. From 1982 to 1989, L. F. Veríssimo published a weekly delightfully sarcastic and humorous page with funny characters in the magazine Veja, which was very engaging and created a loyal readership for many years. This is the opening satirical shot entitled ‘Self- interview’ on 15th December 1982 issue of Veja:

11 ‘The champion of humour’ - VEJA cover 7 July 1982

Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK

VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

In 1983, he created one of his most delightful characters - A Velhinha de Taubaté (The Old Lady of Taubaté), cast as ‘the only person who still believed in government’. Throughout the 1980s, L. F. Veríssimo became a phenomenon achieving huge popularity rare among Brazilian writers, with weekly columns in several newspapers, publishing at least one book, which would make the bestseller lists, and writing sitcoms for the Globo TV.

In 1986, he covered the World Cup from Rome for the Playboy magazine living there with his family for six months. In 1988, he was commissioned by MPM Propaganda, to write his first novel, The Devil's Garden. In 1999, L. F. Veríssimo quit drawing As Cobras (The Snakes) comic strips and changed publishers, leaving the publisher L&PM and choosing Objetiva instead, which went on to republish all of his works. One of the anthologies, As Mentiras que os Homens Contam (The Lies that Men Tell, 2000), has sold over 350,000 copies. In 2003, he decided to reduce his workload in the press, from six to just two columns a week, published in Zero Hora, , and O Estado de São Paulo.

His publishers instigated him to publish a series of novels and romances: Gula - O Clube dos Anjos (The Club of Angels) for the Plenos Pecados (Fully-fledged Sins) series by Objetiva (1998), Borges e os Orangotangos Eternos (Borges and the Eternal Orangutans, 2000) for the series Literatura ou Morte (Literature or Death) of the Companhia das Letras; O Opositor (2004) for the Objetiva anthology Cinco Dedos de Prosa (Five Fingers of Prose), A Décima Segunda Noite (The Twelfth Night) (2006) for the series Devorando Shakespeare (Devouring Shakespeare), and even Sport Club Internacional, Autobiografia de uma Paixão (Autobiography of a Passion) (2004), for the series Camisa 13 published by Ediouro.

SELECTION OF WORKS:

Chronicles and short stories: O popular. Rio de Janeiro: Editora José Olympio, 1973; A grande mulher nua. Rio de Janeiro: Editora José Olympio, 1975; Amor brasileiro. Rio de Janeiro: Editora José Olympio, 1977; O rei do rock. Porto Alegre: Editora Globo, 1978; Ed Mort e outras histórias. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1979; Sexo na cabeça. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1980; O Analista de Bagé. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1981; A mesa voadora. Porto Alegre: Globo, 1982; O gigolô das palavras. [seleção Maria da Glória Bordini]. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1982; Outras do Analista de Bagé. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1982; A velhinha de Taubaté. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1983; A mulher do Silva. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1984; A mãe de Freud. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1985; O marido do Doutor Pompeu. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1987; Zoeira. [seleção Lucia Helena Verissimo e Maria da Glória Bordini]. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1987; Orgias. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1989; São Paulo: Objetiva, 2005; Pai não entende nada. (coleção jovem). Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1990; Peças íntimas. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1990; O suicida e o computador. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1992; Comédias da vida pública. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1995; A versão dos afogados - novas comédias da vida pública. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1997; Histórias brasileiras de verão. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva; Aquele estranho dia que nunca chega. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 1999; A eterna privação do zagueiro absoluto. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 1999. Anthologies: As noivas do Grajaú. (antologia). Porto Alegre: Editora Mercado, 1999; As mentiras que os homens contam. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2000, As mentiras que os homens contam. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2000, A mesa voadora. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2001, Sexo na cabeça. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2002, Todas as histórias do Analista de Bagé. (anthology). Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2002, Banquete com os Deuses. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2003, O nariz e outras crônicas. (coleção para gostar de ler). São Paulo: Ática, 2003, O melhor das comédias da vida privada. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2004, A mancha. (coleção vozes do Golpe). São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2004, O mundo é bárbaro: e o que nós temos a ver com isso. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2008, Comédias brasileiras de verão. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2009, Time dos sonhos - paixão, poesia e futebol. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2010, Crônicas para se ler na escola. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, Ed Mort: todas as histórias. (antologia). Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2011, Em algum lugar do paraíso. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva,

2011, Diálogos impossíveis. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2012, Os últimos quartetos de Beethoven e outros 12 Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK

VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

contos. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2013, Amor Verissimo. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2014, As mentiras que as mulheres contam. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2015.

