The Writer
By Regina Zilberman*
“Childhood is important. It is always a good place for a writer to start telling his story.”
Moacyr Jaime Scliar was born March 23, 1937, in Porto Alegre (RS). His parents, Jose and Sara, were Europeans who emigrated to America in search of a better life. As Jews, they had been victims of persecution in their homeland, and Brazil was seen as a nation that welcomed those who came to it in a friendly and promising way.
Scliar spent the bulk of his childhood in the Porto Alegre neighborhood of Bom Fim. It was home to most of the Jews who chose to live in the state capital. He was taught to read and write by his mother, who was a primary school teacher.
He began his formal education in 1943, attending the School of Education and Culture, known as the Yiddish school. In 1948, he transferred to Colégio Rosário to begin high school, completing it at Júlio de Castilhos State High School.
His first experiences with literature date back to his school days. It was also during this time period that he received a literary prize, the first of many to follow during his life.
Professionally, however, he turned to medicine, entering the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in 1955. Medicine was also the subject of his first novel, Histórias de um médico em formação (Stories of a doctor in training), published in 1962, the year he graduated from UFRGS. From then on, the two careers – writer and doctor – were pursued together, complementing each other.
“I grew up in a very Jewish neighborhood with a vibrant community life, at a time when a generation of immigrant children was being born.”
A guerra no Bom Fim (The War in Bom Fim) was published in 1972 and imported some of the characteristics suggested in The Carnival of the Animals. It was at this time that an orientation towards the fantasy genre is fully embraced, as is the portrayal of the Porto Alegre setting promised by the novel’s title. Another promise from the earlier work is fulfilled: this one is populated by characters of Jewish descent. However, they are transformed from minor characters into protagonists who dominate the narrative. The main character, as we’ve seen, is Joel, but at his side are family, friends, and neighbors, united by Jewish ethnicity, their origins (having emigrated from Central Europe to southern Brazil), and their life in Bom Fim.
The knowledge derived from activities related to medicine and public health appears in novels and essays. Doutor Miragem (Doctor Mirage), published in 1978, tells the story of the character identified in the novel’s title, who through his chosen profession seeks to achieve a high position in society, at the cost of abandoning ethical principles. If, with Felipe, the protagonist of Doutor Miragem, Scliar denounces the pragmatism of his peers, with Osvaldo Cruz, the central figure of Sonhos tropicais (Tropical dreams), from 1992, the writer exposes the idealistic side of the profession, narrating the life of the doctor who dedicated himself to fighting infectious diseases such as yellow fever and smallpox in early 20th century Brazil.
In essay collections such as Do mágico ao social (From the magical to the social) and Cenas médicas (Medical scenes), both from 1987, he gives voice to a thinker who reflects on the changes in medicine and its practices. After that, in A paixão transformada (The transformation of passion), he shows how literature has portrayed the subject in works of fiction, once again combining the two sides of his professional life.
However, it is his Jewish background as the son of European immigrants that provides the writer with the wealth of experience that fertilizes his work, from the first to the last novels.
Moacyr Scliar belonged to the generation of Brazilian Jews whose parents left Europe in the early decades of the 20th century, seeking in America the opportunity to not only prosper socially and financially, but above all, to find a welcoming country where they would not be victims of prejudice and racism.
The writer thus belonged to a group of people who simultaneously shared two different, but not necessarily antagonistic, cultural realities: on the one hand, that of an heir to Jewish and European tradition, characterized by an appreciation of knowledge and writing, summed up in the reading of the Pentateuch, the bedrock of the Hebrew trajectory in the Ancient World; on the other hand, that of a member of a society marked by economic inequalities, but in a state of constant transformation in its effort to progress, sometimes generous, sometimes repressive, but inevitably restless and ever-changing.
Two other novels, Os deuses de Raquel (The Gods of Raquel) (1975) and O ciclo das águas (The Water Cycle) (1977), continue the representation of Jewish life in Porto Alegre. The Gods of Raquel moves the character to another neighborhood in the city of Porto Alegre: the Parthenon, whose classical name only emphasizes the idiosyncrasies highlighted in the work, embodied in the behavior of the protagonist. The Water Cycle, also set in Porto Alegre, delves deeper into a process already manifested in The War in Bom Fim: the generation gap between immigrants who have preserved their ethnicity, and Brazilian-born Jews who want to assimilate and erase any signs linking them to an ethnicity that is not always valued.
“We use our imaginations to fill in the gaps in our lives, to provide explanations for things we don’t understand, to retrace paths, and to understand the past.”
This tone reaches one of its high points in the 1980 publication of O centauro no jardim (The Centaur in the Garden). In the narrative of Guedali Tartakovsky’s trajectory, we can see the fundamental characteristics of Scliar’s fiction. One is the use of elements of fantasy, in this case, the crafting of a character who is no less human for being a centaur. Another is the presence of Jewish culture, divided among the heirs to Europe’s past and those who have adapted to Brazilian life and are forced to choose between these two realities.
