Review of Oleone Coelho Fontes, Cristais em Chamas

Published in the review Five Books by Oleone Coelho Fontes, Luso-Brazilian
Review, Vol. 35, No. 2, Teatro Brasileiro Finissecular (Séculos XIX e XX)
(Winter, 1998), pp. 127-132.

Oleone Coelho Fontes, Cristais em chamas (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1993).


The Brazilian state of Bahia is roughly the size of France, while its
climate and topography could not be more different from that of any
European country. A thin, well-watered, heavily populated litoral zone
contrasts with the arid, sparsely populated sertão (interior) where water
is at a premium. Periods of torrential rains which make travel impossible
contrast with long periods of drought which make agriculture impossible.
Porto Seguro, on the coast, was the point where Cabral touched land in 1500
and currently a thriving tourist resort, as is Salvador, the Bahian capital
and one of the oldest Brazilian cities. Few of the Italian and German
tourists crowding buses and beaches in these areas make their way through
the caatinga (scrub forest) to the points of attraction in the interior. A
few religiously inclined Brazilians might make a pilgrimage to one of the
many religious shrines which testify to the the endemic mysticism of the
sertanejo: Bom Jesus da Lapa with its cavern chapel; Nossa Senhora da
Pirapora; Monte Santo, where an enormous stairway leads to a mountaintop
shrine; or Juazeiro do Norte, where the priest Padre Cicero ruled a
theocracy and is now honored with the second-largest statue in Brazil.
Along with the Nordeste, the Brazilian sertão (including parts of
several states besides Bahia) is the region of Brazil which best preserves
the roots of a national character. Its landscape and culture have
consistently and continuously drawn the attention of Brazil's most
important authors, and been woven into some of Brazil's most compelling
prose narratives: Afonso Arinos's Os jagunços (1898); Euclides da Cunha's
Os Sertões (1903); Rachel Quiroz's O quinze (1930); Bernardo Guimarães
Rosa's Grande sertão: veredas; and Graciliano Ramos's Vidas secas (1938).
The artistic interest in the sertão contrast with institutional apathy.
Thus, in 1993 José Calazans, who has contributed as much as anyone to
telling the history of the sertão, lamented "the lack of care and
sensitivity of our institutions, which fail to examine the backlander and
contemplate foreign revolutions more carefully than our own popular
movements" ("a falta de cuidado e de sensibilidade de nossas instituções
que deixam de olhar o sertanejo e contemplam as revoluções estrangeiras com
mais cuidado que os nossos movimentos").[1] Every Brazilian has heard of
the sertão, and almost no one really knows it.
In the spirit of Calazans's imperative, Oleone Coelho Fontes —
himself a published historian of the Canudos campaign — has tried to
recover a lost history of the sertão . The sertão of Cristais em chamas
shares with those of Euclides, Guimarães Rosa, and Ramos an extreme
isolation, technological deprivation, and bent towards mysticism, but it
also possesses a unique spirit of ebulliance and optimism. Fontes has
written a work of "faction": many incidents and characters of this novel
are real, as the author documents in a long postscript. Dominating the
archival material is Coelho's father, a bookkeeper for the diamond-mining
company of Hipólito Ribeiro in Serra da Batateira, in the region of Sento
Sé (9.4 S, 41.18 W). Like one of the novel's main protagonists, the
protestant minister Amadeu, Coelho's father was a protestant who served the
needs of the backlands as an ersatz doctor and midwife. The novel's
central incident, the complete destruction through fire of the community of
miners — hence the title, "Flaming Crystals" — actually occurred in 1942,
at the height of the town's economic prosperity.
The author has taken the date of the conflagration, and provided a
"thick description" of the historical situation, with a plethora of
historical and cultural data, from names of battles of World War II, to
contemporary Hollywood filmstars, to the complete lyrics of that year's
carnival compositions. The resultant "thick description" reveals the
Bahian sertão in all its aspects, both natural and cultural. Beneath this
evanescent layer of the actual, Coelho Fontes attempts to convey the more
slowly changing physiography and culture of the sertão. The book opens not
in the Serra da Batateira, but in the "nearby" community of Saco da Arara.
It focuses on the five Louvores sisters, who represent the historical and
cultural consciousness of the region. Vitalina tells a long romance
(romance, including tales of Charlemagne, is the preferred oral narrative
of the backcountry, its equivalent of Hollywood epic), while her sister
Censão is visited (in a series of hallucinations) by Dom Sebastian and Dom
Pedro II. These historical subjects are more alive in the mind of the
sertanejo than the president of Brazil in this period, Getúlio Vargas,
whose name never crosses the lips of a single character. It is as though
