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Mad Maria
Mad Maria, obra-prima de Márcio Souza, ganha nova edição com capa e projeto gráfico novos.
Escrito em 1980, Mad Maria é o segundo livro de Márcio Souza, romancista, dramaturgo e diretor de teatro, e foi adaptado para a televisão em minissérie da TV Globo em 2005.
A narrativa se passa no interior da Amazônia e relata a construção da ferrovia Madeira-Mamoré entre 1907 e 1912. Na época, os investidores tinham o objetivo de construir uma estrada que pudesse competir com o Canal do Panamá. A ferrovia integraria uma região rica em látex na Bolívia com a Amazônia, mas, no caminho, encontraria obstáculos descomunais: muitas cataratas, milhas e milhas de pântanos e desfiladeiros, centenas de cobras e escorpiões, árvores gigantescas e inúmeros mosquitos transmissores de malária. Antes das obras chegarem ao fim, cerca de três mil homens estavam mortos, milhares hospitalizados e uma fortuna em dólares desperdiçada na selva.
Márcio Souza tece em Mad Maria um faroeste à brasileira e força o leitor a se embrenhar nos episódios históricos mais terríveis e inimagináveis da construção da ferrovia Madeira-Mamoré.
Escrito em 1980, Mad Maria é o segundo livro de Márcio Souza, romancista, dramaturgo e diretor de teatro, e foi adaptado para a televisão em minissérie da TV Globo em 2005.
A narrativa se passa no interior da Amazônia e relata a construção da ferrovia Madeira-Mamoré entre 1907 e 1912. Na época, os investidores tinham o objetivo de construir uma estrada que pudesse competir com o Canal do Panamá. A ferrovia integraria uma região rica em látex na Bolívia com a Amazônia, mas, no caminho, encontraria obstáculos descomunais: muitas cataratas, milhas e milhas de pântanos e desfiladeiros, centenas de cobras e escorpiões, árvores gigantescas e inúmeros mosquitos transmissores de malária. Antes das obras chegarem ao fim, cerca de três mil homens estavam mortos, milhares hospitalizados e uma fortuna em dólares desperdiçada na selva.
Márcio Souza tece em Mad Maria um faroeste à brasileira e força o leitor a se embrenhar nos episódios históricos mais terríveis e inimagináveis da construção da ferrovia Madeira-Mamoré.
480 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
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159 people want to read
About the author
Márcio Souza
44 books13 followersMárcio 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.
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.
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November 6, 2018
In the 1980s, Avon books under their Bard imprint released a series of novels that originated in Latin America, including both original and pre-published material. Thus, the series contained the already classic One Hundred Years of Solitude by Garcia Marquez and Hopscotch by Cortazar, as well as the new novel by Márcio Souza, who had made somewhat of a splash with his previous book, The Emperor of the Amazon (also published by Bard). I mention this because it was the Bard imprint alone that caused me to pick this up in the first place--it is an attractive series, pleasing to look at, and with the implication that the editors had scooped up the best literature available so that the reader could relax and benefit from their hard work. A significant portion of the literature from South and Central America had also not been translated at that time, and so I also hoped to run across some hidden gems that had been previously passed over, and which may have disappeared after the Bard print run was over.
A then-current article in the Washington Post credits Souza's earlier novel as the catalyst for a new interest in South American literature--this despite the fact that Garcia Marquez had published One Hundred Years a decade prior. With all this background information, plus the cover blurbs and synopsis on the back cover, I was nearly convinced, before even cracking the cover, that I had found one of those gems.
Mad Maria is the historical account of the building of the Madiera-Mamoré Railroad in Brazil, with the hope that the railroad would bring Bolivian rubber to worldwide markets. It was known as 'The Devil's Railroad' because of the thousands of deaths associated with disease and violence, and Mad Maria chronicles a portion of that by following a large assortment of people involved in the building; from the financier to the construction engineer to the indentured laborers who did the dying and laid the tracks. A beautiful widow, out of her mind with grief over her husband’s recent death, and who accidentally wanders into the worker’s camp after a terrible storm, and a Caripuná Indian, who had been subsisting by thieving from the camp and is mutilated horribly when caught, round out the cast of characters. Together, they help reflect an image of Brazil at the beginning of the new century—unsteady, and hounded by the forces of corruption, cynicism, and capitalism.
