Galvez, imperador do Acre

by Márcio Souza

With his three mistresses, Dom Luiz Galvez, a turn of the century Brazilian journalist, establishes a revolutionary rubber kingdom in the heart of the Amazon

Genres: Fiction, Brazil, Portuguese Literature, Latin American, Historical Fiction, Novels, Adventure

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Márcio Gonçalves Bentes de Souza (Manaus, 4 de março 1946) era um jornalista, dramaturgo, editor, diretor de teatro e ópera, roteirista e romancista brasileiro.

Estudou Ciências Sociais na Universidade de São Paulo e escreveu críticas de cinema e artigos em diversos jornais e revistas brasileiras, como Senhor, Status, Folha de S.Paulo e A Crítica. Em 1976, lançou seu primeiro romance, Galvez: imperador do Acre, sucesso de crítica e de vendas. Como administrador, foi diretor de planejamento da Fundação Cultural do Amazonas, diretor da Biblioteca Nacional e presidente da Funarte. Foi professor assistente na Universidade de Berkeley e escritor residente nas universidades de Stanford, Austin e Dartmouth. Dirigiu o Teatro Experimental do Sesc (Tesc) do Amazonas.

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Edited and pictures added 9/20/2021)

A bouncing romp through the Amazon rubber boom. An adventure story, part historical novel and part farce, set in the rubber boom world of the Amazon basin in the very late 1800s. Our main character is quite a ladies’ man. He prefers married women, especially young ones married to elderly wealthy gentlemen, but in a pinch, the mayor’s wife, a stage actress, or a wayward nun will do. So there’s a lot of farcical episodes of sneaking out of bedroom windows and being on the run from the police and angry husbands.



The main character gets involved in intrigue over the disposition of the rubber-rich Amazon province of Acre – will it go to Brazil or to Bolivia and how and why is the United States flexing its muscles in this matter? Our main character ends up as ‘King for a Day’ of this territory, well, for a few months anyway, until this house of intrigue collapses around him. This is the historical part of the novel, in part based on real-life events known as the Acre Revolution of 1899 when the Brazilian rubber growers in Acre revolted against Bolivian control.



The book is a humorous romp and a quick read written in a lively style and in very short segments or mini-chapters, usually one to several paragraphs with descriptive section titles reminiscent of old British works such as “An Uneasy Bolivian,” “To the Dining Room,” “Curtain Call,” and so on.



This book was written in 1977 and translated from (Brazilian) Portuguese. The author, a Brazilian journalist born in Manaus, on the Amazon River in 1946, has made his writing career on a dozen or so novels, like this one, a work of fiction based in part on historical events in the Amazon River basin. This book and Mad Maria, are his two best-known works in English. From what I can tell on GR, it looks like only four or so of his books are available in English.

Top photo of the Amazon from news.climate.columbia.edu
Historic photo of Brazilian rubber workers from america.aljazeera.com
The author from pwf.cz/archivy/

[Basak Altincekic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yazarin ilk kitabı olması şaşırttı, bayağı usta işi duruyor bence bu bir. Yazdığı her karakter hayli komik olmakla beraber çok da sahici bu iki. (Tanidigim Amazon yerlileri hep böyleler, evet) Dünyanın en eğlenceli devrim hikayelerinden biri olabilir bu da üç ve son. Marcio Souza ismini yazdım bir kenara kitaplarının yeni çevirileri bekliyorum böyle👀👀

[Zuberino · Rating 4 out of 5]

A curious little book by the Brazilian writer Marcio Souza who has a certain renown as one of the leading literary figures of the Amazon. This was his first novel published back in the 1970s; my Abacus edition, translated wonderfully by Thomas Colchie, dates from 1982.

What's it all about? Essentially it's a picaresque adventure - the story of one Luis Galvez, a native of Cadiz seeking his fortune in South America during the rubber boom of the late 1890s. Souza adopts the “Flashman” conceit, claiming that he discovered these unpublished memoirs in manuscript form in a second-hand bookstall in Paris and took it upon himself to edit and publish the narrative. The result is a novel that is so packed with action and amorous adventure that it feels much longer than its 190-odd pages.