Two other novels, A estranha nação de Rafael Mendes (The Strange Nation of Rafael Mendes), published in 1983, and Cenas da vida minúscula (Scenes from a tiny life) (1991), complete this cycle. The first emphasizes the historical perspective, highlighting Jews’ involvement in Brazilian history, an involvement also marked by persecution and trouble adapting. The second revisits aspects of The Centaur in the Garden since it emphasizes the narrative’s place in fantasy literature. But, by importing characters from the Old Testament, such as King Solomon, Scliar paved the way for the series of plots that featured biblical characters that would dominate the last ten years of his literary career.
Yet, the novelist did not abandon the short story, with which he began his career as a writer, eventually seeing the publication of five short-story collections. A balada do falso Messias (The Ballad of the False Messiah) (1976) marks his return to the short story genre, setting the narratives (except for the one that gives the novel its title) in the urban and contemporary world. The collections Histórias da terra trêmula (The Tremulous Earth) (1976), O anão no televisor (The Dwarf in the Television Set) (1979), O olho enigmático (The Enigmatic Eye) (1986), and A orelha de Van Gogh (Van Gogh’s Ear) (1989) define Scliar’s contributions to the genre, as does the previously mentioned choice of minimalism. Another of his hallmarks is the presence of characters who eschew normal everyday life. They portray anomalies that symptomatically reflect ethical or psychological deviations caused by a violent and unequal society.
These short stories criticize capitalist society, whose perverseness is embodied in the behavior or extravagant appearance of the heroes. The Jewish theme hovers in the background, demonstrating the pluralism of issues explored by the writer.
This pluralism is also evident in his other novels and novellas, in which two distinct themes can be identified. In one of them, Scliar draws on his experience as a doctor and medical researcher to create characters who are emblematic of his profession.
The social and activist aspects of medicine are on display in another novel, Sonhos tropicais (Tropical dreams) (1992). Focused on the career of Osvaldo Cruz, champion in the fight for a vaccine to protect against yellow fever and smallpox in Rio de Janeiro in the early 20th century, Scliar describes the difficulties faced by the idealistic professional. The writer’s knowledge of these issues is evident not only in his other novels, but also in the short stories and essays that appeared in the local press, later published in Do mágico ao social (From the magical to the social) (1987), Cenas médicas (Medical scenes) (1987) and A paixão transformada (The transformation of Passion) (1996).
Another line of action in Scliar’s work concerns his approach to political issues, especially those that played an important role in Brazil’s history. In Mês de cães danados (Mad dog month) (1970), the writer describes the 1961 incident known as “The Legality Campaign” when the people of Rio Grande do Sul mobilized to ensure the inauguration of Joa o Goulart as President of the Republic, succeeding Jânio Quadros, who had resigned. In Cavalos e obeliscos (Horses and obelisks) published in 1981, Scliar again goes back in time to describe the public’s participation in the Revolution of 1930. Max e os felinos (Max and the Cats) published that same year, places the political theme in a broader geographical context, as the protagonist comes from Europe and is faced with the oppressive nature of power, which he is forced to confront as a way to guarantee his identity. In A festa no castelo (Party at the castle) (1982) episodes arising from the 1964 Brazilian coup d’e tat hint at the novel’s background.
Scliar’s last novel, Eu vos abraço, milhões (I embrace you, all of you) published in 2010, also belongs to this group. Setting the action in the 1930s, when Getúlio Vargas was coming to power and taking control of the country, the novelist tells the story of a left-wing character, who is initially seduced by communist ideology, but gradually becomes disillusioned with the Party’s bureaucracy, the difficulties of turning words into action, and the inaccessibility of its leaders.
“The short story is a direct expression of human nature and the desire for literary perfection.”
Short stories, novels and novellas suggest that Judaism was not the only focus of Moacyr Scliar’s work. But there is no doubt that issues related to Hebrew ethnicity, its history, traditions, and personalities were present at every stage of his journey. In Os voluntários (The volunteers) (1979), it is a return to Jerusalem, the Zionist goal of one of the characters, that drives the plot, with failure being the sign that it is an arduous task for everyone, Jews and non-Jews alike. In A majestade do Xingu (The majesty of the Xingu) (1997), Scliar compares two characters in order to illustrate the two paths offered to Jewish immigrants: business, limited and frustrating, embodied by the protagonist and narrator; and political activism, described through the actions of Noel Nutels, the doctor and indigenist who dedicated his life to his ideals. In Na noite do ventre, o diamante (In the night of the womb, the diamond) (2005), immigrants are also the main characters of the plot in which people fight for freedom as they try to escape the Nazi threat.
