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2009 Reading #31: Dôra, Doralina
Apr. 19th, 2009 07:10 pmBooks 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
31. Dôra, Doralina by Rachel de Queiroz. I don't know anything about Brazilian feminist literature, so I have no idea where this novel stands in that canon. It is subtle, not strident, and more a meditation (as I read it) on the life of a woman through the thirties and forties, as told near the end of her life. (The novel was first published in 1975, though it's not clear that's when the story is being told.) Dôra's life is steered first by her mother, a minor landowner in Brazil's interior; widowed around the time of her daughter's birth, she remains in mourning, and has little love and less respect to spare for her daughter. (Dôra's name comes from Maria das Dores, "Our Lady of Sorrows," a constant reminder of her difficult birth.) To escape her mother's influence she marries a local surveyor, only to discover that he is more interested in 1. her inheritance and 2. her mother. When he is killed, she leaves and ends up becoming an actress in a traveling troupe, where she discovers her own sexual power (the power of no, essentially) and eventually meets the Captain, who becomes the love of her life. As she defines herself against and without the people around her she transforms in subtle ways, until her life comes full circle.
At times the style of the book was a bit rambly, which was true to the oral conceit of it, but at times was frustrating, as if de Queiroz wasn't really in control of the narrative. The sections I enjoyed most were those that took part on the fazenda, talking about the reality of life in the interior; most of the Brazilian novels I've read have been set in Bahia or Rio, and almost none of them have been what one could call naturalistic in the way that this book is.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
31. Dôra, Doralina by Rachel de Queiroz. I don't know anything about Brazilian feminist literature, so I have no idea where this novel stands in that canon. It is subtle, not strident, and more a meditation (as I read it) on the life of a woman through the thirties and forties, as told near the end of her life. (The novel was first published in 1975, though it's not clear that's when the story is being told.) Dôra's life is steered first by her mother, a minor landowner in Brazil's interior; widowed around the time of her daughter's birth, she remains in mourning, and has little love and less respect to spare for her daughter. (Dôra's name comes from Maria das Dores, "Our Lady of Sorrows," a constant reminder of her difficult birth.) To escape her mother's influence she marries a local surveyor, only to discover that he is more interested in 1. her inheritance and 2. her mother. When he is killed, she leaves and ends up becoming an actress in a traveling troupe, where she discovers her own sexual power (the power of no, essentially) and eventually meets the Captain, who becomes the love of her life. As she defines herself against and without the people around her she transforms in subtle ways, until her life comes full circle.
At times the style of the book was a bit rambly, which was true to the oral conceit of it, but at times was frustrating, as if de Queiroz wasn't really in control of the narrative. The sections I enjoyed most were those that took part on the fazenda, talking about the reality of life in the interior; most of the Brazilian novels I've read have been set in Bahia or Rio, and almost none of them have been what one could call naturalistic in the way that this book is.