JURANDIR, Dalcídio. Chão dos lobos. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 1976.
Edmon Neto
Illustrated by Francisco Dalcastagnè Miguel
Translated by Svea Morrell
Ninth in a series of ten novels known as the Ciclo Extremo-Norte (Extreme North Cycle), Chão dos lobos (Floor of Wolves), published in 1976, narrates the excursions of young Alfredo through the streets of the suburbs of Belém, Pará. Frequently confused with the author himself, Dalcídio Jurandir (Ponta de Pedras, PA, 1909 – Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 1979), the protagonist’s story has been told since the debut novel, Chove nos campos de Cachoeira (It Rains in the Fields of Cachoeira), in 1941. The village referred to in the title is located on Marajó Island, where Dalcídio grew up, a place that returns in subsequent novels via Alfredo’s memory. Together, the ten volumes are part of a long narrative project of Amazonian expression of the 20th century.
Chão dos lobos tunes into the representations of urban space in Belém and, more specifically, to Não-se-assuste (Don’t-be-scared), a place close to the peripheral ranch where Alfredo lives. The ranch is a set of houses and stilt houses built in the middle of the pitiú (bad smell) of the sewers where all sorts of individuals stigmatized by society reside. The reader also is introduced to the ports of Belém, where the working class of both land and water transit. One worker is Alfredo’s friend and fellow countryman, Biá, from the “cauldron of fevers,” a character aware of social inequalities and attentive to historical struggles, asking: “Where are you, Guamá, with your cabanos?,” in reference to the Cabanagem in the Regency Period (1835-1840), when the oppressed people managed to take relatively stable power in a province.
The ten-book cycle is not constructed in a linear manner. The events of various books are taken up again, overall, in the last two books in the series which ends with Ribanceira, from 1978. Apparently paradoxical, the introduction to Chão dos lobos commences with a shortened prayer “Always absent from School, never missed classes,” a puzzling phrase, as it points to inconceivable ideas. It happens that the prayer immediately refers to a question which will be addressed in the unfolding of the narrative: the knowledge mobilized by Alfredo, while thinking for the first time as a professor, is of a noninstitutionalized order. Finally, the school is a place in which the protagonist had a problematic relationship as a student.
Alfredo studies at Liceu da cidade, but his formal schooling was compromised due to a series of issues, addressed in the novel with a directly critical stance towards education. This tension critiques institutionalized learning and, instead, supports knowledge more influenced by social, cultural, and anthropological specificities, which also integrate the ideology of the author who was affiliated with the communist struggle. This becomes evident when Alfredo is invited by his teacher, Miss Nivalda (whose school is her own house and the rent is paid for by the state), to run, in a way that is almost mandated, a classroom as the head teacher or multi-grade teacher: “Take over. Take over. I expect everything from your brilliance.” Inexperienced and insecure, Alberto fails to connect with his students, and his reencounter with his childhood crush, Roberta, does not help. This failure marks the end of the novel’s first part, or “lot,” the term used by researcher and professor Fernando Farias to suggest that Dalcídio Jurandir’s work could be measured in hectares.
A torrential rain creates the transition into the second lot, starring Miss Nivalda and her husband, Mr. Amanajás. Using a digressive rhythm that suggests the sailing of boats and stops in riverside towns, she narrates their travels through parts of the Amazon River, the surprising things they saw: the exploitation of men, the child labor of the boys carrying firewood, the prostitution of women, all of these stories recounted by the couple. Amanajás, on the one hand, a rude and sarcastic man, who despises his wife’s work as a teacher and the schooling offered to the younger generation, on the other hand, is the one who teaches about rivers and about “riverside” life in different ways. In one of the stops, at Miss Quitéria’s boarding house in the village of Guimarães, the narrative takes on satirical overtones when the morality of three Catholic women, Miss Enilda, Miss Generosa and Miss Quitéria, is tested by the attributes of a religious man who inhabited their imagination: “Just look at that friar’s mouth.” In addition, the Valência dances, very famous in Guimarães, highlight the lascivious talent of men and women in search of amusements of the flesh.
In the third narrative lot, the reader dives into the bull and the bird festivals, with their songs, cowboys, food and drinks, with an entire Amazonian tradition as recorded by folklorist Bruno de Menezes, who is also a modernist poet from Pará and an influence to Dalcídio Jurandir. As the festival time draws near, Alfredo coordinates his activities with Miss Nivalda’s students while Roberta, who has captivated him ever since they met at school, brings to light several childhood memories in Marajó through flashbacks that alternate with Roberta’s current dissimulation. Even though his interest in Roberta is practically the reason he goes to school every day, Alfredo, under the teacher’s watchful eye, perceives the cultural festivals as something to offer that is different from the usual suffering of those who are subjugated by wolves. If it were not for Roberta’s refusal to participate as a fairy in the boi-bumbá show, perhaps Alfredo could have started to build a more expressive performance as a school teacher. In the end, Roberta takes a trip to a rubber factory and writes a note banning Alfredo from any romantic expectations, leading to his disillusionment and decision to leave Belém. Saying goodbye to the capital in the wake of its folk tradition, Alfredo embarks on a voyage along the Brazilian coast until reaching the city of Rio de Janeiro. This happens in the fourth and last lot of the novel, creating an even more erratic outcome for the protagonist, whose actions are influenced by the recent events as well as the relationships made during his journey and his stay in Rio. Chão dos lobos exposes the decadence of the city of Belém in the mid-20th century through an incidental cartography created by the wanderings of young Alfredo in the peripheral spaces that are taxed by invisible wolves of an urban latifúndio. It is worth noting that the events that occur with Alfredo and other characters only deepen their difficult-to-understand subjectivities. This is a reading that requires time, research, and concentration in order to enjoy and take pleasure in the aesthetic experience of Dalcidian “aquonarrativa (narration of water),” as defined by Paulo Nunes regarding the novelist’s style. The events of the ninth book of the Ciclo Extremo-Norte series will still influence the protagonist in Ribanceira, as Alfredo continues his search for self-understanding
Further Reading
FARIAS, Fernando (Org.) (2022). Chão de Dalcídio: perspectivas. Belém: Dalcídio Jurandir.
FARIAS, Fernando (2019). Todo filho é pródigo: bateção de pernas do flâneur Alfredo, em Chão dos Lobos. In: JURANDIR, Dalcídio. Chão dos Lobos. Bragança: Pará.grafo. p. 7-20.
NUNES, Paulo (2023). Aquonarrativa ou o encharcar-se na poética de Dalcídio Jurandir. Disponível em: https://docplayer.com.br/42655672-Aquonarrativa-ou-o-encharcar-se-na-poetica-de-dalcidio-jurandir-paulo-nunes-1.html#google_vignette. Acesso em: 29 out. 2023
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