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    Saint Mary From The West
    Saint Mary From The West
    Saint Mary From The West
    Ebook168 pages1 hour

    Saint Mary From The West

    By João Rosa de Castro

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    About this ebook

    Even not having a “deceased author”, like in The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, Saint Mary From The West develops, with much talent, the elements of the great novel by Machado de Assis, by placing them in a contemporary living that invites the reader to follow the reflections of a narrator character that addresses many themes, references and situations lived by him. Placed before what he calls a “loom of the soul”, he recalls lectures and lecturers of the Philosophical Café of TV Cultura, Nietzsche, Comte, Coldplay, Oswaldo Montenegro, almost always heading to Saint Mary, who shelters his anxieties. Actually, what the narrator character calls “scribbling” is intended to defy the reader to run the paths of his consciousness.

    Exactly for being defying, such paths are not easy, because they are not revealed in a transparent manner. The reader is faced with the “scribbling” of a cultured man, whose eloquence builds a mosaic of themes and thoughts that give shape to his soul in this loom. Little narratives, reflexions on love, homosexuality, Brazilian music, amongst other things, give the reader an impression of persuasion and, at the same time, stimulates him or her to go beyond to explore something latent in the middle of the diversity that he brings.

    The high power of persuasion of this narrator character gives the impression of a powerful man, master of himself. However, what his erudition allows us foreseeing along the reading is exactly a fragile man, who has in his eloquence a home, a protection, a resistance. This “exquisite” fragility has to do with the conditions of the contemporary “man of letters”, who, far from occupying a privileged place, sees himself regardless, not only financially, but also culturally. A humanistic look that shocks with the work market, with the prejudices, with the mass culture, and that, as a result of this shock, turns towards the within, from where he allows us forecasting, behind his eloquence, a cathartic self-mockery – for the narrator character and for the readers who identify themselves with him. 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBadPress
    Release dateDec 16, 2016
    ISBN9781507165676
    Saint Mary From The West

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      Book preview

      Saint Mary From The West - João Rosa de Castro

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      João Rosa de Castro

      Preface

      Gláucia Lisboa

      PREFACE

      Even not having a deceased author, like in The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, Saint Mary From The West develops, with much talent, the elements of the great novel by Machado de Assis, by placing them in a contemporary living that invites the reader to follow the reflections of a narrator character that addresses many themes, references and situations lived by him. Placed before what he calls a loom of the soul, he recalls lectures and lecturers of the Philosophical Café of TV Cultura, Nietzsche, Comte, Coldplay, Oswaldo Montenegro, almost always heading to Saint Mary, who shelters his anxieties. Actually, what the narrator character calls scribbling is intended to defy the reader to run the paths of his consciousness.

      Exactly for being defying, such paths are not easy, because they are not revealed in a transparent manner. The reader is faced with the scribbling of a cultured man, whose eloquence builds a mosaic of themes and thoughts that give shape to his soul in this loom. Little narratives, reflexions on love, homosexuality, Brazilian music, amongst other things, give the reader an impression of persuasion and, at the same time, stimulates him or her to go beyond to explore something latent in the middle of the diversity that he brings.

      The high power of persuasion of this narrator character gives the impression of a powerful man, master of himself. However, what his erudition allows us foreseeing along the reading is exactly a fragile man, who has in his eloquence a home, a protection, a resistance. This exquisite fragility has to do with the conditions of the contemporary man of letters, who, far from occupying a privileged place, sees himself regardless, not only financially, but also culturally. A humanistic look that shocks with the work market, with the prejudices, with the mass culture, and that, as a result of this shock, turns towards the within, from where he allows us forecasting, behind his eloquence, a cathartic self-mockery – for the narrator character and for the readers who identify themselves with him.

      Gláucia Lisboa

      São Paulo, November 15, 2016.

      Help us, Mary, full of rhythm,

      Who dances in the most nightly parties,

      Perfuming yourself for the most unpretentious afternoons,

      Loving what is most despised.

      Help us now and at the moment of the pleasures.

      Help us now and at the moment of the honour.

      Pray for us the godless ones.

      THE LOOM OF THE SOUL

      C

      onsider, Saint Mary, if there could be a more beautiful moment than this: I sitting here in my throne, a sword aimed to my head, facing the old metallic fellow computer, in a space that in the past would have been my sleeping room, from where I can hear Oswaldo Montenegro’s CD, singing live Lamentos (by Pixinguinha and Vinícius de Morais), that then becomes Trocando em miúdos, in turn, advancing and turning into Samba do grande amor, both the latter compositions by Chico Buarque – the first of which in partnership with Francis Hime.

      I feel a big mediocre putting this track in repeat. It seems like an outrage to exquisiteness – and exquisiteness doesn’t repeat itself. But, anyway, I can’t stand listening this masterpiece only once, especially Trocando em miúdos, that leads me to the dramatic goodbye scene with Teresa Raquel, ex-fiancée of the soul weaver who weaves for you.