Although Mad Maria is not a bad book, I was very disappointed. No doubt that had to do with my heightened expectations—readers coming to the book without those expectations are likely to find an average to above average book of historical fiction about a location that is generally not a familiar subject to North American readers. Unfortunately, I never really felt there was anything particularly Brazilian about the book. That may have been because there were so few of them in it—the financier, doctor and rail engineers were American, the construction engineer was English, the girl Bolivian and the laborers were Barbadian, German, Hindu, and Chinese.
Nor did I feel that Souza’s satire was focused enough on any one subject to make it effective. Was it about the evils of Capitalism? Brazilian corruption? The destruction of natural habitat? Or the infection of cynicism, that eventually made even the most idealistic give up and finally sink into apathy? Probably all of that, although the railroad did indeed get built—a kind of marvel really, and it may have just been the mixture of these evils that put it on the map. That it was eventually failure is true, but that had as much to do with the fact that Bolivian rubber couldn’t compete with the Asian markets. The cost, though, of building it, in terms of money, death and subservience to foreign interests may have been too high, even if the markets had functioned as initially expected.
Even taking the novel as an epic story—rather than the psychological or phantasmagorical adventure I was hoping for—I still think Souza failed to produce a well-written book. Nor do I think that was the fault of the translator—there were too many times I felt the novel shifted direction, as if in the middle of writing, Souza decided to switch his emphasis, to highlight some new aspect of his satire. The idealism of the young doctor seems ridiculous given the conditions he found himself in, and the hard-headed, cynical construction engineer undergoes a personality shift in the latter third of the book that struck me as more the whim of the author than because of any intrinsic circumstances. The few sexual scenes, while not graphic, were a little silly, I thought, coming as they did from nearly out of the blue, and the appearance of Consuelo Campero seemed little more than a plot device in order to inject a woman into the narrative and provide a love interest.
I have a copy of Souza’s earlier novel Emperor of the Amazon, and I still plan on reading it—I began to wonder while reading Mad Maria if the shortcomings I found were the result of the pressure of trying follow up his first success with another, and in the end he tried too hard. Chances are, though, that my expectations will be set to match--I hope--the kind of novel that Souza’s actually wrote, rather than the one I envisioned.
A then-current article in the Washington Post credits Souza's earlier novel as the catalyst for a new interest in South American literature--this despite the fact that Garcia Marquez had published One Hundred Years a decade prior. With all this background information, plus the cover blurbs and synopsis on the back cover, I was nearly convinced, before even cracking the cover, that I had found one of those gems.
Mad Maria is the historical account of the building of the Madiera-Mamoré Railroad in Brazil, with the hope that the railroad would bring Bolivian rubber to worldwide markets. It was known as 'The Devil's Railroad' because of the thousands of deaths associated with disease and violence, and Mad Maria chronicles a portion of that by following a large assortment of people involved in the building; from the financier to the construction engineer to the indentured laborers who did the dying and laid the tracks. A beautiful widow, out of her mind with grief over her husband’s recent death, and who accidentally wanders into the worker’s camp after a terrible storm, and a Caripuná Indian, who had been subsisting by thieving from the camp and is mutilated horribly when caught, round out the cast of characters. Together, they help reflect an image of Brazil at the beginning of the new century—unsteady, and hounded by the forces of corruption, cynicism, and capitalism.
Although Mad Maria is not a bad book, I was very disappointed. No doubt that had to do with my heightened expectations—readers coming to the book without those expectations are likely to find an average to above average book of historical fiction about a location that is generally not a familiar subject to North American readers. Unfortunately, I never really felt there was anything particularly Brazilian about the book. That may have been because there were so few of them in it—the financier, doctor and rail engineers were American, the construction engineer was English, the girl Bolivian and the laborers were Barbadian, German, Hindu, and Chinese.