Novels: O jardim do diabo. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1987 and Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2005. Gula: o clube dos anjos. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 1998, Gula: o clube dos anjos. (edição de bolso). Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2009, O opositor. (coleção cinco dedos de prosa). Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2000, A décima segunda noite. (coleção devorando Shakespeare). Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2006, Borges e os orangotangos eternos. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2009, Os espiões. Rio de Janeiro: Alfaguara, 2009.

Cartoons and comics: As cobras. Porto Alegre: Editora Milha, 1975, As cobras e outros bichos. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1977, As cobras do Verissimo. Porto Alegre: Editora Codecri, 1978, O Analista de Bagé em quadrinhos. [ilustrated by Edgar Vasques]. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1983, Aventuras da família Brasil. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1985 and Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2005.

SOURCES AND FURTHER REFERENCES: ➢ The Brazilian Bilingual Book Club read Luís Fernando Veríssimo’s The Spies (2009) in January 2017; post available at https://sistemas.mre.gov.br/kitweb/datafiles/Londres/en- us/file/cul-bookclub-13-osespioes.pdf ➢ The Brazilian Bilingual Book Club read Luís Fernando Veríssimo’s Borges e os orangotangos eternos (2000) in July 2020; post available at http://sistemas.mre.gov.br/kitweb/datafiles/Londres/en-us/file/cul-bookclub-52- verissimo.pdf ➢ The Publisher Objetiva: http://www.objetiva.com.br/autor_ficha.php?id=264 ➢ Companhia das Letras Group: https://www.companhiadasletras.com.br/autor.php?codigo=01244 ➢ A discussion in Portuguese on the film adaptation O Clube dos Anjos at the 2019 Rio Book Biennale with the participation of Luis Fernando Veríssimo, Angelo Defanti e Otávio Muller moderated by Clélia Bessa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p128igx8r20 ➢ Agatha Christie https://www.agathachristie.com ➢ King Lear http://www.bajrfed.co.uk/bajrpress/leir-of-leicester-the-archaeology-behind-the- legend/ https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/geoffrey-of-monmouths-account-of-king-lear-in- history-of-the-kings-of-britain https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-true-chronicle-history-of-king-leir-1605 ➢ List of translations of William Shakespeare in Portuguese: http://www.dbd.puc-rio.br/shakespeare/pdfs/traducoes_publicadas_por_decada.pdf

➢ John Dee : Dee's books are displayed alongside loans from the Science Museum, the British Museum and

the Wellcome Collection and include Dee's mirror and crystal ball, and a specially commissioned film by 13 acclaimed artist Jeremy Millar. One of his main works is General and Rare Memorials pertayning to the

Perfect Arte of Navigation (1577) Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK

VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB – EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON 2021-Pleasures of Reading Brazilian Literature #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

➢ John Dee became obsessed with the occult during his later years and the following books, written by him reflect this interest in the supernatural, they can be read at: http://www.esotericarchives.com/dee/ • Propaedeumata Aphoristica about Mathematics, Astrology and magic • Compendium Heptarchiae Mysticae - An early version of John Dee's primary magical text • Five Books of Mystery (Mysteriorum Libri Quinque) - These secret books recorded his experiments with 'angel magic' and contained the earliest versions of Angelic or ‘Enochian’ script • Mysteriorum Liber Sextus et Sanctus (Liber Loagaeth) - This book is described as 'a Book of Secrets and Key of this World' and as The Book of Enoch. The contents were said to have been revealed to John Dee by the angels • De Heptarchia Mystica - A summary by John Dee of his techniques for communicating with angels and practical benefits there from. • The Hieroglyphic Monad contains information about symbolic language.

Gluttony, circa 1621 by Jacques Callot (1592-1635)

HAPPY READING!

2021: #BrazilianLitReadingPleasures

Attendance is free, but booking is essential: [email protected] ©Nadia Kerecuk Creator and Convenor of the ©Virtual Brazilian Bilingual Book Club at the Embassy of Brazil in London

14

Page ©VIRTUAL BRAZILIAN BILINGUAL BOOK CLUB –EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN LONDON All rights reserved - Creator & Convenor -©Nadia Kerecuk http://londres.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/book_club.xml 14-16 Cockspur Street London SW11Y 5BL

@BrazilEmbassyUK