      Every now and then, the beloved Chiquinha comes, describing, with details worthy of the best literature, the anniversary party of Our Lady of Fátima: the crowning of the Virgin, the Kermessian foods foreshadowing Saint John, the vigour of the people, the Church chorale, the fireworks in the sky, etc.

      Can you realize the scenario? I’m melancholically happy. This is a circumstance to leave to the eternal return, not the contrary, which would be being happily melancholic.

      However, this infatuated description is not exactly what brought me to the loom of the soul. The loom of the soul is sovereign and cruel: a Comte’s positivist. One needs to prove to be worthy of it, otherwise, what would be a viscous tissue becomes a rag.

      Without modesty, at this noble moment, in which I can only adhere to myself, since I’m writing, I feel I’m the very silkworm. Badly dressed is the soul who cannot wear the cloth I come here to weave.

      I came to talk of the magnificent postulates by Flávio Gikovate, a psychiatrist who speaks in the Café Filosófico of TV Cultura.

      Despite the disparity in the sentimentalities of the moment, that is, between what I want to say and such catholic narrations by Chiquinha, the music that we hear together, the memory of a love of the past; Chiquinha, Oswaldo and Teresa shall forgive me on the Judgement Day, since it will actually come.

      Every courageous, kind, discerned and self-sufficient man I hear or read puts me in contact with the memory of my father, for whom everything was necessary and nothing was enough.

      In my opinion, Flávio Gikovate may well bear all these four virtues of the man of the future, and, for this reason, I make here, by memory, a simple paraphrase of his so eloquent speech on TV: 

      The best consolation of the new generations is hooking up amongst youngsters. In our teen ages, the approach of youngsters, thirsty of love, was so confused and hard to be achieved that ended up generating much suffering, forming failed relationships, a more and more macho culture, more and more unsatisfied women, more and more insecure men.

      We couldn’t kiss, nor be kissed, for many reasons: shame, prohibition, sexism, resulting from the sex war or vice-versa, unawareness of the other sex, complexes, latent or patent homosexuality.

      The most delicate boys were called faggots, which made them get even farther from girls when they saw the macho-men having advantage among them, because of aggressiveness.

      Aggressiveness – this time sexual bomb – blew up in the guys, as an instrument propelling the lust, arising out of the visual desire, according to our opinion, an exclusive attribute of men. For not desiring visually, the girls showed to be indifferent concerning men. The guys, desiring and not feeling themselves desired, felt frustrated and smaller.

      Whence the advent of the simple hooking up became important. This contour of the situation made the youngsters more amicable to the opposite sex, which diminished the conflict between the sexes.

      Whatsoever, when they realized this weakness in the majority of the guys, the women started to use indifference, relating to the absence of the visual desire, as a source of spite or humiliation and started exposing their bodies even more, thus – amongst other reasons – they took over the power.

      Sad was the time at which machos (men and women) discovered that sex and aggressiveness are twin brothers. At last, since between one struggle and another the orgasms were more intense, the ideal was to have always something dirty to annoy the partner, and then, fall in bad and only leave it truly satiated.

      The artifice became an addiction, and from addiction it was consecrated by usage to a virtue. Then, if the boy told his father he wanted to study painting, his father would send him to judo classes.

      Nevertheless, the couples had to face the perception of a big problem: they needed to love and get laid, and if sex maintained a commerce with aggressiveness, sex and love started to seem to be distinct phenomena. Because what moves love is enchantment that comes from the similarities of the lovers.

      The lovers seemed to be loving wrongly, because for sex, they raised the differences between them, which irritated and caused lust.

      Poor lovers. How to love and get laid simultaneously if for each of these manifestations of live what moves are opposite impulses? That’s the question. A vicious circle.

      However, the doubt also generates patterns. From this vicious circle different models of closed couples appeared and they were divided by a much known duo? The selfish and the generous.

      The generous gave more than received. The selfish received more than gave. The selfish, impatient, irritated, dependent, whiny, complaining, agitated, etc., enchanted the generous. The generous, for pity and desire of glory, fed and reinforced the way of the selfish.

      Years after this endless and fruitless opera, generally for an option of the generous, who succumbed, the solution was divorce; and he said he was a victim, played the poor and damaged fellow, but, in second thoughts, he was as guilty for the failure in marriage as the selfish.

      Let’s imagine, therefore, in this context, a child who needed to decide quickly about how he or she would be after growing up – whether like his/her mother or his/her father. Apart from the case of being the second son, who, since birth would have come with his/her future already chosen, considering the option of his older brother. What a saga!

      Turned forty-three, I wonder how my confused formation of seventh son who waited for the eighth one accommodated it. I believe me and my brothers took turns – one was generous and another selfish; by following this scoundrel logics outbreak, I’m doomed to generosity, waiting for a selfish lover.

      But, at last, Flávio Gikovate assures there’s a master solution for this upsetting situation: by gathering the generous people of the world, the entire ones or those who feel complete themselves, the very loving relationship will have the scenario of the great promised paradise, in which both give and receive in a balanced manner, by

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