/lit/ - Literature

There is whole genre called the Dictatorship novel.

>>15921967
O Cortiço, Aluísio Azevedo.

It's a fundamental book to understand Brazilians as a people.

t. Brazilian.

open veins of Latin America by Galeano
>inb4 NOOOO NOT THAT COMMIE BOOK

>>15922055
Poderia falar um pouco sobre o livro, anon?

>>15922071
Bullshitt posmodern neomarxism.

>>15922071
Even the author has disavowed that piece of shit, breh

>>15921967
>Casagrande e senzala
If you want to understand Bruhzil
>Facundo
If you want to understand Argentina
>Any economic history book
If you want to understand why the continent is underdeveloped

>>15922071


This is it

>>15922111

Liar liar you're a faggot

"It's proof that writing is good for something, at least for inspiring celebration and protest, applause and also indignation. The book, written ages ago, is still alive and kicking. I am simply honest enough to admit that at this point in my life the old writing style seems rather stodgy, and that it’s hard for me to recognize myself in it since I now prefer to be increasingly brief and untrammeled. [The] voices that have been raised against me and against The Open Veins of Latin America are seriously ill with bad faith."

Bolano's Mexico novels deal with the issue with an implicit critique of the Mexican Revolution and its effects.

Reading order:
Savage Detectives -> Amulet -> By Night in Chile -> Nazi Literature in Americas -> Distant Star -> 2666

If you want only read one, read 2666 with a general history of Mexico.

>>15922055
Read it but it doesn't really go deep down in the fundamental self-loathing and stagnation Latin America as a whole suffer. It's more about poor people living conditions and mentality.
>>15922092
American, do you know it?
>>15922071
Read it, it's just the same commie propaganda that has been stuck in Latin America since forever. I don't see how people still blame capitalism here when almost all latin countries had little to no historic of economic freedom at all.
>>15922298
Thanks, I'll take a look.

>>15921967
The two most famous books "explaining" Brazil are:

- Raízes do Brasil, by Sérgio Buarque de Hollanda.
- Casa Grande e Senzala, by Gilberto Freyre.

The best one, however, is:

- Os Sertões, by Euclides da Cunha, where you can see the sheer madness of the Brazilian people, and the sheer violence with which the government counteracts it.

This >>15922055 is algo a good choice.

If you wish for a more academic book, I'm afraid I can't recommend any, but, essentially, Brazil is underdeveloped because it relies too much on the government, and there's too little space for private enterprise and innovation. In fact, there's too little space for any kind of change, unless it's revolutionary, constitution-overthrowing change, and even then nothing really changes, only the hands which grab the power.
Of course the lefties on this board will deny this, I only wish they had "skin in the game" and actually exchanged places with me, letting me go and live in their houses in the evil US, Japan, or South Korea, while they came to live here, in the "prosperous, welcoming, heart-warming, diverse and gleefully multicultural" Brazil.

A very famous book which I haven't read is Raymundo Faoro's Os Donos do Poder. It seems to me that this might be the very book you are looking for:

>Nas palavras de Raimundo Faoro: "O estamento burocrático comanda o ramo civil e militar da administração e, dessa base, com aparelhamento próprio, invade e dirige a esfera econômica, política e financeira. No campo econômico, as medidas postas em prática, que ultrapassam a regulamentação formal da ideologia liberal, alcançam desde as prescrições financeiras e monetárias até a gestão direta das empresas, passando pelo regime das concessões estatais e das ordenações sobre o trabalho. Atuar diretamente ou mediante incentivos serão técnicas desenvolvidas dentro de um só escopo. Nas suas relações com a sociedade, o estamento diretor provê acerca das oportunidades de ascensão política, ora dispensando prestígio, ora reprimindo transtornos sediciosos, que buscam romper o esquema de controle."

>>15922004
We're shit because of shit economics, not because of dictatorship.

Democracy has come and triumphed, and guess what? We're shittier than ever, and in some countries we don't even feel safe walking in the streets at night anymore, sometimes even at day, depending on the neighborhood.

>>15922341
It isn't for nothing that Brazil might concentrate the biggest amount of Libertarians in the world, now that I come to think about it. I've thought less or more the same you do, fellow comrade do NOVO.

