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Bookclub: "Brazil"
Presented by Marie Arana
Washington Post Book World Editor
Monday, June 25, 2001; 2 p.m. EDT
Welcome to the online meeting of The Washington Post Book Club, a monthly program presented by the editors and writers of Washington Post Book World. Book World Editor Marie Arana will be leading the discussion on this month's selection, John Updike's "Brazil."
Born in Lima, Peru, Arana hails from a long career in books. Before her current post, she was Deputy Editor of Book World for seven years. Previously, she was a vice president and senior editor at Simon & Schuster as well as Harcourt Brace Publishers. Arana earned her BA in Russian literature at Northwestern University, studied Mandarin at Yale University in China, and completed an MA in Linguistics at the British University of Hong Kong. An award-winning book editor, she sits on the board of the National Book Critics Circle, and has served on the board of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She is currently at work on a memoir about growing up bicultural.
Below is a transcript.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Marie Arana: Welcome to our online discussion of John Updike’s Brazil. We were fortunate to have Updike come to Washington on June 17 to talk about the novel for our Book Club “Special Event.” It was a terrific session in which Updike was interviewed by Book World’s very own Michael Dirda; those lucky enough to attend learned a great deal about his work on this particular book. Updike told us, for instance, that he had spent only two weeks in Brazil—an astounding fact, since his novel is full of details about the food, customs, flora and fauna of the country.
I chose the book for the Club, quite frankly, because it fascinated me as a complete detour from everything else Updike had written before (and after!). What happens when a writer departs from his comfortable setting (in Updike’s case, the American east coast) to set a classic love story (Tristan and Isolde) in an alien and historically complex land? Having spent some time in Brazil myself, I recognized a good deal of the country in Updike’s imagined setting. On the other hand, there were passages—particularly on the lovers’ Candide-like traipse through the hinterlands—that struck me as quaint and forced. But it’s your opinion I’d like to elicit in this exchange: Did you feel transported by his descriptions?
Lenexa, Kans.:
Ms. Arana,
I've been reading Updike for 40 years, greatly admire. Think his "A Soft Spring Night in Shillington" is as beautiful and as sad as it gets. Loved the symmetry of "Brazil"--Rio beach, uncle's apartment, Sao Paulo, the Mato Grosso westward and back again--like Updike's life perhaps. The great libidinous adventurer--now a wise, sweet man--no longer drinks (Dirda), a believer of sorts (our local interviewer)--perhaps returning to the Lutheranism of his forebears.... Of course, Tristao dies in the end.
QUESTION: I couldn't help when reading thinking of your own memoir--Eros of the smitten, enduring kind: the Copacabana Beach, Fenway in Boston--the passion transcending the tectonic rifts. Did Updike mention "American Chica" at the BC-event or in private? Thanks.
Marie Arana: Hello, Lenexa, Kansas—faithful Book Club member.
It’s interesting you mention Updike’s Lutheranism. I, too, think there is much interesting to say about the question of faith in his works. I wonder if, as a loyal Updike reader, you’ve encountered a Website called centaurian@ctel.net? James Yerkes, who manages that site, has edited a book titled “John Updike and Religion.” I haven’t read it myself, nor have I seen reviews of it anywhere, but I find the subject intriguing. And yes, there is that quality of pilgrimage to Updike’s writing, particularly in “Brazil.”
Thank you for mentioning my own memoir, “American Chica,” published just six weeks ago. The book is about duality (not unlike the black/white premise in “Brazil”), and, certainly, it takes on issues of cultural myth and human identity. I chatted about it with Updike only in private. He hadn’t read it (he confessed he hardly reads anything outside a strict list of books he’s reviewing!), but expressed a great interest in its themes.
Vienna, Va.:
I thought the book was great but was wondering if you think a lot has been lost in translation?
