La bottega dei miracoli

by Jorge Amado, Elena Grechi (translator)

Pedro Archanjo, gran casanova, scrittore e poeta, eterno e scalpitante adolescente, irresistibile conversatore, litigioso capopopolo, cuore tenero e leale, povero diavolo ma gran signore, vecchio saggio, indovino e stregone, stramazza e muore su un fangoso marciapiede del suo miserabile quartiere di Bahia. Al funerale accorre una folla innumerevole e composita. La città inconsolabile si ferma al passaggio di un corteo di professori e vagabondi, puttane e bottegai: lì, dietro al feretro, stanno i compagni (e le compagne) di vita di Pedro Archanjo. Saranno loro ad affollare le pagine di questo libro in cui si racconta dell'esistenza del più straordinario figlio di Bahia.

Genres: Fiction, Brazil, Magical Realism, Classics, Romance, Literature, Portuguese Literature

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Jorge Amado was a modernist Brazilian writer. He remains one of the most read and translated Brazilian authors, second only to Paulo Coelho. In his style of fictional novelist, however, there is no parallel in Brazil. His work was further popularized by highly successful film and TV adaptations.
He was a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters from 1961 until his death in 2001. In 1994, his work was recognized with the Camões Prize, the most prestigious award in Portuguese literature.
His literary work presents two distinct phases. In the first, there is a clear social critic and political focus, with works such as Captains of the Sands and Sea of Death standing out.
In his more mature phase, he adopts an aspect of good-humored and sensual chronicler of his people, abandoning ideological motivations, with works such as Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray and Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tent of Miracles is a venomous social satire and a sizzling comedy of manners.
The raconteur of the story is a lovelorn cuckolded poet…
After a renowned and opportunistic American scientist mentioned, au passant, the name of Pedro Archanjo in the Encyclopedia on Life in the Underdeveloped Countries, movers and shakers of the public life in Bahia started building real hype around his name… It was decided to celebrate a hundred years jubilee of this unknown to anyone mestizo – a self-styled anthropologist and culturologist, vehement hoofer and pagan cult priest, drunkard and libertine…
At seventy-five he ended his days working as an errand boy in a whorehouse… He died in the gutter, dead drunk…

“You can’t imagine, meu bom, how much I’ve collected in that whorehouse, just from the prostitutes alone. For your information, camarado, a philosopher couldn’t find a better place to live than a whorehouse.”
“You really are a philosopher, Master Archanjo, the best one I ever knew. There’s nobody like you for making the best of what you’ve got.”

He resided – together with his best friend, a painter of miracles, barber and printer – in the shop known as “Tent of Miracles”… And when they were younger they used to give a vulgar and obscene shadow show at nights…

When the lights were put out there remained only the matte brightness of the oil lamp shining on the black backcloth, which projected the enlarged shadows of the crude and ingenuous characters onto the whitewashed wall. It was all very simple and simple-minded, and it cost two pennies to see. The show attracted young and old, rich and poor, sailors, day laborers, salesclerks, and shop owners. Some women even came surreptitiously.

And now the celebration of the centennial of this colourful and unique persona turns into the outright farce full of pompous propaganda… Everything is drowned in lies and hypocrisy…

Archanjo died in Salvador in 1943 at the age of seventy-five, admired by the learned and respected by all. Public notables, university professors, writers, and poets attended his funeral.
The glory of Bahia and all Brazil, whose name he exalted in other lands, Pedro Archanjo teaches us through his example how a man born into poverty and an environment hostile to any sort of culture can rise to the pinnacles of learning and occupy a distinguished position in society.

The past is always somewhat idealized and sooner or later bygone days become a legend.

[Luís · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pedro Archango was an original figure of the good Bahian people. Métis, self-taught and learned, the man lived an entire and prosperous existence. Unrepentant seducer and father of an innumerable line of natural children, Archango established himself as a champion of racial mixing and a promoter of popular and mixed customs. This earned him the wrath of Bahian well-thinking, the scholars, and a whole reactionary fringe of the population. The man died in the stream and sank into anonymity and indifference. When several decades after his death, an American scholar, recently crowned with the Nobel Prize, championed the mulatto, friend of the little people and apologue of miscegenation, there was panic in the influential microcosm of Bahia: then took place a vast and impudent enterprise of healing of the genius despised in its time by the intelligentsia of the Brazilian city.
The Miracle Shop is an ode to interbreeding, tolerance, and freedom. This deeply humanist work, colorful, ironic, and funny, with tasty prose, is one of the great novels and is one of the most worthy representatives of Brazilian literature.

[LolaF · Rating 4 out of 5]

¡Qué duro se me ha hecho el comienzo de este libro y como he acabado disfrutando con su lectura!

No es un libro fácil de abordar. La proliferación de nombres en portugués brasileiro de las primeras páginas me ha desbordado hasta tal punto que no sabía si dejarlo o continuar con su lectura. Al final del libro hay un glosario que puedes consultar, pero yo no lo vi hasta terminarlo.

En cualquier caso, ha valido la pena ese pequeño esfuerzo para entender y conocer el folclore popular y como era la vida de sus gentes, los mulatos bahianos a principios del siglo xx. Una situación de partida que permite entender lo que supuso los cambios posteriores, las luchas y persecuciones.

La historia recoge dos tramas temporales, una en el presente (finales década 1960) y otra en el pasado, que empieza en la década 1920.

