Ditched Dreams

Foreword

Ditched Dreams – in the original, O Sonho da Terra, literally The Dream of the Earth – was published in 1983 in Brazil after being awarded a prestigious literary prize. It is a parodical, intensely intertextual novel that combines snipetts of contemporary history, literary works, current events, popular culture, and films. It unfolds to reveal glimpses of the Brazilian character in a series of carnivalesque stories woven in a frame narrative designed to sustain the reader’s curiosity, very much in the tradition of the novelle that make up Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Boccaccio’s Decamerone, the Arabian Nights, or Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

The supposed source of Ditched Dreams – to paraphrase Umberto Eco – is naturally a manuscript, or rather a motley of scraps, ranging from cheap notebook paper to stray packs of cigarettes that Cardoso Gomes purportedly merely edited. The setting is a deep mine located somewhere in the Brazilian Southeast and dubbed Rego Fundo, that is Deep Ditch, whence the translation’s title, which pictures the mine as a gigantic ditch where workers’ dreams end up buried. In this place the collective protagonist, migrants from Brazil’s impoverished North and Northeast, dig incessantly for some unidentified ill-smelling ore – the stuff was slimy and shiny, like gold, but nasty smelling – that cannot be touched without endangering life. The workers sign up for a two-year stint during which they are forbidden to leave the site – and, given the high incidence of death from disease or accident, it is doubtful anyone ever will: Ain’t no-one ever left Deep Ditch with no doctor and reach top alive. When you left, you had two choices, that was it – Heaven or Hell. Weren’t no other way out of there. Policed by a handful of nameless Security Guards, the mine is run by a technocrat dubbed Dr. Engineer, who in turn reports to a Big Shot. Further, the mine is ministered to by an oversized priest figure lowered down the shaft in an elevator, deus ex machina style, to preach sermons intended to keep the workers in line.

Readers and critics soon associated the idea of a deep mine dug by poor migrant workers with the subway that had started being built in São Paulo in 1968. Its first line opened to the public in 1974 and the second in 1979, after whole sections of the city had been torn up to make room for the underground railway. They also noticed that the digging machine used in Deep Ditch had the same popular nickname – Tatuzão, that is Big Armadillo – as the shield equipment used to dig the new subway tunnels, far beneath the basements of the large skyscrapers, churches, and historical monuments. Nearly forty years after the project was begun, the impact of its construction on life in São Paulo was still felt when, in January 2007, several people were killed in an accident during the digging of a new line. This tragic detail imparts a melancholy current tone to the novel, as workers from the poorest levels of Brazilian society are still laboring under hazardous conditions to build new subway lines.

Readers also notice that language ranks like a character in its own right, as Cardoso Gomes’s effective representation of Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese vindicates that marginalized dialect, spoken by the majority of the population, particularly the uneducated poor. This choice of language is crucial in casting the book as a series of narratives told orally by those who lived them and recorded on scraps of paper by one of the workers. Further, it is significant because the vernacular, with its connotations of low social status and scant education, contrasts with the bosses’ standard speech, thus underscoring the asymmetrical power relationship between subalterns and oppressors, while endowing the former with a voice of their own.

For the translator, the issue is how to capture the flavor of an essentially oral vernacular – a problem encountered time and again by translators of works in which a non-standard variety is intrinsic to the narrative, like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Pygmalion. Translating such a text aims at maintaining the cognitive meaning while capturing the flavor of the nonstandard features of the original. This task, however, runs into two obstacles. The first obstacle is that, whereas denotative and even connotative correspondences between two standard varieties (such as standard Portuguese and standard English) usually ensure translatability, a source text in a nonstandard variety requires a sociolinguistically equivalent nonstandard variety in the target language. Such an equivalent variety, however, is not always available. The other obstacle is that fictional speech in nonstandard language – as in Huck Finn – is never a mirror image of the real thing but rather a literary dialect, that is a stylistic device designed to evoke the spoken dialect rather than replicate it. For translators, one option is to ignore the dialect in the original and use the standard variety, with the consequent loss of the connotations carried by the dialect. Another option consists in designing a literary dialect by combining salient nonstandard features of the target language so as to suggest a kind of speech that evokes the dialect in the original and its social function. This is the solution adopted in Ditched Dreams, where the translator chose to craft the characters' talk by using a number of nonstandard features of English, thus preserving a vernacular flavor, while avoiding strictly regional forms. Although the novel is set in Brazil, it is not simply a regional novel. On the contrary, in actual language use, the clash between the vernacular and the standard variety of formal, and technical registers is a constant in industrial and post-industrial societies, to the point that it aptly symbolizes the contrast between the uneducated and the educated. For this reason literary dialect is often – though not exclusively – used in fiction works populated by the underclasses. In an intensely allegorical narrative such as Ditched Dreams, such language contrasts constitute an essential element for casting satire into a socially stigmatized speech, which is in turn validated as a means of self-expression by working class characters. Vernacular speech thus functions as a code at different levels. At a directly visible level, information about dialectal speech is conveyed by the choice and shape of words, the organization of sentences, and the way meaning is organized, often in broken phrases that remind us that we are reading a representation of orality. This information allows readers who normally use the standard variety to engage in an interpretative relationship with the vernacular. At the metafictional level, literary dialect acts as the carrier of correlations such as humor, paradox, irony, or tension. By establishing a metonymic relationship between the linguistic codes and the characters, the vernacular legitimizes the narrator, identified, like other characters, by a nickname – in his case Quatroio, that is Foureyes, a time-honored topos for one who sees more, or farther, than others – as the spokesman for the subalterns in the mine. In so doing, such variegated representation of orality energizes the narrative and endorses the vernacular in Ditched Dreams as a compelling medium of expression through which the collective protagonist challenges the social dominant viewpoint while thumbing their nose, as it were, at those who would use language as an instrument of oppression.