Marie Arana: How interesting that you were persuaded the book was translated in any way. As Michael Dirda wrote in his review of Brazil, "Throughout the book, Updike maintains a tone of antique elegance . . . one might think he was hoping that the novel sounded as if it had been translated brilliantly, from the Portuguese." It does have a courtly, slightly stilted tone, doesn't it? A model example, if a writing workshop ever wanted to posit this as an exercise: Write as if you were a Portuguese speaker, but do it in English. Remarkable.
Oakton, Va.:
Why is there so much sex in Brazil?
Why does Isabel become a prostitute and later on, black?
Marie Arana: Oh my, what a dazzling question. But it deserves an attempt at an answer. Brazil! Vortex of Africa, Iberia, the Americas! Sex, survival, love, passion--these are all quite large obsessions in Brazilian culture. Have you read any Jorge Amado, the great Brazilian novelist--the Balzac of Brazil? Sex is rampant in his books (The Two Husbands of Dona Flor, for instance.)
I think perhaps Isabel becomes a prostitute because sex or any transgressions of sex cannot alter her love for Tristao. She crosses the fidelity line, she crosses the color line, too, by becoming black. But none of this alters the love, does it?
Surry, Maine:
Just joined the Club and look forward to the information and discussions.
Was there any discussion of Mr. Updike's motives for writing the book Brazil which entailed his interest in the idea of "racial democracy" there? I ask this to inquire if his own bi-racial experiences in his family here in America may have influenced his interest in writing the book.
Marie Arana: Glad to have you as a member, Surry Maine. I hope you'll join these discussions often.
You pose a good question. One of the attendees at the Special Event approached Michael Dirda and me after the evening was over and asked us if we thought Updike was a Marxist. I can't imagine reading Updike from an ideological point of view, but why not?
The question of race looms large in this book, of course, but don't forget: Isabel's father is not so much concerned with Tristao's color as with his class. In Brazil, too, race is a question that is always subordinate to questions of poverty and survival. I would guess that Updike's own thinking about race cannot help but have been spurred by his visit to Brazil. Race is terribly important in that country's culture.
Vienna, Va.:
Do you think Updike's book inspired the movie "Brazil"?
Marie Arana: I'm not familiar with the movie. Anyone care to comment on this?
Washington, D.C.:
Why in the world did Updike write this strange little book? I'm really sorry I missed the session with Updike and Dirda . . . I know enough about Brazil to have recognized most of his little descriptions, and I think two weeks is about right!
Marie Arana: Well, do you remember the hue and cry about the researchist(s) it was said Updike had employed in order to write his very detailed descriptions about a Toyota dealership? I, too, wondered about the detail in his descriptions in this book. How did he know about the smells of food, the colors of jungle flowers? Did he simply supply a researcher with a blank as he fashioned the prose, and have it filled in later with colorful furnishings? One cannot help, but suspect the two-week exposure. One can't possibly gather the amount of material in this book in that short a time.
Fairfax, Va.:
I thought Brazil was a great story where we see a common Romeo and Juliet story but set in the Americas. However, I think Updike brings social awareness as well as to the class and racial divide that exist in Central America. As a Latina, I think you can see that issues of ethnic identity, class and racism exist in your homeland and not just in the U.S.
Marie Arana: Of course, race is the theme of the Americas, north and south. In Peru, which is where I was born, race is a constant question, much deliberated in daily affairs as in literature and music, etc. Vargas Llosa has written a good bit about it. So has the great poet Vallejo. No Latin American writer has skirted the subject.
What Updike brings to the subject, is a certain whimsy. Imagine: his lovers switch color! And then the hero dies at the hands of his true brothers! I found his characterization simplistic, but utterly charming.
Oakton, Va.:
Do you think it ironic that Tristao is killed by a gang at the beach where he first met Isolde? He is now white and has money enough to throw his expensive watch in the ocean but, unlike Isolde, will not give in.
Marie Arana: Yes, of course. Irony in the extreme. And life has made him such a different quantity by the end of the book, no? It is the ultimate, almost Greek, tragedy--killed by those who cannot recognize the blackness (sameness) in him.