In A mulher que escreveu a Bíblia (The woman who wrote the Bible) (1999), Os vendilhões do templo (The merchants of the Temple) (2006), and Manual da paixão solitária (Manual of the solitary passion) (2008), Scliar made his definitive contribution to Jewish-themed Brazilian literature. These novels are based on iconic figures from the Bible: Solomon, Jesus, and Onan. However, figures from the historical or mythical past are not the focus of the plots. Revisiting the narrative process he experimented with in (Tropical dreams) and (The majesty of the Xingu) Scliar presents them in a secondary way, from the perspective of another character, much closer to readers.
In (The woman who wrote the Bible) and (Manual of the solitary passion), the story is told through the eyes of a woman. In (The merchants of the Temple) the story is told from the perspective of the modest and anonymous merchant of sacred objects, whose table was overturned by Jesus during a visit to the synagogue in Jerusalem. The effect of these encounters, however, is quintessential and can be creative, as in the case of the young writer of the Holy Scriptures, or devastating, as in the case of the merchant. But it is never indifferent. It allows Scliar to reflect on the consequences of actions by extraordinary people on ordinary people, who when faced with historical milestones don’t always know how to react.
In addition to demonstrating the pluralism and diversity of his writing, Scliar has dedicated himself to multiple genres. Short stories, novels, novellas and essays stand alongside chronicles, as exemplified by A massagista japonesa (The Japanese masseuse) (1984); or his experience with comic strips, as in Pega pra Kaputt! (Get ready for kaputt!) (1977) (a writing project he shared with Josue Guimara es, Luis Fernando Verissimo, and Edgar Vasques).
He was also responsible for a great number of books for children and young adults, some of which were memoirs, such as Memórias de um aprendiz de escritor (Memoirs of a writer’s apprentice) (1984). Others were of a historical nature, such as Os Cavalos da República (The horses of the Republic) (1989) and O Rio Grande Farroupilha (The Farroupilha Rio Grande) (1995); not to mention adaptations of Brazilian classics, such as Câmera na mão, o Guarani no coração (Camera in hand, the Guarani in the heart) (1998), O mistério da casa verde (The Mystery of the green house) (2000) and O sertão vai virar mar (The Backlands will become sea) (2002). But most of them came from his imagination, allowing him to interact with teenage readers who loved O tio que flutuava (The floating uncle) (1988), Uma história só pra mim (A tale just for me) (1994), and O irmão que veio de longe (The brother from far away) (2002), among many other entertaining stories, rich in fantasy.
“I remember the reader I was in my youth, looking at books for pleasure, entertainment, and for answers to life’s problems. I hope readers find the same in my books.”
Children’s literature is another genre to which Scliar was devoted. In most of his books, the protagonists experience existential situations that prove crucial to their upbringing. Children try to win the affection of their parents and siblings, and adolescents seek self-affirmation and a way to strengthen their identity. Because Scliar wants readers to identify with the characters through whom they learn to understand their own aspirations, he creates fictional characters who are the same age as the readers.
In addition, characters’ personalities are well defined, which does not stop them from expressing problems they are not always fully aware of, until such problems become apparent and are solved, sometimes thanks to the hero’s own efforts, sometimes thanks to the generosity of a supportive adult (father, uncle, family friend, teacher).
Scliar was awarded several literary prizes, including three Jabuti Awards (in the categories “Novel” and “Short Story, Chronicle and Novella”); the Sa o Paulo Association of Art Critics Award in 1989, in the “Literature” category; and the Casa de las Americas Prize in 1989, in the “Short Story” category. His works have been translated into many languages, increasing readership to England, Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden, Norway, France, Germany, the United States, the Netherlands, and Spain.
In 1993 and 1997, he was a visiting professor at Brown University and the University of Texas, both in the United States.
After suffering a stroke in January 2011, Moacyr Scliar died on February 27. According to his publisher, Luiz Schwarcz, “he had a unique eye with which he created a fantastic world where humans were always at the service of literature.”
Moacyr wrote for the newspapers Zero Hora and Folha de S.Paulo and several of his books were adapted into movies. In 2003 he was elected to the Brazilian Academy of Letters. According to writer Luiz Anto nio de Assis Brasil, “every reader of Scliar’s work has their own favorite genre. But more than anything, whether in his fiction, his essays or his chronicles, everyone recognizes his deeply humanist style, which makes him the embodiment of universal values.”
Experienced in the field of literature, as well as in healing his patients and dealing with health issues, Moacyr Scliar is a writer for young people to love and everyone to admire.
* PhD in Romanistics from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. She is currently an adjunct professor at the Institute of Languages and Literature of UFRGS, working in the Graduate Program in Languages and Literature.