Nor did I feel that Souza’s satire was focused enough on any one subject to make it effective. Was it about the evils of Capitalism? Brazilian corruption? The destruction of natural habitat? Or the infection of cynicism, that eventually made even the most idealistic give up and finally sink into apathy? Probably all of that, although the railroad did indeed get built—a kind of marvel really, and it may have just been the mixture of these evils that put it on the map. That it was eventually failure is true, but that had as much to do with the fact that Bolivian rubber couldn’t compete with the Asian markets. The cost, though, of building it, in terms of money, death and subservience to foreign interests may have been too high, even if the markets had functioned as initially expected.
Even taking the novel as an epic story—rather than the psychological or phantasmagorical adventure I was hoping for—I still think Souza failed to produce a well-written book. Nor do I think that was the fault of the translator—there were too many times I felt the novel shifted direction, as if in the middle of writing, Souza decided to switch his emphasis, to highlight some new aspect of his satire. The idealism of the young doctor seems ridiculous given the conditions he found himself in, and the hard-headed, cynical construction engineer undergoes a personality shift in the latter third of the book that struck me as more the whim of the author than because of any intrinsic circumstances. The few sexual scenes, while not graphic, were a little silly, I thought, coming as they did from nearly out of the blue, and the appearance of Consuelo Campero seemed little more than a plot device in order to inject a woman into the narrative and provide a love interest.
I have a copy of Souza’s earlier novel Emperor of the Amazon, and I still plan on reading it—I began to wonder while reading Mad Maria if the shortcomings I found were the result of the pressure of trying follow up his first success with another, and in the end he tried too hard. Chances are, though, that my expectations will be set to match--I hope--the kind of novel that Souza’s actually wrote, rather than the one I envisioned.
December 30, 2025
"Inaccessible and mysterious, the jungle is the soul of South America. But probing it with the knife blade of civilization are men determined to run a railroad through its very heart: the aging English engineer whose humanity has been replaced by cynicism and obsession; the young American doctor whose romantic illusions dissolve with the first scorpion in his shoe; the beautiful woman who loses her grand piano and her husband to the pitiless river, but finds bizarre passion in a camp of horrors. And with them comes a smoke-belching train called Mad Maria, whose destination is nowhere, whose absurd journey is a darkly comic drama of man's fractured visions and shattered ideals.
"Set in the early twentieth century, Marcio Souza's riveting novel creates a stark portrait of Brazil with unmistakable political overtones for contemporary times." From the back cover of the only English translation (by Thomas Colchie) issued in paperback by Avon Books in 1985.
I loved this novel but I had already loved the author's 'Emperor of the Amazon' (see https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...) and everything I said about that novel could apply to this one. What makes the novel fabulous is that it is phantasmagoria built out of real events and people, like 'Emperor of the Amazon'. All the following are real:
The Bolivian Dictators Melgarejo and General Pando
The Brazilian President Marshal Hermes da Fonseca
The Quaker American financier Percival Farquahar
The Madeira-Mamora railway
and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that many others in the novel are drawn from history.
Were the true life characters all as baroque and grotesque in their foolishness and corrupt antics as their fictional counterparts? Who knows? who cares? Brazil has room for realities greater than truths and though this is most definitely not 'magic realism' it is the realism of Zola translated to the tropics. It is wonderful, unbelievable, totally true and totally fantastical. But what is not a fabulist creation is the horror that was the Madeira-Mamora railway. Marcio Souza may take you into the counting houses of the great speculators and into the shadowy idylls of their mistresses in the marble foyer's of hotels but he never forgets those who by their brute labour and early, horrid deaths create the wealth that transforms Brazil and makes other lives so comfortable. The ragged Barbadians, Germans, Indians, Orientals and other indentured labourers who are like slaves in all but name are the most memorable characters in this wonderful novel.
That the novel is worth reading goes without saying, that it is likely you will never read it, at least in English, is a tragic certainty. Only published in a popular paperback edition copies of which are hard to come by and expensive but also extremely fragile. I managed to get hold of a copy at a reasonable price and barely had begun reading when it started to fall apart and decay because it was so cheaply produced. If ever a novel calls to be made available in print-on-demand or some other way 'Mad Maria' is it. But I would extend that to the other works of Souza and others that are only available in these old fragile paperback editions.