>>15922092
A única coisa que posso dizer é que quando li este livro, no início de 2019, eu simplesmente pensei comigo "é isso mesmo, este é o retrato da população brasileira". Fica difícil explicar além disso. Eu preciso ler mais coisa da literarura brasileira pra ter um panorama maior, mas, pra mim, este é um livro doloroso de tão correto.

Maybe pic related. Read a bit of it and it felt right. I don't have any background in humanities though. If you are thinking mainly about Brazil >>15922341's recommendations are probably a decent start.

>>15922377
I agree.

I am not even sure that I am a libertarian myself, I think I am more of a localist/classical liberal.

The Brazilian state is too big. It's too big even for European standards. It's ridiculously big, and everything about our state apparatus spells backwardness, from the laughably 90's-style websites of our public institutions to the absolute uselessness of so many laws, so many ministries, so many "regulatory agencies".

And the worst thing is how it destroys the small business owners, how it utterly suppresses any attempt at private enterprise, at innovation, at freedom. I am the son of restaurant owners and it's a travesty to see how much my parents have suffered at the hands of the government, how many businesses they've had that failed and wouldn't have failed if they weren't forced to pay so many taxes, or to follow so many useless regulations - or even as the result of economic crises caused by the government.
I wish I could inherit their business, but I can't, it would be too much for me. So here I am, a lawyer, and studying to become yet another useless, parasitic bureaucrat, because it's the only way I will find peace enough to pursue my writing career.
I, who as kid wished to become a scientist, an artist, or an inventor, have now bowed to the system and said: "State, be my master. I am finally ready to become useless."

>>15922496
>It's too big even for European standards
They have relatively small states that are now growing exponentially I would say, their economic freedom is still really high overall, besides the fact it has been decreasing from some decades to now.
>I, who as kid wished to become a scientist, an artist, or an inventor, have now bowed to the system and said: "State, be my master. I am finally ready to become useless."

I feel sorry for you anon, it seems like a miserable path to take. Pequeno dia :thumbsdown:

This is the one

Has anyone read pic related? Is this good?

>>15922730
Looks retarded, if you really want to look into brazillian literature you should just do it yourself.
>>15922586
>>15922488
How so? Can you give me any inside about it?

>>15922298
Mexico is in North America, though.

>>15922371
We're shit because of shit morals. Economics are a consequence.

>>15922298
Are Amulet and Distant Star worthwhile if I'm not particularly interested in the Mexican Revolution?

>>15922730
It's a good book, unfortunately Merquior died before he could finish it

>>15921967
Watch cannibal Holocaust. It's what you're looking for.

>>15921967
"Guia Politicamente Incorreto da História do Brasil"

Every book by José Lins do Rego (specially the sugar cane cicle: Menino de Engenho/Plantation Boy, Doidinho, Banguê, Moleque Ricardo, Usina and Fogo Morto; he's basically the northeast's Balzac)
Every book by Lima Barreto (huge documentation on how Brazil corrupts bright minds to stay on mediocrity; Isaías Caminha, Policarpo Quaresma and Gonzaga de Sá)
Brito Bioca - A Vida Literária no Brasil
Retrato do Brasil, Paulo Prado
Casa Grande e Senzala, by Gilberto Freyre (this is his first book, and for some reason, his most famous; I don't know why, since that was only the beginning, and he went further in sociology and anthropology)

>>15923267
thank you anon

P.S.: Fogo Morto (Dead Fire) is a masterpiece. It's not a part of the sugar cane cycle per se, it's just a revisitation of José Lins of this world after some time. It's tragic, mystic, quixotean, inherently depressing... It is one of the best psychological documents of Brazil.
Just checked the translated names for his books: Plantation Boy, Daffy Boy, Old Plantation, Black Boy Richard, The Sugar Refinery.

>>15922496
Olha o tipo de palhaço com quem vocês se sujeitam a discutir.

>>15923283
This is such a meme and biased series of books that I'm not even sure if you are trolling or not.

>>15923118
Brazil is the worst country to invest into because of high taxes and absurd regulations. This might be related to morals, but the problem is deep rooted in how we built our economy, from the giant sugarcane farmers that dictated laws until nowadays dirty corporativist politics.