La trama del presente se centra en redescubrir ese personaje del pasado, Pedro Archanjo. Un hombre "simple", involucrado con su comunidad, que poco a poco va evolucionando hasta convertirse de forma autodidacta en un erudito entomólogo, que con gran esfuerzo consiguió publicar cuatro libros. Un premio nobel estadounidense elogia la obra de este gran desconocido en su tierra y empieza la maquinaria: conocer su historia, darla a conocer elogiando su obra y su persona, cada uno intentando sacar el mayor provecho a esta situación y llegando a situaciones tan absurdas como que una marca de bebidas alcohólicas patrocine un concurso para alumnos de primaria.

La trama del pasado, tiene mucho más peso. El autor ha construido un personaje tan potente como Archanjo y ha sabido perfilar muy bien los personajes de esa época. Una sociedad mestiza marcada por las diferencias religiosas, los prejuicios raciales y las diferencias de clase: "El blanco pobre es un sucio negro, el mulato rico es un blanco puro". No voy a desvelar mucho más, el/la que quiera que se lea esta historia cargada de sentimientos.

Tienda de los milagros, bonito nombre para este libro.

No le doy 5 estrellas por lo mucho que me ha costado el principio del libro, aunque bien se las merecería. Leer a este autor y conocer su prosa, ha sido un gran descubrimiento.

Valoración: 8,25/10
Lectura: noviembre 2020

No es una lectura recomendable para cualquiera, pero si te animas, continúa.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Americans are very familiar with the history of racial struggle in the U.S., from the days of slavery to Jim Crow to the Civil Rights era to the modern day which, while unquestionably better than previous eras, is still a long way from perfect. Most of us know a lot less about Brazil, though Brazil has gone through very similar (yet different) trials. Another large, wealthy country that once practiced slavery on a large scale, then eventually legislated a racial equality on paper that was generations from the reality on the ground, Brazil is also a colonial state with a racial consciousness across the color spectrum that, if you read this book, you will see is subtly different from our own, even if there are obvious similarities.

Tent of Miracles is the epic biography of a fictional character who seems compellingly, vibrantly, historically real, and Jorge Amado puts life and breath and blood into all the characters. They all seem like real people whose stories he might be fictionalizing a little, but surely they really existed, the events are real, the history is real? Well, I'm sure some of the events were real, or at least were based on real events, but this is a novel. Pedro Archanjo never existed, but he should have.

We are first introduced to Pedro Archanjo by way of James D. Levenson, a Nobel-winning American professor from Columbia University, who visits the Brazilian state of Bahia and is feted like a movie star. Brazilians fawn all over the prestigious gringo from North America. At a press conference, he's asked about some famous Marxist, and he says:

"That's an idiotic question and only a fool would venture an opinion on Marcuse's work or discuss present-day Marxism in the framework of a press conference. If I had time to give a speech or a class about it that would be something else again; but I haven't got time and I didn't come to Bahia to talk about Marcuse. I came here to see the place where a remarkable man lived and worked, a man of profound and generous ideals, one of the founders of modern humanism — your fellow citizen Pedro Archanjo. That, and only that, is what brings me to Bahia."

What a flurry of commotion and lionization and hagiographies follows the endorsement of the famous gringo! All of Bahia promptly goes into a year-long celebration of their most famous, esteemed, and scholarly native son. The College of Medicine where he worked proclaims him to represent the very bedrock of their mission! He is the pride of Bahia! Surely the most eminent man ever born in Brazil!

And then Amado tells us Archanjo's story, going back and forth in time, jumping to many different POVs, from the schoolchildren who write essays about the great national hero years after his death, to his real history that follows the history of Brazil through the early 20th century.

Pedro Archanjo was a humble mestizo, and his job at the College of Medicine was not professor, or even adjunct faculty, but runner. He was an errand boy. He lived and died in poverty. He lived in a slum, spent his life fighting white supremacists like Professor Niles Argolo, a professor at the College of Medicine who wrote treatises on the inherent criminality and degeneracy of the black race and the need to segregate and exterminate them in order to save Brazil. Archanjo fights back by writing his own treatises. Though unschooled, Archanjo is brilliant, and a voracious reader, and over a period of several decades he and his friends basically self-publish four books: Daily Life in Bahia, chronicles the Afro-Brazilian candomblé cults and their influence in daily life (and coincidentally demolishes one of Niles Argolo's theories). He goes on to publish several more, including a meticulously researched genealogy of all the prominent families in Bahia, in which Archanjo is pleased to call the "pure European" Professor Argolo his cousin, after proving that he and Argolo shared the same Negro ancestors.

He's a clever, cunning, brave man who fights for the candomblés during brutal police suppression, even though he no longer believes. Students rally around him. He stirs up unrest but makes friends among the high and the low. He tweaks the noses of racists and perseveres. People (especially women) come in and out of his life, and everyone knows and remembers him. The people who really know him certainly don't remember the cross between George Washington, Thomas Edison, and Albert Einstein who's being celebrated in Bahia a hundred years after his birth and plastered on walls hawking cola.

Tent of Miracles is partly comic, as we see the glorious paeans to this great man and his works, followed by the real story behind it all. But it's also inspiring, and sad at times, and in the end, epic, covering a man's entire long life, a man who was never really appreciated until after some American dropped by and casually mentioned reading copies of his books that somehow made their way to Columbia University in New York.

Even in the English translation, Jorge Amado's prose is splendid, and full of Brazilian character. I feel like I was really walking the streets and watching the dances and tasting the food.