Milton M. Azevedo

An Introduction

by José Paulo Paes*

Carried away by the demon of mystification, to whom we already owe the Haikus written by the false but convincing seventeenth century Japanese poet that brought us O Sereno Cristal, the last book he published, Álvaro Cardoso Gomes has now attempted to deceive O Sonho da Terra’s readers by presenting himself as the mere editor of old manuscripts, whose authorship is anonymously hidden behind the nickname Foureyes, whose language, of an essentially oral nature he has tried to respect. But the naïve storyteller who establishes himself as the narrator of this novel – his first and the third prize winner of the Prêmio Bienal Nestlé de Literatura – gives himself away immediately, as readers see through him to the writer so versed in tricks of the trade that he does not hesitate to use allusion and parody as the main tools of his work.

If one can discern in the carefully elaborated rural dialect of Álvaro Cardoso’s novel an allusion to Guimarães Rosa’s extreme regionalism, the structure and content are a parodic echo of Macunaíma, which is itself already a parody.  In the same vein as Macunaíma, O Sonho da Terra is less a novel than it is a rhapsody on two narrative planes.  The first is the present tense of the narrator, a worker in a mine whose location is extremely vague.  All one knows is that the mine is in the South, that the workers all come from the Northeast or Minas Gerais, and that the digging is done by an enormous drill, the Big Armadillo, which serves to transport us into the tunnels of the São Paulo metro through allusion.   

The principle plane of Foureyes’s comedic narrative is the plight of the struggling workers, forced into celibacy, contrary to their sexual needs, which the Established Powers, emblematized in the protagonists Dr. Engineer and the Priest, try unsuccessfully to contain, first with saltpeter and sermons, and later with the pleasure-o-matic, a sort of mechanical prostitute.  But this plane is constantly intercepted by the second plane, the stories told by the workers. They are of the typically marvelous nature of folklore, including unhappy love affairs, involving either persevering damsels and femmes fatales – or, if not these, then affectionate goats and mules, and both male and female demonic incarnations.  These stories include biblical parodies of the story of Joseph and his brothers, the medieval legend of Faust, Ulysses’s Homeric episode in Circe’s grotto, and even one of Buñel’s films.

The final chapters of the book meld the two planes, the comedic-realist and the folkloric-marvelous, when several of the workers venture through the galleries of Hell, having been led by the Big Armadillo, and from where they finally emerge into the depths of Alagoas.  By creating a parody of a parody, Álvaro Cardoso Gomes has managed to save himself brilliantly from the double sin of literal regionalism and a serious attempt to resurrect modernism. Fortunately for the author, and for the readers of O Sonho da Terra**, the novel is a living dream.

* We thank Editora Abril for permission to reprint this commentary by Brazilian critic José Paulo Paes (1926-1998), originally published in the newsmagazine Veja (A la Macunaíma, May 11, 1983).

**sonho = dream 

Contents

To the Reader

I. How Foureyes and the Deep Ditch Gang met up with Zeferino Mendes, better known as Scrappy, the fire-breathing Rascal.

II. The Matter of Chunky’s Taste for Critters: an Account of the passionate Nanny-Goat.

III. In which Scrappy relates to Foureyes the History of his Life, and his Father’s too.

IV. Zeferino’s Father’s Account of his old Friendship and of his Love for the Damsel Isaltina.

V. In which Vitoriano relates the History of the terrible Fever and the Damsel Isaltina’s dedicated Care, and the Account of their blossoming Love.

VI. The Damsel Isaltina, Zeferino’s future Mother, recounts the History of her unfortunate Adventures; wherein that Lady is the Victim of Card Debts and heartless Promises.

VII. How Vitoriano paid Licurgo back in his own Coin.

VIII. Giving an Account of Zeferino’s Decision: the verbal Agreement and the arduous Work on the Colonel’s Land; and of the strange Invitation made by Barba, a well-mannered Fellow with a hifalutin way of Talking.

IX. In which Scrappy protests the Lack of Women in Deep Ditch and the Saltpeter put in the Food by Management.

X. Moral Reflections by Father Angelo; wherein that Preacher enumerates the Sins of Man: Greed, Lust, Sodomy, Onanism, Bestiality and so on and so forth; particularly the Lord’s Punishment and the Arrival of the fierce Beast.

