Arquivo de literature | Page 109 of 111

The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, is certainly a book I will approach at other opportunities. The work, as well as Don Quijote de la Mancha, by Cervantes, is brilliant and can confuse the unwary. As I said on another occasion, I thank so much for not rating this book as hilarious, and I did it just for having read it with some intellectual preparation. Dostoevsky manages, more in this than in other books, to give focus to his obsession with personalities touched by the divine. Prince Myshkin, the protagonist of the book, is the embodiment of the noblest that can be achieved as a human being. Endowed with infinite kindness and complacency, the prince generates empathy wherever he passes; however, he is misunderstood: his fellow men associate his candidness with innocence, lack of sense, taxing him as an idiot. Among all the themes in Dostoevsky, it is this in The Idiot which fascinates me most: human elevation necessarily requires the annihilation of vanity. Myshkin knows himself a misunderstood, or rather: he knows that others judge him an idiot; and yet it does not alter his complacent stance towards anyone. What does it matter what other people think? Myshkin seems immune to lust and can stare evil in the eyes, being light by contrasting with the shadows that evidence around him. His candor assails, molests, and coexistence only exposes his moral superiority before others. Idiot? Like Alyosha of The Brothers Karamazov, it seems that Myshkin walks among men to prove the asymmetry between the human and the divine, the misery and the grace, the earth and the celestial. And he proves to us, undoubtedly, all the mediocrity of small desires, small vanities and pride, which annihilates what would perhaps be the only human virtue worthy of this name.

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Quincas Borba, by Machado de Assis

To me, Rubião — the protagonist of Quincas Borba — is the greatest character of Machado de Assis. I have read several critics emphasizing the impotence of Machado’s characters, the inability to live, the ineptitude, the apathy. Very well! Moreover, we do not suffer saying that in Rubião the human figure presents itself in amplitude, in precision. Reading Quincas Borba, we see philosophy buried by passion, intelligence transfigured by love and, above all, Rubião walking the steep slope that every man has to walk on. The book ends, comical and melancholy, ridiculous and sad, ambiguous as life always is. And if it leaves us any doubt as to what to feel, the master advises us:

Come now! Weep for the two newly dead, if you have tears. If you only have laugher, then laugh! It is all the same. The Crux, which beautiful Sofia refused to behold as Rubião asked, is high enought that it cannot make out the laugher or tears of men.

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Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The first time I read Crime and punishment, it took me two days to finish the 590 pages of my edition. It was unprecedented for me to read a book with such voracity. I remember that on a rainy Saturday, I started reading around 4 p.m.; when the sun came at 6 a.m. on Sunday, I was still with the book in my hands. Censored by the sun, I chose to sleep a few hours. When I woke up, I took the reading session that would shoot the book. But why my delight? What is so special about this book? It was Crime and punishment my first contact with Dostoevsky: I had never read any author who approached his psychological acuity. Reading Crime and Punishment I felt physically in Russia; I felt, terrified, a murderer and I felt, in curse, beset by guilt. For the first time I articulated and validated in mind nihilistic thoughts, which shone in an undeniable logic and showed me the relativity of morality. Pages later, all this falls apart, and Raskolnikov leads me with him to the abyss. Feverish, delirious, makes me feel on my skin the tension of guilt, the fear of persecution. And in the midst of darkness, desperate and repentant, he teaches me what redemption is; together with Sonia, he teaches me what is the flesh and what is the soul; and condemned, he teaches me the true value of things on earth. I closed the book decided: whatever happens, I am going to be a writer.

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Steppenwolf, by Hermann Hesse

I closed this brilliant work disgusted by the outcome of the plot. I thought, “How will this book resonate in me in the future?” I reflected on the reading: from the beginning, I was delighted with the sharpness and precision of the psychological descriptions of the misanthrope, self-destructive and depressing Harry Haller, who seemed to me as a brother. The narrative develops instigating, seeing Harry sprout, through a woman — Hermine, — his human side, then facing a fierce psychological battle because of his ambivalent personality. Psychological tension is constant, and Harry’s reflections are noteworthy. Comes the book summit, where Harry looks in delirium. I felt, shortly before, the physical presence of Goethe and Mozart, evoked by the author. I am not moved at all with what might be called the climax of the plot — or, if you prefer, with what immediately happens after the climax. A few pages later, I close the book: “What then? What will I remember in the future?” It has been some months: I can barely remember the outcome; the rest of the book, however, remains alive in me.

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