When the fantastic meets humor, the result is, to say the least, unusual, surprising, and unexpected, especially if self-deprecating Jewish humor is taken to the extreme, halfway between despair and irony. Add to this: well-controlled doses of eroticism, the sacred (and a constant temptation to desecrate it) and a certain jocular quality, and we have all the main ingredients that make up the art of storyteller Moacyr Scliar.
Such a simple mix, of course, is not enough to create a good story or to please readers. This depends exclusively on the talent of the author, the skill with which he controls the narrative technique, his mischievous view of the world, the choice of themes and a certain cruelty with which he treats the characters, in contrast to his compassion for the human condition. Contradiction is the hallmark of the human being. Scliar’s universe is populated by human beings, or tormented by human feelings, whether they are mere mortals, a dwarf who lives inside a television set, or a corpse lying on a morgue table, evaluating and judging the medical students who dissect its body.
An unusual situation coupled with a realistic description results in a change in the perspective of the story, its development as an apology or parable of the modern world. Of course, when talking about the present day, violence, the cruelty of man towards his fellow man, and the overuse of sex as an element of domination, everything has to be present.
Another major aspect of Scliar’s fiction is Jewish immigrant life, the difficulties faced in adapting, and their persistence in maintaining habits brought from very different societies. All of this, as Regina Zilbermann observes in the preface, is approached with veiled tenderness, constituting the most powerful form of Scliar’s art in assuming its own individuality and meaning.