Galvez is a ladies’ man in the best picaresque tradition – suave and amoral, he doesn’t take himself too seriously, looks at the world with a jaundiced eye, and has the happy knack of being in the right place at the right time. When the story opens in July 1898 in the Amazonian city of Belem, he is merrily banging a married Creole lady when the husband rudely interrupts. Galvez hurls himself pell-mell out of the bedroom window - and lands right on top of Senor Luiz Trucco, Bolivian diplomat, then in the process of being mugged by three desperadoes!

Soon enough, Galvez finds himself drawn into an international intrigue, thanks to the charms of the mysterious, impetuous Cira Chermont. Bolivia and the United States have unholy designs on the remote rubber-rich jungles of Acre; the Brazilians for their part are determined to foil any territorial conspiracy hatched by the imperialists. And so Galvez is co-opted into a labyrinthine plot, involving stolen documents and diplomatic scheming. Having disrupted the opening night of Aida, performed by a visiting French operatic troupe, he finds himself having to hustle out of Belem under cover of dark, ending up as a stowaway on a boat full of Catholic nuns that is floating down the Amazon.

Souza’s prose is arch and amusing, but his form is also highly unorthodox, consisting of short staccato paragraphs, each of which is its own chapter complete with headings like “Latifoliate Forest Primeval”, “Surprise!”, “Of Love and Latex”, and “Phileas Fogg”. There are literally several hundred of these, which can be distracting. Then there are the editorial intrusions, whenever Souza feels that the Galvez manuscript is veering off too far into untruth and needs a corrective! Either way, it all makes for a rather complex reading experience, and I am inclined to believe that this is one of those books where the reader would gain much from a second reading.

That river journey down the Amazon from Belem to Manaus was, for me, the most enjoyable section of the novel. Souza at his best can be as filthy and funny as Smollett. His hero runs into the aptly named Sir Henry Lust, an English naturalist who is convinced that the Teatro Amazonas was built by a race of aliens and who has an eye-popping collection of native Indian genitalia pickled in formaldehyde.

Galvez also has a fine eye for boomtown excess, dissecting the foibles of the the nouveau riche class, made suddenly and insanely wealthy by the burgeoning rubber trade. Eventually he finds himself at the head of an armed party heading towards the Acrean capital of Puerto Alonso – his subsequent rise and fall as the titular “Emperor of the Amazon” takes up the latter half of the story.

All in all, an entertaining frolic set in a time and place that is little known to the rest of the world. Thanks are due to the writer and even more so to the acumen and enterprise of the translator, who (according to an old NYT piece) was also the agent of Marcio Souza. The book world owes much to people like him.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truely wonderful - I loved this novel, a picaresque farce that combines humor and tragedy as Marcio Souza mocks the pretentions of everyone involved in the madness of the rubber boom in Brazil and other places. He does not forget that harvesting the rubber that paid for the glittering chandeliers and marble columns of the teatro Amazonas and the obscenely over-the-top excesses of the rubber-boom nouveaux-riche was an army of barely fed and horribly mistreated and abused indigenous and simply poor labourers (it did not take place in Brazil but look up the Putumayo genocide).

The most incredible thing about this novel is that it is based on true events (see the Wikipedia entry for the real Dom Luis Galvez at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_G%...) but Marcio Souza has recognised that trying to find the reality behind this 19th century adventurer is as impossible, and pointless, as finding the real Roland of the battle of Roncevaux or the Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar before he became El Cid. Souza has taken the facts and woven a marvellous tale full of outrageous behavior, rampant sexuality and a celebration of the Amazon in all its wildness and diversity.

I grew up playing in my father's library amongst books by authors like Miguel Angel Asturias, Martin Luis Guzmnan and Augustus Rao so by the time I was a teenager Gabriel Garcia Marques and Alejo Capentier were part of my literary landscape. Throughout the 1970s and 80s there seemed to be a inexhaustable supply of wonderfully startling and imaginative literature coming from the Carribean and central and south America, but of course I am remembering long hours lost in the wonders of richly stocked bookstores (doesn't that make me feel old, like someone talking of Paris before the revolution or Leningrad before it turned into an erzatz St. Petersburg). The point of this digression is to say that reading this literature is as close to being in my DNA as is possible for someone reading in translation. I am probably biased, I haven't met literature of this vintage I haven't loved. Maybe I am indiscriminate, but I am happy to be.