I give it 4.5 stars. It's a great book, but it is also a long literary book, not exactly a page-turner. And for all that Amado handles the question of race deftly, well, you can't help noticing that it's another one of those books where women are basically sex. All the men, the good men and the bad men, are pretty much strutting roosters. There are lots of women in the book, and they're interesting characters, but I don't think there are any who aren't described in terms of who's screwing them. (And Pedro Archanjo screws a lot of women.) Now, I am not usually up on my high horse about sexism in fiction (I admit to liking James Bond, after all), nor would I deny that Amado knows the Brazilian society he's writing about, but I call this a glaring gap for an author who goes out of his way to celebrate the personhood of whites, blacks, Negroes, mulattos, mestizos, and all the other people of the Brazilian color-caste system, but can't write women as anything other than lovers and mothers. Still, I'd call this oversight/blindness on the part of the author, not malice or contempt, which makes him better than, say, Ian Fleming.

This is a rich, warm, humanistic book with real characters, real people, and it will make you feel like you know a little tiny bit about Brazil's complicated history even if you've never set foot there.

[Taghreed Jamal El Deen · Rating 1 out of 5]

حظي مع الأسماء التي أتعرف عليها للمرة الأولى أفضل منه مع الأسماء الشهيرة هذه الأيام.
زوربا أمادو يشترك مع زوربا كازنتزاكيس بكونه خليطاً بين القديس والمتهتك، ويزيده بكونه مثقفاً وصاحبَ قضية.
رواية مملة وسيئة لم أكسب منها إلا بعض العبارات التي تصلح للاقتباس.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jorge Amado is a miracle. As I read through Tent of Miracles, I kept saying to myself: This is good, but is it really up to Amado's standard? As I read the last few chapters, I said to myself: "Yes, meu bom, this is a book well worth reading, as are all of Amado's books."

The book's hero, Pedro Archanjo, is a mulatto, practitioner of candomblé, self-taught scholar and writer, and man of the people. He comes to life so vividly that, for the first three hundred pages, I thought that Amado was basing it on an actual person. And what a hero! This is, in sum, a positive response to racism and bigotry, by Archanjo's living a life that proves that the genius of the African race wedded to the white race produces a beauty and intelligence that is pure Brazilian.

We see Archanjo die twice, first so that we can see the attempt to "sell" his life through a celebration of his centenary. By the time we see him die a second time, at the end of Tent of Miracles, we see the man himself.

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 3 out of 5]

The University of the East (UE) here in the Philippines celebrates this year its 65th foundation anniversary with the theme "Jose Rizal: Nasa Puso ng UE" (Jose Rizal: In UE's Heart"). This is the type of bullshit Jorge Amado mocks in this novel.

Pedro Archanjo has the same amusing bawdiness, the same love for drink and women, as several of Jorge Amado's characters in his better works, "Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon" and "Dona Flor's Two Husbands." But he's tamer. For one, he's an intellectual. He wrote four books, all except one (a cookbook) championing miscegenation and/or promoting Bahian culture. These books were either ignored or ridiculed during his lifetime. He died poor, lonely, and did menial jobs towards the end of his life.

Years later, a Nobel Prize-winning gringo praised Pedro Archanjo's work and it was then that he posthumously became a literary hero and a demigod in his own country, his name being invoked in all sorts of manner, like here where UE students, who do not give a hoot about Rizal, supposedly studying in a university with Rizal inside its beating heart. Gabriel Garcia Marquez once suggested that there is an inferiority complex in Latin American intellectual circles such that not until Europe and the U.S. appreciate a certain author that he would likely be appreciated at home. Reading this tale of Pedro Archanjo, therefore, may lead you to conclude that Rizal must be made into a Hollywood film, with Sean Penn in the role of the hero, for him to become really inside the heart of his countrymen. Then, maybe, even the world would begin to read his novels too!

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ogni volta che leggo Amado vengo risucchiata nella storia dal ritmo travolgente dei suoi libri, simile a quello della samba, che ossessivamente si ripete tra movimenti sinuosi e sfrenati, anche volgari ma mai violenti. Anche questa volta è andata così. Finalmente un personaggio maschile al centro della storia, Pedro Archanjo, contornato da tantissimi altri, ognuno con le proprie vite piene di povertà e di tristezza ma anche scanzonate e stravaganti, che li rendono unici e indimenticabili: Rosa di Oxalà, bellissima mulatta dallo sguardo invitante, cosce alte e ventre piatto, amante di un ricco fazeindero e amata più che una sposa, Lidio Corrò, tipografo e pittore di miracoli, fratello o ancor più gemello di Archanjo con cui divide la Bottega dei Miracoli, luogo di incontro e di bevute, di feste e di danze, il Maggiore de Souza, leguleio autodidatta arringatore in tribunale e difensore dei poveri e degli oppressi, Zabela, una anziana signora di nobile famiglia che si diverte a raccontare le avventure di sesso e d’amore tra le bianche figlie delle famiglie in vista di Bahia e uomini neri fieri e dotati che le accontentano nelle alcove al posto di mariti debosciati; e ancora tanti tanti altri che animano le vie animate di canti e balli, festose e odorose di profumi di mare e di fiori di Bahia.
Chi è Pedro Archanjo? Un mulatto “ bohemien, abile suonatore di chitarrina e chitarra, per non parlare del berimbau da capoeira e degli atabaques, pastore di donzelle, seduttore di donne sposate, patriarca di puttane”, ed ancora “buon conversatore, buon bevitore, ribelle, sedizioso, organizzatore di scioperi, agitatore, innamorato, tenero amante, stallone, scrittore, scienziato, uno stregone….”.
Pedro Archanjo è uno e mille persone, tutte povere, tutte “con la pelle scura, e civili”, è Bahia, è il Brasile, terra di mescolamenti di razze e di uomini, orgogliosa del suo meticciato che è ricchezza e cultura, è vita.

