Sagarana is short story by the Brazilian modernist writer João Guimarães Rosa (1908-1967) which was published in 1946.
Structure of the Work
Sagarana gathers nine stories:
- Donkey Pedrês
- Return of the Prodigal Husband
- straw
- the Duel
- My people
- Saint Mark
- Closed body
- talk of oxen
- Augusto Matraga's Time and Time
Summary of Tales
Donkey Pedrês
Narrated in third person, this tale depicts the drowning of a group of cowboys and horses as they cross the Córrego da Fome.
Two of the cowboys survive the episode: Francolim and Badu.
Return of the Prodigal Husband
Narrated in third person, the main character is Lalino, a lazy and roguish man who leaves his wife and travels to Rio de Janeiro.
When he returns, his wife, Ritinha, is married to Ramiro. At the end of the story, he gets back together with her.
straw
Narrated in third person, this tale reveals the story of Ribeiro and Argemiro, who are affected by Malaria.
Abandoned by everyone, Argemiro reveals to Ribeiro the interest he had in his wife, Luísa. After the revelation, Ribeiro expels Argemiro from his lands.
the Duel
Narrated in third person, the story focuses on the adultery of Turíbio's wife, Silvana, with Cassian.
Therefore, Turíbio decides to kill his opponent, but by mistake he takes his brother's life. He ends up running away and being killed by Blackjack, an acquaintance of Cassian.
My people
Narrated in first person, Emílio, the narrator, goes to visit his uncle and ends up falling in love with his cousin: Maria Irma.
The love is unrequited because Maria was interested in Ramiro who, in the end, becomes her husband.
Saint Mark
Narrated in first person, José is the narrator of this tale. Izé, as he is known, does not believe in sorcerers and always recites the Prayer of Saint Mark, as a way of making fun of this belief.
To get back at him, the sorcerer puts a blindfold on a portrait that blinds him for a while.
Closed body
Narrated in third person, the tale focuses on the interest of Antonico das Pedras-Águas, the sorcerer, about the mule belonging to Manuel Fulô.
In order to get the mule, the sorcerer promises to "close the body" of Manuel.
talk of oxen
Narrated in third person, this tale focuses on the trajectory of an ox cart that takes brown sugar and the deceased, Tiãozinho's father.
At the same time, the Ox Brilhante tells the story of another, while revealing the mistreatment that animals suffer.
Augusto Matraga's Time and Time
Narrated in third person, this tale focuses on the story of Augusto Estêves, after losing his possessions and his henchmen.
In addition, his wife and daughter run away with Ovídio Moura. Indignant, he decides to go to the property of his opponent Major Consilva. He was with his henchmen.
However, Augustus is beaten and branded with iron. He manages to flee the Major's property, being found by a black couple who take care of him.
Later, Joãozinho Bem-Bem's gang, the most feared jagunço in the sertão, arrives in the city where Augusto was.
Although they became friends, the moment Augusto tells Joãozinho not to kill a family, they decide to fight. In the final duel, both die.
Excerpts from the Work
To better understand the language of the work used by Guimarães Rosa, below are some excerpts from each story.
Donkey Pedrês
"He was a small, resigned donkey, coming from Passa-Tempo, Conceição do Serro, or I don't know where in the sertão. It was called Sete-de-Ouros, and it had already been so good, as another one did not exist, nor can there be an equal.
But now he was old, very old. So much so that it wouldn't even be necessary to lower his stubborn jaw to peek at the corners of his teeth. It was decrepit even from a distance: in the raw cotton of fur—tiny dark seeds in sparse and grimy vines; in the rheumy eyes, the color of bismuth, with pink eyelids, almost always occluded, in constant semi-sleep; and on the line, weary and respectable - a perfect horizontal, from the beginning of the forehead to the root of the tail in a broad pendulum, this way, that, the flies touching."
Return of the Prodigal Husband
"Nine-thirty hours. A cicerro tinkles. It's a donkey, which comes alone, pulling the wagon. Feet in mathematical march, conscientious and smooth walking, he arrives, over the top. He stops, just where he has to stop, and immediately closes his eyes. Only after the boy, who was waiting, crouching down, shouts: — “Issia.... — “and takes the reins and makes him turn left, and back up five paces. There, the black one unbolts the tailboard at the rear, and the earth falls to the bank. The others help with the shovels. Six minutes: the donkey opens its eyes. Black straightens the board again on the axis, and raises the back top, The boy takes the reins again: right, turn! Now it's not even necessary to command: — “Let's go!”... — because the donkey has already left at the same pace, in a straight course; and the wheels always cover the same grooves in the ground."
straw
"Camp tapera. There, on the banks of the Pará river, they left an entire village abandoned: houses, a small house, a chapel; three small shops, the cottage and the cemetery; and the street, alone and long, which is no longer a road now, as the bush has clogged it up.
All around, good pastures, good people, good land for rice. And the place was already on the maps, long before malaria arrived.