Emperor of the Amazon is wonderful and either it is the sort of thing you love or you don't. I love it.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was not until I got to the last page of this strange book that I learned it was based on a true story, how one Luis Galvez Rodriguez de Arias had himself named emperor of a Bolivian province named Acre, which still exists as a state in both Bolivia and Brazil. Unfortunately, Márcio Souza plays the story as a broad and somewhat erotic farce. After the 100th fornication, The Emperor of the Amazon loses its interest. What narrator Galvez says about his empire holds true for the book as well: "Without my perceiving it, my Empire was beginning to founder like an abandoned airship slowly deflating."

But then, it was Souza's first book, and there is some hope that he wrote something better later.

[Bob Newman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boozer, Broads & Buddies Win, Lose Amazon Fiefdom

Texas is not the only place carved out of another country by more aggressive settlers far from any capital city. Marcio Souza's tale of the "Empire of Acre", created by Brazilian filibusters in a remote part of northern Bolivia in the Amazon basin, may or may not have much to do with Texan history, but the idea is at least similar. THE EMPEROR OF THE AMAZON relates the picaresque adventures of a Spanish vagabond in the literary style of the 19th century popular press, which was also sometimes the style of Brazilian author J.M. Machado de Assis, who was a much better writer. A crew of drunks, actors, nuns, diplomats, whores, and fantastic personalities---for example, a male-genitalia-collecting English gentleman who believes that the Manaus opera house was set down on Earth by aliens---careen about the vast jungles of the Amazon, using the rivers as highways, hoping to strike it rich by exploiting the rubber resources available there at the end of the 19th century. The land is only there to be exploited, workers only pawns in their ambition. After endless sexual and alcoholic escapades, they overthrow the Bolivian officials in Acre and establish a (short-lived) Empire.
This was the first novel by Marcio Souza, who has subsequently published a number of others, none of which I've read. Though I may say that THE EMPEROR OF THE AMAZON is an extremely youthful novel, with a lot of sex and wry humor, it is certainly well-written, once you begin to see the point, which is to satirize the wastefully extravagant, parasitic society of the Amazon then, and the pretensions of Brazilian society in the 1970s when Souza wrote. I believe the author encountered some political difficulties after the book was published. At least, I bet he had a good time writing it. You will enjoy it, even if the messages are more or less drowned in hi-jinks.

[Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Emperor of the Amazon is a fictionalised account of some real events surrounding the creation of the short lived independent state of Acre in Brazil around the year 1898. It is narrated by Luis Galvez, an adventurer and womaniser, who following some strange events is persuaded to lead the campaign to free Acre, a latex rubber state and part of Bolivia. Along the way Galvez meets, loves and then saves a nun, Joana who becomes his main revolutionary partner. There are some odd characters related to a travelling opera company who give assistance. This is not the story of a typical Latin American uprising with much death and fighting as only towards the very end does anyone really die in battle when the revolution fails mainly due to excess alcohol; it's more a comedy of errors.

This is the first novel of Souza and was written in 1977; it comes across in a humorous vital style with short scenes in four periodic chapters; and in a format much used by Mario Llosa by merging real characters and very odd scenes which may or may not be true (not knowing which is which can be annoying sometimes).

This is a good book; it's funny, erudite, clever and represents a worthy read. If you like Aventes, Llosa, or Azuela then this is definitely one to look out for - recommended.

[Luciano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uma grande obra de literatura brasileira que, definitivamente, merece ser melhor conhecida. Souza parte de uma história real -- Galvez de fato tentou fazer do Acre um país independente, numa experiência que durou pouco mais que cinco meses -- e a transforma em um delírio picaresco, original e engraçadíssimo. Vale por 3 'Macunaímas'.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

"All we are good for is Carnaval, football, and making love."---Pele'. They just don't write picaresque novels anymore...except they do, down Brazil way. EMPEROR OF THE AMAZON, written under the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985) is a sly and savage satire of all imperial dreams, whether it's being king for a day or ripping off an entire section of another country. Our sex-mad hero thinks he's in charge of a revolution in the Amazonian frontier of Brazil and Bolivia (yes, I've been there myself) when in fact he's just a pawn of power-hungry politicos. A terrific translation courtesy of Avon Books.

