GEZELLIG

I have been recommending this book to my Brazilian friends.

The book is "Brazil" written by an American author John Updike. I have no clue how did he was able to grasp the idea about Brazil, but I felt that he knows. I felt that this is a truly Brazil he is talking about.

this what I have wrote as the review on this book:  

Tristan and Isolde is boring and you might think you know all about them. But John Updike showed us the new recipe to cook the oldies. So take two soak in Rio between favelas and Leblon, until they become cariocas, add feijoada, spice all with a bit of sliced saudade and you get something special. You can see Updike did his homework. He knows what is saudade, who is morena, and why the lower and middle classes do not mix. The love of those two is pitiful, the ending is powerful … very in Russian style. Will I read it again? well, NO … I don’t like this kind of endings … it’s like if you have waited for Sunday to play outside, and instead of it, you have to go in and do homework … disappointing. What this kind of literature is good for is that it makes you think. Too bad that modern people does not fancy doing it anymore

I found it is rather typical for Brazilian writers to portrait the sluts women that do what they feel like doing. Maybe it is the hotness of the weather made Brazilian people horny constantly looking for some physical contacts?

Maybe it is the "easy-goingness" as the life-style made them care less, about old fashioned moral? Saying to person that you hardly know "bj", "te amo", "te adoro", "muito saudades" with the face that they really believe in what they saying, than turning away and never think about this again. This all makes the words cheap, does it also provoke the slutty easy-going behavior, and the writers  has nothing but to portrait it?

Trying to recall the Russian literature, we have rare prostitutes/sluts in the book as the heroines …. I am Russian, solving the Brazilian attitude puzzle. Eu gosto Brazil, but I would not very appreciative as Russian, if my boyfriend will be getting all those ‘te amo’ from everyone (female) around… too Russian, damn conventional. Most of the time mean what I say. But Brazilians somehow managed to solve this dilemma of "meaning-what-you-say", and can live with this. Interesting, is not it?

Seems like Updike could solve /or understand/ it too. That is why so fantastic book was written.