[Gabriel Franklin · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A invenção do povo é a única verdade, nenhum poder conseguirá jamais negá-la ou corrompê-la."

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

210428: this is my new favourite amado. what has bothered me on several other works of his, particularly more recent, is the rampant sexism. still here, still strong, but woven so tightly into comic/satirical recount of bahia's native autodidact genius, that it seems incidental local culture. to me anyway. archango is a man denigrated and ignored in his lifetime and afterward by certain educated and upper class until, decades after his death, famed american nobel winner says this is why he came to the city. archango is truly man of the people...

archango is an interesting portrait of what amado characterises as heroic: proud black man (mulatto), lives large, beds women (many), takes his duties as 'eyes' of syncretic african god seriously, if nothing else, streetwise intelligence, brave etc. only difference is he also seems to be intellectual, writes several books, researches on 'african influences in bahia' among others (lineage, cookbook). when the nobel winner mentions him the pr industry gets involved and there is centenary of his birth, though there is satire about exactly how he is changed from his actual life...

the way this book is written is probably one reason why i like it so much. there are historical passages of his life interwoven with more current (1969). there are the comic misadventures of poet who starts to research on archango, contrasted with how he lived much more successfully, there is how he is promoted from mere 'runner' at the medical school to pillar of society, contrasted with passages of his actual historical life, his poverty, his generosity, his fierce opposition to doctrines of racism in favour of, more or less, everyone 'mixing'. this is personal affection i have always felt for amado: my background is mixed (hawai'ian/white canadian) and i always thought of brazil as one big kaua'i (mom's home island). by now i know this is not the case, but remember whenever there my cousins and friends there who were all 'mixed' and how this seemed the way the world should be...

[Shomeret · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Tent of Miracles is the second book I've read by Jorge Amado. The first was The War of the Saints which was recommended to me as a book with a primary focus on the Yoruban spirit Oya who is widely known as Yansan in Brazil. I read The War of the Saints some time ago. It had tons of magical realism, but I remembered thinking at the time that I wanted more spirituality, ritual and folklore. That's when I was told to read The Tent of Miracles.

Although I had heard about the discrimination against Afro-Brazilian religions in the first half of the 20th century, I had not read about it before in either fiction or non-fiction. There are a number of scenes in The Tent of Miracles that depict instances of prejudice.

Yet religious discrimination is also shown in this book as being brought to an ignominious end. The central character Pedro Archanjo played a role in ending it. Archanjo says in this book that "One day the orixas will be dancing on the stage." The orixas are the spirits of Candomble, an Afro-Brazilian religion. This is a prediction that has come true in modern day Brazil.

I was very glad to learn so much about the history of Candomble and other significant aspects of Brazilian culture through reading The Tent of Miracles. I hope to read Amado's novel Jubiaba in the not so distant future.

For my complete review see my December blog post "The Tent of Miracles: Jorge Amado on Afro-Brazilian History" at http://www.maskedpersona.blogspot.com

[ميّ.. قارئة كتب · Rating 4 out of 5]

ربما كان من الإنصاف أن ينسب جورج أمادو بطله إلى اسمه الحقيقي "بدرو البرازيلي" لا إلى زوربا.

زوربا ابن الحياة، مغامر يشرب نخب الانتصار، ويرقص للفشل، ولم يعجز سوى أمام لغزي المرأة والموت.

وأرشانجو كذلك، له في كل بيت عشيقة، وعند كل من عرفه يد بيضاء، تعلم العيش دون معلم، وخبر الحياة بمستوياتها جميعاً بدءاً من القمة المتمثلة بالجامعة وانتهاءً بالقاع الذي تُشكل معالمه بيوت الفقراء وظروف عمل الأجراء المضطهدين و"قلاع" الدعارة.

لكن بدرو يمتاز عن زوربا بنقطتين هامتين:
الأولى:أنه قد درس وتعلم وقرأ الكتب وأتقن اللغات ونقل معرفته إلى أبناء شعبه بكتبه ومواقفه.
والثانية وهي الأهم: أنه كان صاحب القضية. لم ينتظر الفرص التي تقدم في رحمها المغامرات، بل كانت أمامه حياة كاملة للنضال ضد أشكال الاضطهاد العنصري والدفاع عن التمازج بين الأعراق، وحماية التراث الديني البرازيلي الذي أوجده الزنوج القادمون منذ دهور على سفن العبيد الأوربية.

تتوزع أحداث الرواية على شقين زمنيين. الأقدم هو حياة بدرو أرشانجو، والأحدث هو احتفاء المثقفين بكاتبهم العظيم المجهول الذي عرفته أمريكا وأنكرته البرازيل ، ويالسخرية ما جاء في هذه الأحداث من أكاذيب تغدو حقائق، ومن استخدام "الرموز الوطنية" كمادة "اعلانية" خصبة. وغيرها الكثير من صور انحطاط ثقافي لا يبتعد كثيراً عن مناخنا الثقافي الحالي - على الأقل في منطقتنا العربية.

رواية جد رائعة. ستقرأ فيها الكثير عن تلك البلاد الرائعة التي تشبه طقوس حياتها مهرجانات السامبا الملونة بالرقص والبهجة.

ورغم ارتباكي في صفحاتها الأولى إلا أنها شدتني وبقوة حتى النهاية.
ولو طلب إلي المفاضلة بين "الزوربيين" اليوناني والبرازيلي، فسترجح كفة البرازيلي عندي بكل تأكيد.

[Tahani Shihab · Rating 1 out of 5]

للأسف لم أستطع إكمالها. لم ترق لي بتاتًا ولا أفكر بالعودة لقراءتها.

