Artigos

a substância do amor e outras crónicas de josé eduardo agualusa

A crueldade feminina fascina os homens. Amar uma mulher sem veneno é como jogar à roleta-russa com uma pistola fulminante. A obscura força que leva um sujeito a lançar-se da Pedra da Gávea, no Rio de Janeiro, preso a uma frágil lona (um parapente ou um asa-delta), em direção ao imenso abismo azul, aos prédios aguçados, às areias luminosas da praia do Pepino, é a mesma que o precipita, indefeso e nu, para os braços de uma mulher. 

Quando o louva-a-deus encontra a sua deusa e esta lhe diz vem, vou-te comer, o infeliz sabe que aquilo não é uma metáfora. Mesmo assim, seguro de que depois do amor será servido ao jantar, o louva-a-deus persigna-se e vai. É o que nós fazemos – homens e mulheres -, à procura do amor, em fuga do amor, desencontrados.

Wook

Sei que já li em livros anteriores de José Eduardo Agualusa:

  • A Velha Esperança morreu sentada (conto)
  • O Último Andar (conto)
  • Dançar outra vez (crónica)
  • e outras referências

Qual a importância disso? Nenhuma e alguma – serve para sossegar a minha obsessão por pormenores, pois claro.

E quanto ao livro A Substância do Amor de José Eduardo Agualusa? Uau formidável; delirante – fantástico. Tanta coisa boa em poucas páginas.

the lunar tickle by rhys hughes

The summer morning reflects all its splendor on the beach’s sand and invites you to swim in the salty sea and the vacationers are not unrelated to this appeal.

Children jump, scream, balls bounce from one side to the other, sand flies, tents are assembled, towels are laid, some goofy eat greedily with their eyes women from top to bottom, others nibbling buttocks here, two breasts there, the lucky ones can foresee briefly after a swim one erect nipple daringly homeless from a bikini; older people proudly display the decrepitude of life; fanatics attempt within 30 days to clean the body of fat accumulated in 11 months of gluttony.

rhys hughes

We see men with dump, round, oval, hairy bellies; we see women with pleats, jelly thighs, with baroque bellies. Some young, sculptural women contrast this symphony of flabby and ribbed flesh, diaphanous they glide at the seaside showing steady buttocks; small breasts are transformed into big breasts thanks to modern the engineering of bikinis, triquinis or swimsuits; large breasts are voluptuously bouncing or flattened reminding sardines in a can…

Unaware of all this is a reader of The Lunar Tickle by Rhys Hughes. And why? Simple. Everything that is inside the book is superior to what may be observed outside its pages. What surrounds him is a pale shadow.

The adventure, the environment has no substantive or adjective that can be glued easily. The best definition for the “The Lunar Tickle” is to say “that there isn’t definition” – this prevents me headaches and close in gold the review: I hope.

a sereia de curitiba

It was very pleasant reading Rhys Hughes in Portuguese. The three first stories that comprise the book can be read in the ebook “The Mermaid Variations”; the remaining stories were a world exclusive for the Portuguese edition of “A Sereia de Curitiba” by the publisher Livros de Areia.

a sereia de curitiba

a sereia de curitiba

The translation by Safaa Dib is tasteful. The games that Rhys Hughes do with the words are not lost in the translation. In addition to this we have the drawings of Paulo Barros.

“A Sereia de Curitiba” is an edition of immense quality and it does not disappoint those who already like the author, and certainly will create more followers for those wishing to venture diving in the seas of Rhys Hughes – mermaids not included!