Gragoatá (Dec 2007)
Ruins and memory: “Dois irmãos” and a “new” regionalism
Abstract
The article is on the romance Dois Irmãos, by Milton Hatoum, which has as background the allegoric city of Manaus. The special focus of the analysis is on the identity relationships and the difference among people who live in the same house. However, this place of the family extends to the space of Manaus, the port on the margin of the river Rio Negro. The city and the river are metaphors of the ruins and the time, and follow the development of the family drama. There are nuances in this narrative that the author surrounds, in a different way and subtly, a classical approach of the Brazilian fiction: the regionalism. Based on the contributions of the urban classic references, modern and contemporary, incorporated by the Brazilian fiction, the author reexamines regional contents, composing a hybrid weave which maintains his sources alive. Therefore, he recovers a specific identity, and this process seems to prevent from a more radical multicultural transformation.
