“The Words That Remain” by Stênio Gardel

Here's the book that won the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature. When I first started reading, it was more out of a sense of duty than anything else (tempered a bit by curiosity). I wanted to compare it to Sam's translation and decide for myself which one should have won. 

If I had judged only by the first few pages, I would have given this book a strong thumbs down based on the commas alone. OMG, the commas. There were WAY too many of them. (But, oof, what do you do when you've met the author and the translator, even if very briefly, and they both seemed like such sweet and kind people? Well, I'll tell you what I do. First, I tell myself they'll probably never come across this blog post anyway. Second, I tell myself . . . they won the National Book Award. That should more than make up for anything negative I might have to say about their book!) 

Anyway, commas: I know that French writing seems to aggressively overuse commas and has far fewer periods (and thus longer sentences) than English writing. My guess would be that Portuguese is the same way. And my first instinct was to assume that the translator adhered far too faithfully to the Portuguese syntax when translating this book into English, making for awkward reading. Not to mention there was a sprinkling of what had to have been typos, and some awkward, foreign-seeming word choices. (Yes, life in Brazil is foreign to me, but this book was about Brazilians living in Brazil and they shouldn't sound foreign to each other.)

However, soon it did not matter. The story was very intense, full of sadness and tragedy, and by about halfway through it was really very compelling. It starts when Raimundo is an old man who has finally learned how to read and write. Now, at long last, he is able to read the letter that his young lover, Cicero, had written to him decades earlier. But first we go back to Raimundo's teenaged life, so that we can grow up with him. I found the story very evocative of the experience of a gay man in a time and place when finding acceptance was difficult, even impossible. The shame he is made to bear is in conflict with his internal feelings: how can something that feels so pure and right be something to be ashamed of?

And I got used to all the commas. It came to seem integral to the story, told in a breathless, fervent way, and if I tried to imagine shorter sentences I couldn't. It would have been a very different book, and I'm not sure I can say it would have been a better one.

Spoiler alert: we never get to read the letter! I can understand this choice, though. Most obviously, the letter was private. If  Raimundo never let anyone in his life read the letter, why should he allow me, a total stranger, to read it? But also--I feel like no matter what the letter said it would have been some sort of disappointment or letdown. One step further, though: it is not clear to me that Raimundo even reads the letter. He definitely opens the envelope. He definitely could have read the letter. But did he?