the Republic had never been declared. As the sisters gradually succumb to
the infirmities of old age, the progression of funerals allows the
introduction of yet another vital oral form, the "oração" or prayer, of
which the "Ave Maria" will be most familiar to readers. These two genres
will be joined by a host of others, as an important element of Coelho's
"thick description" is to exemplify the various kinds of discourse that
sustain people's lives.
The arrival of João Pedro at the Louvores's door with a truckload of
passengers heading for Batateira signals a transition to topographic
description. The long, dusty, bumpy journey to Batateira, complete with
entrapment in a mudhole, allows the narrator to describe at length the
beauties and rigors of the arid countryside, and reinforces the isolation
of the mining community. Once arrived at Batateira, we are introduced to
the main characters, who represent two opposing principles in the lives of
the community: Amadeu, the Protestant minister, works tirelessly to save
both body and soul of the miners (the Catholic church, in contrast, to
which more than 90% of Brazilians belong, appears only briefly, to militate
against Amadeu's evangelizing), and most particularly to redeem the
prostitutes who work in Petrônio Fachinette's bordello. Amadeu's long
sermon on the spiritual nature of hands ("Vede estas mãos," pp. 144-68),
provides another brilliant example of a favored literary genre of the
region.
Amadeu, whose stature as miracle-working saint in the eyes of the
people rests as much upon his medical accomplishments as upon his sermons,
introduces us to the enduring culture of the sertão, with its mysticism and
folk remedies. Fachinette, in turn, represents both the carnal, material
side of human nature in a region where few restraints are placed upon human
cupidity and passion, and also the popular and ephemeral. His interior
monologs are filled with memories of trips to the nightclubs of Rio de
Janeiro and the lyrics of last year's carnival. He also, of course, thinks
of the personalities and exploits of his steady customers, among whom are
several Americans who pay in dollars and bring their own whiskey. It is
the American interest in diamonds, useful in a variety of military
instruments, which propels the economy of Batateira. While historically
accurate, the constant presence of Americans in this isolated region of
Brazil also functions as an allegory of the overall political and economic
influence of the U. S. on Brazil.
Fachinette and Amadeu are presented as contestants in a struggle
which neither of them can win. Amadeu's rescued prostitutes return to
Fachinette's lair after a day or two of penance. At the same time,
Fachinette's profits of vice are only apparent, as a drunken tailor,
digruntled over receiving just the "cu da galinha" (chicken back) as an
appetizer, walks home to his miserable shack and, while preparing for bed,
tips over an oil lamp and begins a conflagration which insatiably devours
the entire community. Ironically, Amadeu ends the novel on the inside of
Fachinette's nightclub, having saved this last remaining structure from
destruction by outraged inhabitants. As he walks through the abandoned
cabaret adorned with pictures of Brazil's popular artists, Amadeu has an
epiphany: "O Diabo não é tão feio quanto se pinta. Agora conhecia de
perto o valhacouto do homem Fachinette. No fundo um moralista" (444; "The
Devil's bark is worse than his bite. Now he was getting to know
Fachinette's sanctuary from the inside. At bottom, a moralist"). Amadeu
does well to reconsider his position of moral superiority, for the
narrative reveals that he has a mistress.
Neverthess, it is not certain whether we should share this sudden
sympathy for the owner of a bordello. We are more likely to receive a
lasting impression of a paradoxical fragility and endurance of life in the
sertão. Batateira, like the Canudos immortalized by Euclides, was an
isolated community which suddenly became attractive to a large number of
inhabitants of the Bahian sertão, who made extraordinary efforts to arrive
there and share its wealth — indeed, no one seems to be native to the town.
(The story of one such family, which walked from Santana to Batateira, is
told in chapter seven, aptly entitled "A longa caminhada.") As the fire
consumes the life or property of each inhabitant, the narrator interrupts
the story to explain how that person came to live in Batateira, and often,
how that person previously escaped death in the dangerous mining work. The
narrative of Cristais em chamas is thus constructed recursively, pausing at
each crisis, introducing each character involved, moving backwards in time
to recuperate the story of how he or she came to Batateira. We learn the
origin of the fascinating nickname "Zé Defuntinho" (José Little Corpse), as
well as the miserable life story of
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[1] Calazans, José. "Meu empenho foi ser tradutor do mundo sertanejo."
Ed. José Carlos Sebe Bom Meihy. Luso-Brazilian Review 30.2 (1993): 32.