THE JOURNEY OF NOVE NOITES TOWARDS THE “OTHER”

Abstract

Nove noites (2002), by Bernardo Carvalho, describes an investigative process replete with mystery and suspense, through two narrators which alternate to tell the brief history of Buell Quain, an American ethnologist tragically died in August 2nd, 1939 in the countryside of Brazil. In this novel, which reminds the documental-novel and the reporting-novel, an investigation takes place starting with the researcher’s birth to his arrival in Brazil when established contact with Manoel Perna, the fictitious narrator of the history. In fact, there are two narratives inserted into this book, since, from the history about Quain – supported by letters, pictures, documents and witnesses –, the author-narrator finishes by telling the his own, constructing thus a metanarrative. By mixing the real with the fictional component he penetrates the meanders of the History and Anthropology of the 20th century, in a literary adventure including journeys to Xingu and New York. Nevertheless, the obsession to elucidate the strange suicide of the young ethnologist – which includes matters such as identity, otherness and sexuality – is revealed in the end of the novel as a pretext utilized by this author-narrator to fictionalize, that is, to make fiction.