Doces vozes do silêncio: jornal literário

Abstract

“In the ordinary life of the writer who grows old in the big city - which is less and less the city he knew when he was young - there are the details that make up the universe of the man who dedicated his life to books, who makes literature a profession and a definitive choice. In addition to the encounters and disagreements, lunches, theater, solitude in the beach house, there are the spiritual adventures of rediscovering old authors - which are encounters with the reader we once were -, surprises in correspondence and some affection from friends, relatives, even strangers. There is also sadness for what could have been and was not, there is even irreverence, with living people, barely hidden behind their initials. In the kaleidoscope of days there is a very gentle letter from Pedro Nava, the constant irony of an intelligent young man, the phone call from an almost forgotten friend, the Christmas card from the young poet and some confessed aversion to the “committed”. The reading is smooth and varied, like its mood, taking the reader from a smile to interest, passing through complacency and digression. The characters are almost all alive, expressly mentioned or easy to guess. At a certain point, it is easy to realize that the “literary newspaper” is a mosaic of which the whole can only be understood when one gains distance, and it is at the end of the reading that one has a good perspective. Knowledge of the other volumes imposes itself with the need to know the whole, as if one were putting the pieces together and taking a few steps back to see the result.