>>15923738
>speaking portuguese in an obvious english language based board
seems like you are the clown here friendo.

>>15921967
>and will never become fully developed?
Yeah, like those Germanic tribes that became European civilization and those frontier colonists and poor immigrants that became the United States? Just give them more time. Their big cities produce some pretty great literature and other forms of culture and never lost contact with European culture. They also have local inspiration in the form of natural wonder and native American history. When it comes to international cultural output Latin America is really no worse than East Asia or Eastern Europe and it's better than certain other parts of the world (certainly better than Central Asia or Africa)

>>15923837
Sugarcane anão? Na moral vai estudar você é limitado

>>15923976
>Latin America is really no worse than East Asia or Eastern Europe and it's better than certain other parts of the world (certainly better than Central Asia or Africa)
Are you saying that Latin America is better than those regions because it's more 'westernized'?

>>15923248
Yes. That guy is a double retard. Those books having nothing to do with our BASED Revolution. Also, OP mentioned South and Central American books but Mexico is part of North America.

>>15923738
You're an illiterate ass. I have read more, and in more languages, than you likely ever will.

And learn how to correctly employ your verbs, baboon.

>>15921967
mario ferreira dos santos is based as fuck.

>>15924653
Mama aqui Amoedo concurseiro glub glub

>>15924130
It's not 'westernized.' It has an always-been-western stratum, and a native American stratum. The latter stratum might be said to be westernized or westernizing, but the former stratum never lost its western identity. You can track the unbroken western identity in the big Latin American cities, the culture they've produced. The cool bonus they get though is that they have access to additional things the Europeans don't have access to, namely, a local native culture, and some pretty wonderful natural beauty. The United States and Canada are actually similarly blessed.

>>15923837
Better being poor and just than being rich and evil. What's the purpose of being a high developed nation when degeneracy runs rampant in society? Brazil of nowadays is a result of the Enlightenment and D. Pedro II dug his own grave with the Questão Religiosa.

>>15922938
The specter of Leviathan haunts contemporary images of Latin
America. A large, unwieldy and all-powerful state, it is said,
determines the future of citizens and dictates the thrust of their
lives. In the neoliberal paradigm, there has long been an insistence
that overreliance on the state trapped Latin America in political and
economic mayhem and that the best solution to the continent’s myriad
problems would be the removal of this institutional dead weight. For the past two decades, the dominant policy mantra has been ‘‘getting the state back out.’’ Once free from the omniscient gaze and
monopolistic power of the Leviathan, current wisdom goes, Latin
American civil societies and their markets will flower into peaceful,
prosperous democracies. But where is this Leviathan? Where is the
institution capable of frustrating and oppressing so many? Is it
possible that the Latin American state is capable of so dominating its
citizens’ lives? Despite a great deal of discussion of a
‘‘state-centered matrix,’’ we still know surprisingly little about the
ability of the state in Latin America to do anything. And what we do
know points in the opposite direction of the familiar neoliberal
beliefs. What is this institutional creature supposed to look like?
Far too many pages have been written in defining this concept to
necessitate a long discussion here of its various interpretations and
epistemologies. In this book, the state is defined as the permanent
institutional core of political authority on which regimes rest and
depend. It is permanent in that its general contours and capacities
remain constant despite changes in governments. It is
institutionalized in that a degree of autonomy from any social sector
is assumed. Its authority is widely accepted within society over and
above debate regarding specific policies. While the nature of its
agency may be problematic, it does possess enough coherence to be
considered an actor within the development of a society. That is, even
if we may not speak of the state ‘‘wanting’’ or ‘‘thinking,’’ we can
identify actions and functions associated with it. On the most basic
level, the functions of a state include the provision and
administration of public goods and the control of both internal and
external violence. How has the Latin American state performed,
according to our definition? The results have generally been less than
exemplary. Latin American states have regularly failed to establish
their institutional autonomy; their scale and scope remain a part of
daily political debate; and their legitimacy is often called into
question. We consistently also find that the Latin American state has
not had the required institutional capacity to perform even a limited
set of tasks.

Here are the first pages.

>>15921967