Remote Brazil in transition

Press, 8 February 1986, Page 20

Remote Brazil in transition

Gabriela: Clove and Cinnamon. By Jorge Amado. Abacus, 1985. 426 pp. $17.95 (paperback). (Reviewed by Ralf Unger) First published in 1962, this story of a small provincial town in the Brazil of 1925 at first gives the stilted impression of a moral-pointing fairy tale. However, once one becomes immersed in the culture-pocket it describes, there is created a delightful picture of the comings and goings of individuals that make up a community in transition from a feudal hierarchy to an attempt at democracy. The town of Ilheus is dominated by the cocoa plantation owners, former “colonels” who led bands of brigands. If one of their occasional mistresses is philandering with another man, their accepted right is to kill both mistress and lover without fear of penalty. One has his Gloria sitting all day and evening at a window,, untouchable, with her breasts proudly on show for poets to dream of, and for customers at the local bar to have something to contemplate while they get drunk.

The changes start to come about with engineers planning a way to open the harbour for larger ships, and young ambitious politicians challenging the standing of the “colonels” in their control of legislation and the lives of men and their women. Into this changing tide of feelings comes Gabriela from the backblocks of Brazil, with her kind heart and full giving of her voluptuous body, her culinary gifts of a high order, and her innocence of the intrigues of male politics. Her love affair with the fat innkeeper is a masterly understatement of two people seeking satisfaction and fulfilment with each other, but having to conform to a traditionally accepted pattern of behaviour between different classes. Amado has been politically active in Brazil and apparently has written several books on the struggle for freedom, but this description of a fully alive, ever-changing pattern, of a community far away in time and place, is a most enjoyable piece of involved observation.