BEING SO BRAZIL: THE GRAMMAR OF THE BRAZILIAN NOVEL
Brazilian Literature. Contemporary Romance. Literary criticism. National identity
The current work aims at demonstrating common elements of the Brazilian literary tradition in some contemporary novels. The selected books cover authorial eclecticism in the midst of an extended period of time, which reinforces the perception that there is a theme that communicates among successive generations. As result from this observation, the study turns to questions related to the reasons why different writers lined up so often. In all chapters, it is demonstrated that the verified recurrence responds to the demands of literary criticism in the process of structuring the Brazilian identity. Therefore, the fictional construction of Brazilianity (Brazilian Identity) is the pivot for the national romance, which inclines the narrative towards descriptivist reiteration, even under different aesthetic shades. Land, race and social condition are themes that run through the Brazilian novel, leaving little room for psychologically more complex characters. It will be seen that some common characteristics compress fiction to the detriment of exposing the national reality, more especially linked to space and local types. Faced with critical demand and the public's difficulties, the Brazilian intellectual complex is formed seeking uniqueness/singularity, but points out the shortcomings of this diegetic itinerary. The aesthetic synchronicity of various narrative resources is configured as a discipline of taste in which the ethical appeal competes with the dynamics of the narrative. The theory that supported this investigation includes work by Alceu Amoroso Lima (1957), Araripe Júnior (1960), Sílvio Romero (1960), José Veríssimo (1977), Silviano Santiago (2004), Antonio Candido (1987, 2014, 2017), and others