She came from far away, from San Francisco. One day, she took the path, entered the open mouth of Pará, and started to climb. Each year it advanced a handful of leagues, closer, closer, closer, making the people afraid, because it was the wildest part of the “shiver that wouldn't fall apart — killing a lot of people."
the Duel
"Turíbio Todo, born on the banks of Borrachudo, was a saddler by trade, had long hair in his nostrils, and cried without making faces; word for word: papuda, vagabond, vindictive and evil. But at the beginning of this would be, he was right.
As a matter of fact, the capiau affirm this as peremptory, but in this case there was room for mitigations. It is impossible to deny the existence of the chat: but small, discreet, bilobed and little mobile chat — up, down, sideways — and not the scandalous “spring talk, when you walk, you ask for alms”... Furthermore, no one is born papudo or makes a conversation for the sake of it: it is the result of the attempts that the big bush bug makes to itself. make a domestic animal in riverside cafuas, where there are also accomplices, barber comrades, five species, more or less, of armadillos. And, such a modest papuscle, incapable of trying an operator's scalpel, did not make his owner: Turíbio Todo was even friendly: forced to wear a collar and tie, he sometimes seemed even elegant."
My people
"When I came, on this trip, to stay for a while on my uncle Emilio's farm, it wasn't the first time. He already knew that from the bushes on the side of the road, balls made up of hundreds of little ticks flow into people's clothes, which are quickly dispersed, have a thousand cursed stings and are difficult to pick up; that the barely ripe fruit of the cagaiteira, eaten in the hot sun, makes you dizzy like cachaça; that it wasn't worth asking or wanting to take kisses with your cousins; that a tight girth saves trouble on the walk; that to stop in the shade of the aroeirinha is to have a red itchy body pockmarked; that when a horse starts to look longer, the harness is coming out backwards, with its rider; and so away other things. But many more I still had to learn."
Saint Mark
"At that time I lived in Calango-Frito and mm believed in sorcerers.
And the nonsense grew even more, because, already then — and I excluded from the many things that are daring from us all there, and other common schisms such as: spilled salt; priest traveling with us on the train; not to mention lightning: at most, and if the weather is good, “spark”; nor say leprosy; only the “evil”; entry step with left foot; naked neck bird; laughter of a swine; dog, goat and cock, black; and, in the main, ugly woman, a fateful encounter above all; - because, even then, as I was saying, I could confess, in an approximate census: twelve taboos of non-proper use; eight orthodox preventive rules; twenty bad omens; sixteen cases of mandatory beating on wood; ten others demanding the Neapolitan fingernail, but the legitimate one, hiding the head of the thumb well; and five or six more complicated ritual indications; total: seventy-two — nines out, nothing."
Closed body
"José Boi fell off a twenty-metre ravine; he got his hair buried in the ground and broke his neck. But half a minute before, he was completely drunk and also at the height of his career: it was the “square astonishment”, because he had once skirmished a corporal and two soldiers, who could not react, due to be only three. —Did you know him, Manuel Fulô?"
talk of oxen
"That there was a time when they talked, among themselves and with men, is certain and indisputable, as it is well proven in the fairy beetle books. But, today, now, just now, here, there, there, and everywhere, can animals speak and be understood, by you, by me, by the whole world, by anyone child of God? !
— They speak, yes sir, they speak... — says Manuel Timborna, from Porteirinhas, son of the old Timborna, catcher of birds, and father of this infinity of Bellied Timborninhas, who drag long pants and all simulate the same size, the same age and the same good-looking; —Manuel Timborna, who, instead of hunting for work to do, lives talking about inventions only there, things that other people neither know nor want to hear."
Augusto Matraga's Time and Time
"Matraga it's not Matraga, it's nothing. Matraga is Esteves. Augusto Estêves, son of Colonel Afonsão Estêves, from Pindaíbas and Saco-da-Embira. Or Nhô Augusto — the man — on this novena night, at an auction behind the church, in the festivities of the Virgin Nossa Senhora das Dores in Córrego do Murici.
Procession entered, prayer ended. And the auction went fast and ended, embarrassed, because the right people left, almost all at once.
But the auctioneer had stayed in the stall, eating almonds from a cartridge and clearing his throat hoarsely, blocked by a cloying, end-of-the-party crowd.."
Work Analysis
In this regionalist documentary novel, writer Guimarães Rosa uses an innovative and musical language.
Through a vocabulary full of archaisms, popular terms and neologisms, Rosa inserts the figure of the sertanejo into the universe of the Brazilian hinterland.
Minas Gerais is the most mentioned place, although other states in Brazil such as Rio de Janeiro and Goiás are mentioned.
The use of speech figures is recurrent, which gives more expression to the text. Metaphors, metonyms, ellipses, alliterations and onomatopoeias are the ones that stand out the most in the work.
In addition, indirect speech is widely used, so orality is one of the strong characteristics of the work. The psychological time of the characters involved gives the stories a certain linearity of facts.
Curiosity
Guimarães Rosa received two awards for the work Sagarana: Filipe d'Oliveira Award and Humberto de Campos Award
Learn more about the life of the modernist writer: Guimaraes Rosa.