[Luke · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's a lot of media out there these days that caters to the "liberals" in ways that common sense would argue to have been nigh impossible to achieve ten, twenty, thirty years ago. Some of it is long overdue and would have done thousands, if not millions, so much good if it had been published/aired/released to the public years ago. Most of the rest, unfortunately, is the sort of uncritical twiddle twaddle that exemplifies how the road to hell is paved to with good intentions, or, in this case, the road to "diversity" is paved with a fresh palette of colors overlaying the same old Euro/Neo-Euro worldscapes, deftly side stepping the need to acknowledge the non-PG aspects of history and offering little of worth in exchange. This particular work is my second of Amado's, and while I had some reservations about his more well known piece, I appreciated what he was attempting enough to be looking forward to one of the few 1001 Books Before You Die that is not only not by a white dude, but also not in English. Unfortunately, while this work is much older than the vacuous ilk that Netflix and co. like to get trending on twitter under yet another "First Show to ____" demographic, it is self-indulgently simplisitic enough in its mid 20th century antiracism to be little more than self-righteous, meaning that, while I'll take my 1001 cred, I would have much rather read something better in that region of literature without the accompanying label.

A few weeks ago, I finally got around to reading a highly lauded, Nobel laureated work of Latin American literature that was similarly concerned with Bahia, the region of Brazil that Amado's work grounds itself within as both portrayal and argument: Vargas Llosa's The War of the End of the World. The writing was technically correct but mind numbingly fearmongering, the historical context was sloughed on for the horror with little heed paid to the complexities, and instead of something brutally incisive and/or profound, I got the kind of ghost story that conservatives whisper to themselves in the wine cellars of their gated communities while their hired thugs patrol outside. So, going into this, I had some hopes that Amado, who unlike Vargas Llosa was actually Brazilian, would do something a tad more credibly in his writing, or at least tell a better story than "crazy dude foments a mindless cult and forces the proto-fascists to one again stamp their boot on the abject poor for the good of the nation." What I didn't expect was this work to be, for the most part, else the hapless good twin of the Vargas Llosa read, where fearmongering status quo-isms are replaced by "Diversity is everything!" slogans that, for all its favoring of multiplicities, can't seem to put together one single credible woman character or transcend the extremely flawed conviction that WWII was the epitome of good versus evil. Couple that with a plot that undercuts itself for nearly 400 pages and the most stereotypical of character developments allotted to Marvel heroes and villains, and you have a piece that I'll give credit to for acknowledging the Afro-mestizo realities of Brazil enough to merit a glossary, but doesn't do much else in regards to earning the label of classic literature. So, if you're absolute new to Brazilian literature and want something that gives you riotous detail but won't bog you down with morally grey characters or side effects of disaster capitalism, this will certainly give some of that and more. If, however, you've sunk your teeth into a great deal of the heights that Brazilian and the wider Latin American literature is capable of and are looking for pieces that further complicate that with their contributions, you may want to save this for a day when you need a more, shall we say, beach read of a 1001 book. Sad, but true.

With this work, my reading journey with Amado has slid from four stars to a desultory two. However, I find it hard to conceptualize giving up on him entirely. True, his biases, while sometimes banally overenthusiastic, coincide a great deal with mine more often than not, and I simply adore the cover styles that Avon Books saw fit to grace their Latin American works with. Beyond that, there just isn't a lot of authorial novelty in Brazilian literature once one's made their way through de Assis and Lispector and has no desire to truck with Coelho, and beyond the magnificently (if incorrectly translated) titled The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by João Guimarães Rosa, I simply don't have enough backup material on hand to make me feel comfortable with completely throwing over an author with plenty of other works to his name simply because this one went sour. So, at some point, I expect to find myself dawdling over whatever other Avon editions of his works come my way, although I don't see myself actually reading them for another few years, least. Various bios mention Amado writing in a much more "polemical" way early in his career before "mellowing" out by the time this particular piece was written, so of course I have to wonder whether my preferred works of his lie in that direction. Time will have to tell.

[Deanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pedro Archanjo the hero of the tent of miracles is a difficult man to assign a part to. He's the writer of 4 books, which some twenty years after his death are seeing a revival.
As a result of the interest of an american academic interest is revived in Pedro's life. The result is the story of a man, his friends, the women in his life and the children. He's a likeable rogue, intelligent and a believer in saying what he thinks is right. Did love the section where he's a proofwriter, and the mistakes he allows into an article about Hitler.

