A Luso-Tropical Holy Grail

“Ah! just so lazy!” goes the catchphrase of Macunaíma, the protagonist of Mário de Andrade’s eponymous 1928 novel. This major work of Brazilian modernist fiction, first published in English in 1984, has gained a new life in Katrina Dodson’s recent translation. In this sprawling, absurdist novel, the title character’s quest to recover a cherished amulet takes him on an odyssey from the Amazon rainforest to the bustling city of São Paulo and back again, during which Macunaíma encounters all manner of figures from Brazilian history, popular folklore, indigenous mythology, and Andrade’s own imagination. Is the hero’s frequent expression of lethargy an indictment of a uniquely Brazilian indolence, a stubborn backwardness impeding the modernization that the political elites of Andrade’s time so desperately desired? Or does it suggest a sly wisdom regarding the futility of exerting oneself when sensual pleasures are closer at hand than the spoils of hard work? Dodson’s rendering of the phrase captures this ambiguity (in the previous English edition, the phrase is translated by E.A. Goodland as “Aw! What a fucking life!”), one acutely perceived by many a Brazilian who has wondered about the meaning of the positivist motto emblazoned on their country’s flag: Order and Progress.