Rewind, book: 'Brazil' by John Updike (1994)
Oh, to be young again - except even the young grow old and love fades.
Oh, to be young again - except even the young grow old and love fades. This is John Updike's paradox. Amid the myriad topography of South America's largest country, the American literary heavyweight navigates the lives of two star-crossed lovers: Tristão, the black youth from the , and Isabel, the motherless, rich white girl.
The tale begins on the white sands of Copacabana beach, where Rio de Janeiro's colours and races intertwine in a cacophony of bare skin and thrashing waves. Tristão, with his street-smart lingua and athletic body, charms Isabel with a stolen ring, and before long they are in the throes of lusty carnal desire. And as with any Updike novel, the passages containing sex are some of the most luxurious, though not without their comic moments.
As the teenagers set about their lives, beginning at Tristão's home in the slums overlooking the Cidade Maravilhosa with its dank corners and strange occupants, we are treated to the portrait of a country in the midst of change. It is the mid-1960s and the political system is in upheaval after the military seizes power. The sounds of samba, bossa nova and tropicalia are in full swing, and the book's lyricism brings to mind the musical heavyweights of the time: Elis Regina, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil.
As the couple escape their families in Rio and seek solace first in São Paulo and then Brasilia (where Isabel's father looms large, as a foreboding distant patriarch), their lives begin to unravel. Their different ethnic and class backgrounds bring problems, and before long they have wandered into the jungles of the northwest and the gold mining town of Ouro Preto, and with that the entrenched curses and spirits of the ancient land.
Updike is great at fleshing out his characters, and what is especially remarkable here is his nuanced descriptions of black Brazilian culture - not to mention the fluid, delicate prose for which he is so well known. He talks of "sickle-shaped white beaches shining in the sun as they were whetted by the rhythmic abrasion of the glittering blue sea", while later, in the mines, it is the "click of the picks, the hammering as deeper ladders and stouter shoring walls were assembled".
Despite the tragic overtones, Updike remains steadfast in his lust for youth and vibrancy and change, without ever becoming overly quixotic. And in this short, at times surreal, tale he merely lets us know that in the end, life is unpredictable.