[Paulo Sousa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Livro lido 4°/Dez//61°/2017
Título: Tenda dos milagres
Autor: Jorge Amado (Brasil)
Editora: @companhiadasletras
Ano de lançamento: 1968
Ano desta edição: 2008
Páginas: 320
Classificação: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
_______________________________________________
um ano sem ler jorge amado é um ano perdido. para não perder de todo meu ano de leituras decido findar 2017 com “tenda dos milagres”, essa obra soberba e fundamental no imenso conjunto literário do escritor baiano.
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o livro é protagonizado pelo bedel pedro archanjo, mulato das bandas do pelourinho, empregado da faculdade de medicina da bahia, que constrói sozinho, apesar de opiniões contrárias, a mais importante obra antropológica do século XX. totalmente autodidata, archanjo, profundo conhecedor das gentes e costumes da bahia, traz nos quatro livros seus a tese da miscigenação total, fato que lhe custou ardorosa perseguição pro parte do doutor nilo argolo, o eminente professor daquela faculdade e claramente pró arianista.
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o livro em si é a reconstrução da vida de archanjo, já após sua morte, provocada pela chegada ao brasil do prêmio nobel americano james levenson, que, ao chegar à salvador, profere à imprensa a grande importância dos livros do mulato em terras norte-americanas, o que causou furor e certo mal-estar entre a comunidade científica, alheia aos livros e pensamentos de archanjo.
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jorge amado trata, no livro, do problema da intolerância e preconceito raciais, da famigerada máxima lombrosiana de que a tendência à criminalidade está intrinsecamente ligada à cor da pele. e ao criar dois personagens ambivalentes (archanjo e argolo) amado personifica o embate entre o cientifismo arrogantemente pedante e arcaico contra o o autodidatismo nascido dentro da comunidade baiana, negra e macumbeira.
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jorge amado é mestre em criar heróis, muitos deles defensores de causas perdidas. diferente das histórias juvenis e românticas, onde o herói sempre casa com a princesa e “são felizes para sempre”, em jorge o herói é marcante por ser parecido com a gente comum e por isso fatalmente sujeito à ruína. jorge soube como ninguém retratar as gentes e costumes da bahia, toda a beleza e musicalidade (não me refiro ao ritmo axé, mas a algo mais amplo) das tradições baianas enraizadas nos ancestrais afrodescendentes, os sabores, a alegria, os desmazelados, foi um escritor cuja verve sempre me encantou. e seus heróis, homens e mulheres que antes de tudo souberam buscar o sentido de viver dentro de suas origens, proclamaram sem medo o que a bahia tem de melhor, até cientista antropólogo como foi o caso de archanjo. leitor disciplinado, o personagem vai rebatendo sem dó através de seus livros as “profetadas” sem embasamento científico de nilo argolo, branco de origem negra, mas que tenta esconder a todo custo suas origens africanas. como recompensa, morre pobre e velho num dos muitos becos do pelourinho, sem nunca ter conseguido o reconhecimento por ter produzido tão profícuo estudo de raças e matizes em seus livros, aliás, publicados a muito esforço na oficina tipográfica “tenda dos milagres, de seu amigo de toda a vida lídio corró.
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gosto de errar pelas ladeiras do pelourinho. caminhar e absorver toda a atmosfera daquele lugar como que me transporta para dentro dos livros de jorge, esse mestre da literatura, só não maior que machado de assis, criador de livros a cujos heróis me fizeram rir, chorar, emocionar, como foi o pedro bala de “capitães da areia”, o guma de “mar morto”, o quincas berro d’água, o jubiabá do livro homônimo, a perdição de todo um povoado, tocaia grande e agora pedro archanjo, mestre cujo inglório desconhecimento o levou ao cabedal de meus personagens preferidos.

[Michi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe it was my lack of emotional connection to the subject matter, maybe the fact that I simply couldn't make sense of the narration style in many places and had to actively keep thinking back to what had just happened or maybe it was just the needless almost disgusting sexualisation of nearly all of the female characters, but I couldn't make it all the way through this book.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those books that maintains multiple temporal sequences, the central one tracks the career of Pedro Archanjo, a sort of outsider artist, a largely self-taught writer and sociologist who self-publishes a handful of books about Bahian syncretistic culture (religion, dance, music and food, all intertwined). This is approximately in the 1930s but it jumps back and forth with the end of his life and his early upbringing. The book also includes a story line set in the late 60s in which a star academic from Columbia University comes to Brazil to declare that he has rediscovered the unjustly neglected Archanjo, prompting all the local cultural critics to pretend they knew about him all along.
There's lots of satire but the detailed depiction of Bahian culture is what makes it essential.

[Özgür Oklap · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Melezdir bizim yüzümüz, sizin yüzünüz."

Jorge Amado beni yine Bahia bölgesinin baş şehri Salvador'un sokaklarına götürdü. Bu sefer melez Pedro Arkanjo'nun takibindeydim. Onun gezintilerinin, sohbetlerinin, aşk kaçamaklarının ve hepsinden önemlisi kendi insanlarını, yöresini anlattığı, en yakın arkadaşı, yoldaşı, mucizeleri resmederek hayatını kazanan ve atölyesine "Mucizeler Dükkanı" ismini veren Lidio Corro'nun bastığı dört kitabının... "Bahia'da Halk Yaşamı", "Bahia Geleneklerinde Afrika Etkileri", "Bahialı Ailelerde Melezlişe İlişkin Notlar" ve "Bahia'da Yemek Sanatı, Kökenleri ve İlkeleri".

"Mucizeler Dükkanı", Bahialı melezlerin hikayesi aslında. Onların zengin kültürleri, fakirlikleri ve Arkanjo önderliğinde, ırkçılığa karşı yürekli mücadeleleri... Kültürlerini, dinlerini (Kandomble) kabul ettirme savaşları... Arkanjo'nun 1900'lü yıllarin başından ölümüne kadar geçen süre boyunca derdi hep ırkçılıkk, melezlerin refahı, özgürleşmeleri olur. Onun görüşlerine göre Brezilya'nın yüzü melezdir, kültürü melezdir. Ari ırk diye bir olgunun varlığı söz konusu bile olamaz. Ancak, bu görüşler büyük sorunları da beraberinde getirir. Önce festaları yasaklanır, sonra da ırklar arası evlilik şiddetle cezalandırılma noktasına gelir. Melezler hayvanlar kadar değer görmez! İste böyle bir zihniyet dünyasının baskın olduğu koşullar altında Arkanjo, kitaplarını basmak, melez kültürünü anlatmak için çırpınır durur. Gerçek bir kahramandır o!