XI. Containing the History of Bugeye, the calamitous Wizard.

XII. What passed between Old Man Pa and Cezira, the Fallen Woman he loved.

XIII. The History of Cezira, containing a description of the Curse of Whantin, the dishonored Father.

XIV. In which Cezira, for her Sins of Lust and Revenge on Old Man Pa, is transformed into a Beast and gives Birth to Bugeye, the calamitous Wizard.

XV. A surprising Instance of Backlash.

XVI. What happened when the Saltpeter was left out of the Food. A notable Dissertation by Foureyes on the Needs of Man.

XVII. Containing many surprising Adventures, which include the sucking Mule and the Death of Chunky, knifed after an unfortunate Dialogue between that Man and Satan.

XVIII. The History of Mule; wherein there is a Description of that ignorant Hick’s Mother’s Way of Life and her Love for the Devil.

XIX. The Escape of Rosalia with the Devil.

XX. Giving an Account of the Fate of Rosalia and Leonardo, and of the strange

 and hidden Life of Mule, Son of the Devil.

XXI. In which, Mule, Son of the Devil, finding himself all alone in the World, is taken in by his stingy Grandfather.

XXII. The Matter of the Engineer’s Measures to douse the Men’s Fire. The Installation of the Pleasurematic.

XXIII. A Description of the User's Manual and the complex Maneuvers of the Pleasurematic.

XXIV. Giving an Account of Meatbeat’s terrible Hunger and the Solution of the Problem by Scrimp (who would sell his own Mother, if he could profit).

XXV. A Description of how a Cuckold turned the Tables.

XXVI. A Dissertation on Meatbeat’s Passion, how that Man, through Ingenuity, made use of the Pleasurematic for free. An Account of her Revenge and Reflections on trusting Women.

XXVII. In which Big Mole falls inside a deep Crevice, with its Driver et al, and the Matter of Management’s Request for Volunteers to salvage It.

XXVIII. The History of Slick the Newcomer, wherein he marries a Lezzy.

XXIX. An unlucky Accident: the Death of Slick, a Description of how a Man becomes a Mail-Order Package.

XXX. An Account of Scrappy and Smokestack’s Return and the Introduction of a new Fellow, Teju, the Witch Doctor and his friend Anhê, who relates the History of the Camunhã.

XXXI. In which Teju and Bugeye are Bosom Buddies and the Indian recounts the Origins of the Camunhã.

XXXII. The Arrival of two new Workers, the Negro Tatu and Virgin.

XXXIII. The History of Virgin, known as Joe, in which that unfortunate Virgin meets Ana Anhu.

XXXIV. A very curious Adventure, in which Joe is left by his Brothers at the County Fair.

XXXV. What happened when the Honchos, disgruntled with the Workers’ Output, once again put Saltpeter in the Food; and a Disagreement in Opinion.

XXXVI. An Account of very curious Dreams containing hawk-pecking Hummingbirds, a man-swallowing Whale, little Pigs and their Trotters, a Water Guard, Indians dressed in white, a pecked Bird, and a Giant transformed into a Dwarf.

XXXVII A strange Dissertation, by Father Angelo down in the tunnel, wherein

that Preacher warns against Evil, and Man’s Pride; and recounts his Dream about the mounted Harlot and the Seven Plagues.

XXXVIII. Giving an Account of what happened with Bugeye’s Black Magic wherein the Giant is finally transformed into a Dwarf, the Top becomes the Bottom, the Hawk is pecked by Hummingbirds, the Earth becomes Water, and Water becomes Earth.

XXXIX. What happened to Foureyes, Scrappy, Bugeye, Mole, Virgin, and Mule down below; the History of Houndawg, the Guard at Hell’s Gate.

XL. A Dialogue between Faustino, a Rancher of many Possessions, and the Devil: an unfortunate secret Agreement.

XLI. In which Mule replaces Houndawg at Hell’s Gate in order to be closer to his Ma and Pa.

XLII. Containing many surprising Adventures in the Kingdom of Peri-Peri, the land of smelly Creatures and where Stinky carries out his Plan.

XLIII. A Description of Leggy-Women and our Hero’s Pleasure inside very experienced Nookies.

XLIV. The History of Rosaflor, a pure and innocent Maiden, condemned to an undeserving and dark Fate.

XLV. The History of Leonor, a very hot Dish; wherein that Lady recounts making the most of Life through Love and her Nooky, too.

XLVI. A Description of several Magic Spells and of Duzeia, who was both an Old Woman and a Young Girl.

XLVII. Being the last and giving an Account of the fine Fate of Scrappy, Mole, Foureyes, and Bugeye – now a Vulture – in which the four Heroes climb up out of the Tunnel and see the Light of Day.

To the Reader

What follows is no more than a faithful transcription (to the extent it is possible to transcribe and organize someone else’s work faithfully) of old manuscripts, whose authorship is anonymously hidden behind the nickname Foureyes. We’ve taken the trouble to organize the narrative by subject, and also to delineate themes, which serve as chapter headings. This much was necessary so the reader would not be caught off guard by the unorthodox nature of certain passages. It has