Re: Movie "Brazil":
As far as I know, "Brazil" the movie was inspired by (director and ex-Monty Python) Terry Gilliam's musings, rather than Mr. Updike's novel. The movie might preced the novel, in fact.
Marie Arana: So there we are. An answer. Thank you very much.
Lenexa, Kans.:
Nice to be considered a regular. As to Brazilian biota, not a strong suit of mine and never been south of Juarez (although that college-age experience might make an interesting novel in itself).
You mentioned great writers with great--almost throw-away--lines. Liked your example. I saw a number of them in Brazil. "Servants cheaper than appliances, "Sexual morality" as an oxymoron, and enjoyed the notion of Tristao's Granny as a suspected imposter.
Marie Arana: Good.
It's worth saying that Updike, for all his wonderful prose (and there's plenty of it) can write some real howlers now and then. How's this, near the end of the book: (speaking of Isabel without Tristao) "She must move forward until this terrible mortar within her found its pestle."
My heavens.
Takoma Park, Md.:
Hi -
I don't consider myself a typical book club person -- I've never belonged to one nor have I read much in the last few years. I'm writing in only because I remember being greatly disappointed with this book. I very much enjoyed the Rabbit series of books and went off for two weeks in eastern Europe (at the time very little english was spoken) with this book as my only reading pleasure. I was disappointed because I found the characters not at all interesting -- closer to cliches than compelling figures.
I was particularly annoyed by the linking of sexual appetite with the characters' race -- as I recall the two lovers changed both race and sexual appetites later in the book -- shortly before I hurled the book across the room and didn't bother picking it up again. As a black man, this and other sexual stereotypes (e.g. the ridiculous and overused metaphor of the yam as descriptive of his large penis) left me puzzled.
I think I gave up soon after the children disappeared -- their existence seemingly completely superfluous and the lovers apparently not too concerned. I'm open to the idea that there may have been more to the book -- particularly as I couldn't finish it -- but it seemed to be not much more than sex and stereotypes and only the most cursory examination of racism. I'm not at all surprised to learn that Updike spent only two weeks in Brazil -- it feels like he spent no longer writing it.
Marie Arana: Well, glad to have you aboard.
Yes, okay. I was angry when I started it, too. I thought, How dare he write about something so alien to him? As it wore on, however, I loosened up and began to enjoy the ride. See it as a fantasy--a writing exercise, and then it becomes more interesting.
By the way the yam thing tickled me. There's an expression in Spanish, tener un camote, it means, at least in Peru where I'm from, "to have a crush on." I found his reference to the yam-as-genital particularly amusing in this regard!
Bethesda, Md.:
Was the integrity of the plot compromised in any way by the manner and the moment of Tristao's dying? Not that I am lobbying necessarily fo a happy ending, but in Tristao's dying, much of their individual and joint struggles over the years seemed in vain. The only ameliorating aspect of his dying insofaras Isabel was concerned was that she was spared the full knowledge of Tristao's doubts, regrets and despairings about the value of their struggle.
Marie Arana: I thought the dying made complete sense. It was, to me at least, one of the more believable parts of the story.
Has anyone out there read "The Coup"? It's another attempt of Updike's to leave the comfortable world of Pennsylvania country clubs.
I admire him for it.
Brave. (Not a great book, but a brave one.)
Falls Church, Va.:
I usually read novels written by women about women and reading Brazil was a depature for me. I was constantly amazed and shocked by the story, but couldn't put the book down until I was finished.
Why do you think the father and uncle did not notice that Issabel turned black?
Marie Arana: of course Updike has taken his knocks for being a male chauvinist writing books that diminish women. Did you feel this in Brazil? (Remember the criticism he took for Witches of Eastwick? Representing women as catty, despicable creatures?)