Beni Arkanjo kadar - kimi zaman ondan daha fazla - Lidio Corro etkiledi. Özellikle de yaptığı iş. Düşünsenize mucizeleri resmettiğinizi... Biri size geliyor ve yaşdığını iddia ettiği mucizeyi dillendiriyor. Siz de renklendiriyorsunuz o mucizeyi tuvalinizde.

"Mucizeler Dükkanı", aynı zamanda kültürel öğelerle dolu bir kitap. Kandomble dinine özgü seremoniler, danslar, kapuera gösterileri, Bahia'nın terminolojisi... Küçük bir sözlük eklenmiş kitabın arkasına ve Kandomble dinine ilişkin bir önsöz mevcut. Önsözü okuyup başlıyorsunuz romana zaten ve ara sıra da sözlüğü yoklayıp yolunuza devam ediyorsunuz.

[Jelena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Na momente kao da sam i sama zaplesala u ritmu bubnjeva - toliko je sve bilo živo, obojeno, melodično.
Priča je protkana bogatim crnačkim naslijeđem brazilske pokrajine Baije: samba, kapoeira, kandomble, oriše, vještičarenje, procesije.
Bore se meštar Arkanžo i njegovi drugari kako rasna mržnja vise ne bi cvjetala na brazilskoj klimi.
S jedne strane su crnci - tada smatrani bezvrijednom ljudskom podrasom - a s druge bijeli krstaši, ogrezli u želji da unište sav "crnački ološ" (a samim tim i sav baijanski folklor).
p.s. Upravo je narod Baije - bježeći kako bi spasao živu glavu - i donio sambu u Rio.

[Onur · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is one life story for Pedro Arkanjo who is a special person from Bahia / Brazil. Everything can happen at the miracles shop. Sometimes sexual content and mysticism & magic have seen piece by piece in the book. Racism and perspective of crossbreed be underlined especially in Brazil. Nice book

[plavizec · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

[Noora · Rating 4 out of 5]

En heti lämmennyt Ihmeiden markkinoille (Tenda dos milagres, 1969), vaan aluksi pidin sitä rakenteellisesti, tyylillisesti ja kielellisesti sekavana ja muutenkin vähän kummallisena. Omintakeiseen tyyliin totuttuani aloin kuitenkin pitää kirjasta todella paljon, sillä siitä löytyy paljon syvyyttä, herkkyyttä ja huumoria. Erityisen kiinnostavia teemoja olivat taistelu rasismia vastaan 1900-luvun alun Bahiassa sekä candomblé, jonka historia ja perinteet eivät olleet minulle etukäteen kovin tuttuja.

[Nicole Gervasio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh my god. Arduous. Plodding. Well-written, I'll give it that. And Archango's an inspiring character. The trouble is that, once you realize around page 50 that the entire book will pretty much consist of a series of reconstructions of the same life of one ordinary hero previously lost from Brazil's history, it's hard not to get bored with the pattern of nuanced changes that each new narration makes. For example, it's clever to use a fake nine-year-old boy's essay contest submission about said hero's life to demonstrate the numerous ways in which the truth has been misappropriated and poorly disseminated. It's less clever to unravel most of the plot in the first third of the book and then expect us to rehearse it through fifteen other genres. While I appreciated the author's inventiveness with the form of the novel itself, I had a lot of trouble finishing it without more plot (and less misogyny would have been nice, too).

[Gypsy Lady · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is it the mixture of African rituals, local legends, fascinating customs, and strange and wonderful characters and/or its English translation of "Brazil's most illustrious and venerable novelist" that made Tent of Miracles such challenging reading for me?

When the English translation was published in 1989, (first published as Tenda dos Milagres (in Portguese in 1969)) the Washington Post review included the words: "A richness and warmth that are impossible to resist".

Normally I do not enter any titles I value at less than two stars UNLESS it was a book club selection. I enter Tent of Miracles because I am hopeful that other readers will have some familiarity with the author and will be able to offer comments.

Page 313
I am not limited by what I know.

[Gökhan Gök · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pedro Arkanjo'nun hayatını safkan ırk, melezlik, ırkçılık ve bolca kültürel referanslar ile anlatan Jorge Amado, tarz olarak diğer romanlarından bir miktar farklı olsa da özünde yine toplumcu gerçekçi bir romana imza atmış. Teknik olarak başarılı ancak okuyucusundan dikkat isteten bir roman. Kitapta yer yer ırkçılığın bile önüne geçen bir kadın sömürüsünden de bahsediyor. Yazarın siyasi fikirlerini ortaya cesurca koyduğu Mucizeler Dükkanı, entelektüel yozlaşmanın altını da koyu bir şekilde çiziyor.

[Murilo · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Todos pobres, pardos e paisanos"

Todas as vezes que discuto política com alguém que se coloca prenhe de frases, expressões, conceitos e argumentos engessados por modelos explicativos filosóficos, econômicos e sociais eu pego e falo "Amigo(a), você tá lendo muito Lênin (quando o caso) e pouco Jorge Amado".

Curiosamente me rebatem o conselho questionando se eu estou jogando fora as contribuições não só do antigo camarada mas de toda a corrente de pensamento do materialismo histórico dialético quando, na verdade, estou justamente apontando que as explicações e soluções para o Brasil devem passar necessariamente pela profunda análise de nossa trajetória histórica, compreendendo os efeitos disso nas esferas de nossa cultura.

