À luz de crônicas imortais: Nelson Rodrigues, leitor de histórias brasileiras

Abstract

This work analyses some chronicles by Nelson Rodrigues, which are present in the works that compound the collection Confissões, a collection of books published by Companhia das Letras. This corpus was scanned aiming at evaluating how the chronicler commented on his present time, and the past of a nation. Rodrigues’s memories, registered directly in newspapers of big circulation in Rio de Janeiro, offer a wide source of knowledge about the author’s history and his country’s history. This study revisits works that focus on the genre ‘chronicle’, searching for understanding how such literary genre leads Nelson Rodrigues to discuss serious issues, in an apparently superficial talk with his readers. Reflections upon the country, society, present and past, are vivid in these texts, at the same time that they look for attending the demands of time and space that newspapers require. The commentary about Nelson Rodrigues’s writing – which is a mixture of criticism, testimony, analysis and judgments of his time – requires the reviewing of historical events. The chapters focus especially on his analysis about the end of the Brazilian belle époque; the disintegration of the patriarch in the modern context; the lack of surprise of the citizens in the modern cities; the tragedies in his family; the drama of Daniela, his blind daughter, as well as the reverberations of football in the life of Brazilian people. When it comes to football chronicles, we tried to reflect upon Rodrigues’s concept stray dog complex, in order to perceive how the Brazilian people behavior is when the Brazilian team plays world championships. The reading of literary texts starts at the language procedures adopted by the chronicler and advances into comparisons and dialogues with historiography, sociology and philosophy. The objective of this work is to contribute with the author’s critical fortune and observe how his chronicle texts, based on his memories, help to develop another point of view about some aspects of the Brazilian history of the XX century.