How interesting that you mention this about the father and uncle not noticing. A masterstroke, really. In a country in which race is a mutable thing--mixing is constant and shades are as various as the population itself--Isabel's skin didn't much matter. Her character (which was black in its shamanism, dynamism, etc.) did.
Potomac, Md.:
I "listened" to 'Brazil' via audiotape read by Updike himself, and at first the stilted tone you spoke of annoyed me, as I literally heard it, but after a while it was like being read a fable by an elegant reader, and I didn't want it to end.
Marie Arana: Hurrah for sticking with it. As I say, it's as much about tuning one's ear to the teller as it is about Updike getting the accents right. I think he is much to be admired for his ability to create his own world within Brazil's context.
Arlington, Va.:
What other books has Updike written? Does he often exoticize foreign cultures?
Marie Arana: As I mentioned, there's also The Coup, which was about an African country and its dictator. Very odd and not as successful as Brazil, I don't think. I was thinking of choosing it as the Club selection, but I'm afraid it's out of print.
In Bech at Bay, I believe, Updike sends Henry Bech, his Jewish hero (a luckless, lusterless, writer) to Eastern Europe. I suppose that's as ambitious a feat as the Brazilian venture.
Marie Arana: Why is it that we haven't had comments about the Rabbit books! This, of course, is what I'd hoped you'd comment on: the great difference between the language of Rabbit Angstrom's pages and Brazil. All that elegant, shimmery prose set in Pennsylvania turns into a gaudy display in Brazil. It's as if Updike is trying on multicolored garments, different colored plummage. So different from Rabbit.
Surry, Maine:
Just to help reduce the misunderstanding of those offended by some racial and sexual elements in the book, Updike mentions his important dependence on Gilberto Freyre (1900-1987), a prominent Brazilian sociologist and writer--many important books on the history, politics, and culture of Brazil. Not all Brazilians think Freyre has it all correct, but much of the book's authentic "feel" comes from aquaintance with Freyre.
If you have room, here is a comment from his special introduction to the Franklin Mint edition of Brazil:
"We can catch at a truth from a distance as well as up close; I refuse to disown my Brazil as unrealistic. A country's sense of itself is an activating part of its reality, and this sense derives in part from outsiders. Because others have romanticized and sexualized Brazil, Brazil is saturated in romanticism and sexuality. Sex, between masters and slaves, conquerors and indigines, has shaped its identity as an image of the world that is coming, one world of many mixed colors."
Marie Arana: Thanks for this. Quite interesting, indeed.
takoma park:
Hi again -
The Rabbit books and Brazil seem to be written by different writers. As I've said above, I thought Brazil was thin in every respect though I concede he may have a flair for language. But it comes across as trivial to me -- tinsel on a gaudy, cheap present.
The Rabbit books had both the language as well as depth of characters and great scenes -- e.g. Janet (Janice?) and the drowning baby. Everyone knows or is partly a man like Rabbit. He feels absolutely authentic.
Marie Arana: Yes, in Rabbit, of course, Updike was on familiar terrain. Everything rang true. Sometimes chillingly true.
He's doing something very different in Brazil. It's why I thought it would make good fodder for discussion. Brazil is not a book I would recommend if I thought it would be the only Updike you'd ever read, but as an experimental work, a quite courageous (in its willingness to be flimsy and gaudy) work, it makes for a good discussion.
Marie Arana: Thanks for joining me in this discussion of an unusual and quite captivating (in its way) novel. I appreciate your participation and hope you can contribute in other ways: Write to us. Come to our Special Events. We had 850 Club members with us at the Updike evening. A smashing affair. Look for announcements of these events on the pages of Book World as well as on this site. And let us have your feedback. Could our online discussions be held at a better time? Would you like to see it done a different way? Please let me know. Write to me at aranam@washpost.com. And keep on reading!
washingtonpost.com:
That was our last question today. Thanks to everyone who joined the
discussion.
Stay tuned to Live Online:
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Hax at 3 p.m. EDT
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