Eu fiz essas observações porque a leitura de 'Tenda dos Milagres' me fez perceber (e não sou nem pretendo dar opinião de especialista em literatura brasileira, quanto mais um estudioso da obra completa do autor) o amadurecimento político de Jorge Amado que, se nos primeiros romances - que não li todos, mas gosto de tomar como exemplo 'Capitães da Areia' - os personagens ganhavam emancipação por meio do trabalho e da ação política convencional (Pedro Bala se tornando protagonista de greve quando adulto), a liberdade, aqui, se encontra para além desse aspecto social, alocando-se - AO MEU VER - no fazer da vida cotidiana e no exercício da cultura popular: O protagonista de 'Tenda dos Milagres', o mulato Pedro Archanjo, está pouco preocupado com o seu trabalho "oficial" como bedel em uma faculdade de medicina, se preocupa em viver sua vida, lidar com o SEU povo e sobretudo defendê-lo. Não se trata contudo de uma exaltação besta de um lumpemproletariado, entretanto. A defesa de Archanjo e se sua atuação política como processo legítimo de transformação social ocorre de diversas maneiras: ensinando crianças a ler e escrever; protegendo mulheres abandonadas; protegendo mães de santo e terreiros da repressão policial; enaltecendo a história negra em carnaval de rua; etc.

Também o faz ao defender que a solução para os problemas do Brasil seria a miscigenação. Essa temática é o eixo central do livro (que já aparecia de maneira mais modesta em 'Gabriela, Cravo & Canela', talvez?) não só pelo fato do protagonista defender esse tema até academicamente - confrontando um personagem, professor de medicina legal inspirado em Nina Rodrigues (o Lombroso dos Trópicos, rs) - mas porque a problemática da mestiçagem reverbera em outro "núcleo" da trama que está em temporalidade distinta (o que narra como Pedro Archanjo e seus escritos foram redescobertos anos após sua morte por um gringo Prêmio Nobel e como a intelectualidade brasileira só passou a dar credibilidade nos escritos do mulato baiano após um estrangeiro estadunidense valorizar). Leio 'Tenda dos Milagres' como um testamento politico de Jorge Amado a sua ideia do que é ser brasileiro.

O livro, como á dito, aborda duas temporalidades: A vida de Pedro Archanjo e quando ele é redescoberto pouco mais de 20 anos depois de sua morte. E por mais que a narrativa do "pós-morte" seja às vezes sem graça (mais devido ao fato de que eu, como leitor, fiquei mais interessado em saber da vida do protagonista por ter diversas histórias heroicas, conflitos e algumas saborosas pitadas de Realismo Mágico), é, ao meu ver, fundamental para perceber com Jorge Amado, ainda que defenda a tese de que a mestiçagem vai civilizar o Brasil, o racismo e o arcaísmo herdado do nosso processo colonizador ainda é muito vivo. Esse "núcleo" também e interessante, particularmente, pelo fato de que das diversas homagens que fazem a Archanjo (estátuas, nomes de ruas, eventos pomposos...), nenhuma é mais fidedigna a sua maneira de pensar o mundo que quando sua história de vida vira samba-enredo e desfile de Carnaval.

Corro o perigo de, como leitor, "botar palavras na boca do autor" mas na minha modesta leitura, Amado não desconhece que a mestiçagem foi e ainda é um processo violento de apagamento físico da população negra e de sua identidade e cultura (Archanjo, quando é revalorizado 20 anos após sua morte, recebe homenagens e leituras de sua obra que o afastam, se não completamente, em boa parte de sua origem negra e de homem pobre e comum). Mas a tese de Amado e de seu protagonista, a de que a miscigenação é a redenção do povo brasileiro, me parece que é exatamente o reconhecimento do espaço e da importância da cultura negra no nosso cotidiano e como é impossível pensar Brasil sem pensar, necessariamente, raça.

Amado, apesar de á afastado do PCB a essa altura, não deixa de ter presente em sua narrativa o debate de classe. Não tenho profundo conhecimento da obra e da vida do autor pra dizer categoricamente que ele deixou de ser comunista, mas que produziu uma grande reflexão sobre a aplicabilidade da teoria de maneira engessada na realidade do Brasil, percebendo as particularidades dos problemas sociais e culturais da nossa sociedade sem abrir mão do materialismo dialético, pra mim fica claro em diversos momentos do livro, mas fica escancarado no diálogo de Archanjo com um professor marxista nos capítulos finais do livro. Archanjo se vê como materialista e se a miscigenação é a solução para questão racial do país, o protagonista deixa claro que o problema viraria outro: o de classe. Vide a história de Tadeu, seu afilhado, que ascende socialmente virando engenheiro mas esquece suas origens.

De qualquer jeito, se minhas observações não tiverem nem pé nem cabeça, gosto de pensar que a obra nunca é do autor. A obra é do público. E por mais que o escritor tenha certamente impregnado o romance com sua visão de mundo, etc., é a apropriação dos leitores e a forma pela qual o público faz uso da obra que importa. Vide a valorização da obra amadiana por escritores moçambicanos na descolonização para a criação de uma utopia, de uma Moçambique possível.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Na Tenda dos Milagres, na ladeira do Tabuão, em Salvador, onde o amigo Lídio Corró mantém uma modesta tipografia e pinta quadros de milagres de santos, o mulato Pedro Archanjo atua como uma espécie de intelectual orgânico do povo afro-descendente da Bahia.

[Charles · Rating 1 out of 5]

recommended by Lonely Planet as good way to understand Condomblé this was a major disappointment by the great writer Jorge Amado -- weak characters, plot, content and seemingly quickly thrown together

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is heartwarming indeed: pure exotism and vitality, and very well told. But, I don't have much affinity with the Brazilian culture, so at this moment, I'm not thrilled. I think I have to give it a second chance, later.