About book The Discovery Of America By The Turks (2012)
orHow the Arab Jamil Bichara,Tamer of Forests,On a Visit to the City of Itabuna,Seeking Nourishmentfor his Body,Was There OfferedFortune and Marriage;Or Yet Againthe Nuptials of Adma P G Wodehouse meets William Shakespeare ("The Taming of the Shrew") meets the lush, irreverent tropics in this short novel written to mark the 500anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. This is my first read by Amado, and I was pleasantly surprised to see the social issues wrapped up in a laidback, humorous package - a festive mood that appropriately celebrates joy of life and cultural diversity instead of stirring up old controversies: I hope readers will have some fun with the events and incidents leading to Adma's nuptials, which took place in the city of Itabuna at the beginning of cacao culture, in the early years of the century, when the Turks finally discovered America, landed in Brazil, and became Brazilians of the best kind. First of all, the two protagonists are neither of them Turks: one is a Syrian and the other one is a Lebanese, but since the novel is set in 1903 and these two countries were stil part of the Ottoman Empire, it was easier to use one catch all name for these immigrants. In order to make the link to the Columbus festivities (and to throw a couple of barbed arrows at the official historical accounts), the author gave one of the 'Turks' a historical family name:Raduan Murad, a fugitive from justice for vagrancy and gambling, a scholar with seductive prose, revealed to his steerage companion, the Syrian Jamil Bichara, that during sleepless nights bent over beat-up old books about Columbus's first voyage, in the roll of sailors making up the crew of one of the three caravels on that festive excursion, he's discovered the name of a certain Alonso Bichara. Bichara the Moor, signed on maybe, who knows, by a press gang, one of those many heroes forgotten when it was time for celebrations and rewards: The admiral is covered with glory and the crew is covered with shit.(in spite of all his erudition, Raduan Murad had a foul mouth). ttThe immigrants land in an idylic and carefree little town in Bahia that benefits from the sky high prices the rest of the world is willing to pay for the cocoa produced in the region. This abundance is a source of a Belle Epoque characterized by surprisingly loose morals: alcohool, gambling and prostitution are apparently the main occupations of the middle class. While the more serious minded Bichara goes out to the cocoa plantations to make a living, the epicurean Murad remains in town to enjoy life: As for saying, as some did, that he was a sworn enemy of work, holding it in a holy horror, as so frequently happens with educated people, it would be a matter of an obvious injustice and ill will. If, in fact, during his early youth the Professor - that was what many people respectfully called him - stubbornly avoided tasks that were not in line with his intellectual capacity, there was no more assiduous and punctual laborer at the poker table or in any other game of chance. To bring the 'Turks' back together, Amado brings into the equation a wealthy widower merchant with three daughter: two nubile ones chased by all the young men in town and one harpy who makes her father's life miserable by insisting he gives up drinking and wenching every night. If only somebody would come and take Adma off his hands, he would be ready to part with half of his shop. Murad acts as the go-between, but would Jamil Bichara be ready to endure a lifetime of henpecking for a better chance at wealth?This story doesn't need an indepth analysis of motivations and social commentary. Read it as it was intended, as a rose-tinted fable of the integration of immigrants into a young and non-conformist nation. I really liked the prose and the humour of Jorge Amado, so I intend to check out more of his work, after I finish with Louis de Bernieres South American trilogy, another fine example of the exuberant and scandalous habits of these hot blooded people.
originally commissioned as part of a project to celebrate the fifth centennial of america's discovery, the discovery of america by the turks (a descoberta da américa pelos turcos) was to be one of three stories (the others penned by norman mailer and carlos fuentes) included in a book set for wide distribution by various airlines. while the project ultimately never came to fruition, amado later published the novella as a stand-alone work in 1994. translated into english for the first time this year by gregory rabassa (one of two amado translations he has recently completed), this slender yet energetic work finds amado mining familiar themes.set in the early years of the twentieth century throughout the southern lands of amado's own bahia region (the "el dorado of cacao"), the discover of america by the turks concerns the shifting fortunes of jamil and raduan, two arab immigrants newly arrived in brazil. under a thick haze of sexual humidity, this lively tale is rife was passion, lust, and speculative business propositions. with spirited characters aplenty, amado's novella is an entertaining, if somewhat underdeveloped, work.*with a foreword by josé saramago (a selection retranslated from the notebook, a 2009 collection of his blog entries).
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Saramago introduces Amado as the voice and spirit of Brazil-- yet another major world author all but unknown in the US. Given that, I was delighted to find this little novella in an airport bookstore at LaGuardia-- what with delays, it just about covered the flight to Dulles. The story takes place within a community of recent Arab immigrants (mislabeled as Turks by Brazilians) creating new economic and social lives around Brasilia around the turn of the 20th century. From a sociological perspective, this is hardly a thick description-- one doesn't learn all that much about the cultural mores of these folk. The provocative title seems to promise a complex reflection on globalization and colonial histories. There's some of that-- it was originally composed as a contrarian entry for a grand literary tribute to the quincentennial of Columbus. However, the work is mostly a sweetly vulgar adaptation of Taming of the Shrew. Stylistically, however, Amado has more a touch of Rabelais than the Bard, and it is the bawdy fruition of unlikely romance that makes this a satisfying read. Hard to think of a writer in English who can be crass and tender this well. Also notable is an afterward in which Amado's wife explains how she rescued the entire manuscript from the trashbin many years earlier. Amado had written it as one chapter of a longer novel and rejected it for being way too long. Thank god for attentive literary spouses!
—Evan