[Sena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yazar zaman zaman size sesleniyor, sizinle konuşuyor ve bu benim kitaplarda hep hoşuma gitmiştir. Fakat kitap her paragrafta yeni bir başlık altına geçtiği için kitabın içinde kalmak, olayları takip etmek biraz zor. Kitaptan koptuğum çok fazla zaman oldu. Birçok farklı desendeki yamanın birbirlerine dikilip ortaya bir battaniye çıkarılmasına benziyor.

[Indran · Rating 3 out of 5]

يمكننا تقييم هذه الرواية ٣،٧ نجوم أي معدل التقييمات العامة في هذا الموقع. من مزاياها أنّ سردها تتقدم بسرعة دون تفاصيل مفرطة وتشمل بعض الإشارات الأدبية المثيرة للاهتمام وبعض الحلقات مضحكة جداً علاوة على أنّ السخرية تبدو مناسبة إلا أنّه استعصى علي التمييز بين السخرية المقصودة وغير المقصودة (السخرية الذاتية) في بعض الأجزاء التي أبدت منظوراً ذكورياً جداً. ولكن فيما يتعلق بقدرة السلطة على إفساد قلوب الناس (عندما يتحصل على السلطة) واستغلال الدول الاستوائية من قبل أوروبا والولايات المتحدة لكي تستخرج منها كل ما لديها من الثروات الطبيعية (في هذا السياق، المطاط) وجدت السخرية قوية ومناسبة. جعلني أفكر في أنّ بعض الأميركان والأوروبيين، عند السفر إلى بقية العالم، ما زالوا يحاولون انتهاز الفرصة كي يحصلون على سلطة حتى لو لم يكونوا مستعدين لإدارة أي شيء.

يعني، باختصار، في هذا الرواية لدينا بطل إشكالي من إسبانيا يزور منطقة نائية في أوساط الغابات في بوليفيا، يستمتع بالشرب وممارسة الجنس مع نساء كثيرات ولا يعمل أي شيء إلا إشباع رغباته حتى يتورط غصباً عنه في حملة لتحرير المنطقة سيطرة دولتي بوليفيوا وبرازيل فينجح ويصبح إبمراطوراً لفترة قصيرة جداً حيث يفشل في الحكم بشكل تام وتتدهور المنطقة ثم يتم انقلاب ناجح من قبل مجموعة أخرى ويعيش البطل بقية حياته بشكل ممل. بعض الحلقات فعلاً مضحكة جداً حتى آخر ٣٠ صفحة التي وجدتها مملة بعض الشيء. بصورة عامة الرواية توفر بيئة من السخرية إلى درجة السخافة ولكنها تتسم ببعض الإشارة الثقافية والأدبية اللافتة بالإضافة إلى تطبيق الكاتب (والمترجم) لبعض الكلمات الغنية والنادرة نسبياً باللغة الإنجليزية - يمكنك إكمال الرواية في غضون يومين فقط. لن أتذكر الكثير من مضمونها لكن لا أشعر بالندم وضحكتً بشكل كافٍ. لذا تستحق الرواية ما يتراوح بين ٣ و ٤ نجوم بالنسبة لي

[Selton Chagas · Rating 3 out of 5]

É um livro de fácil e rápida leitura. Interessou-me porque trata de um momento histórico de uma região brasileira que eu não conheço, e que acredito que considerável parcela dos brasileiros desconheça: a questão do Acre no período de ascensão da economia do látex.

O autor contou em forma de folhetim um dos momentos em que o Acre foi declarado independente, em meio às indefinições de Brasil e Bolívia sobre seu território. Ele traz a jornada de Luis Gálvez, que foi um personagem real no primeiro processo de independência do Acre. Contudo, na versão de Márcio Souza, a proclamação do Império do Acre foi imbuída com muito álcool, sexo e devaneios de várias ordens. O que não necessariamente repousa no campo da ficção, afinal de contas, todos esses desígnios humanos permeiam as relações e decisões políticas.

Sugiro a leitura para quem quer se distrair um pouco, rir demais e ainda conhecer histórias da diversidade de gente que esteve presente na história de Belém, Manaus e Puerto Alonso (Acre), incrustadas na Amazônia brasileira, na virada do século 19.

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Novela picaresca y satírica muy libremente basada en una sublevación de comerciantes de caucho brasileros en Acre contra la tutela boliviana a finales del siglo XIX.

El protagonista y narrador poco confiable es un sinvergüenza aventurero machista a no poder que pasa de cama en cama y peripecia en peripecia en una farsa interminable y pueril que me agotó bastante antes de la primera mitad del libro.

[Emina Buket · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yıldız için 3 ve 4 arasında gittim geldim ama hem ilk kitabı olması açısından hem de karakterlerin komik oluşu açısından 3 vermeye de kıyamadım.
Patchwork gibi kitapti ama. Yarım sayfada bir yeni başlık ve yeni konuyla sanki kitabı birleştirmek okura bırakılmış gibiydi. Bir sonra ki kitabını bekliyorum şimdiden yazarın.

[Steve P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. Hilarious. Not much of a plot, but who cares when it's that much fun.

[Dutch Leonard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe it works better in the original Portuguese.
A strange and irritating way to structure a novel.

[Paky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esperaba más de este libro, desde luego hay pasajes cargados de humor, ayudados por la vida licenciosa de los personajes y una ciudad, Manaos, donde había y se derrochaba tanto dinero, pero algunos pasajes resultan algo deslavazados. No me ha convencido el tratamiento de la vida del protagonista y los hechos históricos que se recogen, no me ha quedado muy claro donde queda cada cosa. Intentaré leer algún otro libro más riguroso.

[Brittany · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel tells the tale of a Luiz Galvez and his attempts at revolutionizing the Amazon's land of Acre with a new nation in the very late 1800s. The story grasped me from the beginning and began to mingle with my day to day thoughts until I finally got to the end. Kind of reminding me of the colonial adventure novels by Joseph Conrad, this book enlightens us of the exploitation of areas beyond the history that can sometimes tend to be solely accredited to Africa. Although noted by Souza that some details are quite fabricated beyond their actual, more boring realities, it still overall made me begin to question the very idea of our human race and what it means to innately be a member. Is it the concept of colonization that is the cause of such havoc in these native, untouched lands or is it possibly just the work of the uglier depths of nature that cannot help but overpower us, through means of our own innateness, when we decide to challenge its power? Rather than being just another tale of failed colonizing revolution, I found this book to be incredibly hilarious, entertaining, captivating, and essentially still powerful in strumming the forgotten strings of our shared humanity.

[Christopher Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

'The Emperor of the Amazon' is a book unlike any other. Arranged into brief vignette-style chapters (some only as long as a sentence) it tells the story of journalist turned dictator thrust into a position of power in the newly independent territory of Acre, Brazil. This wild tale leaps off into so many different directions that sometimes it's hard to keep track of what's going on, but when you adapt yourself to Souza's style, you will soon fall in love with both the story and its presentation.

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

Would have enjoyed this more as a short story. The first half of the book centers on main characters' sexual conquests in an egotistical telling. There are interesting bits in this farcical story of revolution during the Amazonian rubber boom, but found much of this book, specifically the first half to be incredibly boring.

[F Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picaresque satire of governmental corruption and avaricious exploitation of the Amazonian rainforest in the 1890s that is as much about the 1970s as it is about the establishment of the short-lived Independent State of Acre. Still relevant today.

[Luiz · Rating 1 out of 5]

O humor dele não me cativou.

Boooring.

[Ramirenko · Rating 1 out of 5]

Escritura y estructura deslabazadas. Personajes mal perfilados. Héroe cuñao que folla y bebe mucho.

Pésima recomendación de una pésima persona.