"Set in the early twentieth century, Marcio Souza's riveting novel creates a stark portrait of Brazil with unmistakable political overtones for contemporary times." From the back cover of the only English translation (by Thomas Colchie) issued in paperback by Avon Books in 1985.
I loved this novel but I had already loved the author's 'Emperor of the Amazon' (see https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...) and everything I said about that novel could apply to this one. What makes the novel fabulous is that it is phantasmagoria built out of real events and people, like 'Emperor of the Amazon'. All the following are real:
The Bolivian Dictators Melgarejo and General Pando
The Brazilian President Marshal Hermes da Fonseca
The Quaker American financier Percival Farquahar
The Madeira-Mamora railway
and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that many others in the novel are drawn from history.
Were the true life characters all as baroque and grotesque in their foolishness and corrupt antics as their fictional counterparts? Who knows? who cares? Brazil has room for realities greater than truths and though this is most definitely not 'magic realism' it is the realism of Zola translated to the tropics. It is wonderful, unbelievable, totally true and totally fantastical. But what is not a fabulist creation is the horror that was the Madeira-Mamora railway. Marcio Souza may take you into the counting houses of the great speculators and into the shadowy idylls of their mistresses in the marble foyer's of hotels but he never forgets those who by their brute labour and early, horrid deaths create the wealth that transforms Brazil and makes other lives so comfortable. The ragged Barbadians, Germans, Indians, Orientals and other indentured labourers who are like slaves in all but name are the most memorable characters in this wonderful novel.
That the novel is worth reading goes without saying, that it is likely you will never read it, at least in English, is a tragic certainty. Only published in a popular paperback edition copies of which are hard to come by and expensive but also extremely fragile. I managed to get hold of a copy at a reasonable price and barely had begun reading when it started to fall apart and decay because it was so cheaply produced. If ever a novel calls to be made available in print-on-demand or some other way 'Mad Maria' is it. But I would extend that to the other works of Souza and others that are only available in these old fragile paperback editions.
July 20, 2018
A brutal história da construção da ferrovia Madeira-Mamoré, através do ponto de vista de vários personagens da época.
Mad Maria - Márcio Souza | 461 pgs, Record 2004 (1ed. 1976) | Lido de 13.07.18 a 15.07.18 | #romancehistórico | NITROLEITURAS
SINOPSE
Márcio Souza tem recontado a história do Brasil de forma admirável ao longo de sua carreira. Seguindo os passos de Galvez, o imperador do Acre, Mad Maria é mais um romance memorável do escritor.
O livro relata a construção da ferrovia Madeira-Mamoré, entre 1907 e 1912. Na época os investidores tinham o objetivo de construir uma estrada que pudesse competir com o Canal do Panamá.
A ferrovia integraria uma região rica em látex na Bolívia com a Amazônia, mas no caminho, encontraria obstáculos descomunais: 19 cataratas, 227 milhas de pântanos e desfiladeiros, centenas de cobras e escorpiões, árvores gigantescas e milhões de mosquitos transmissores de malária.
Antes de terminadas as obras, 3,6 mil homens estavam mortos, 30 mil hospitalizados e uma fortuna em dólares desperdiçada na selva.
Ao escolher os episódios mais macabros e inacreditáveis dos registros históricos dos cinco anos da construção da ferrovia e concentrando-os em três meses de pesadelo, Márcio Souza força o leitor - neste momento já quase um personagem emaranhado na vegetação - a confrontar o inferno.
Mad Maria é um romance amargo e vingador, sarcástico, às vezes. Uma obra-prima da literatura brasileira.
Mad Maria, escrito em 1980, é um livro do escritor brasileiro Márcio Souza[1] e a narrativa transcorre no interior da Amazônia e relata a construção da ferrovia Madeira-Mamoré, entre 1907 e 1912. O projeto liderado pelo empreendedor americano Percival Farquhar tinham o objetivo de construir uma estrada que pudesse competir com o Canal do Panamá.
O livro relata os episódios mais macabros e inacreditáveis dos registros históricos da construção da ferrovia focando-se num período de três meses, Márcio Souza força o leitor a confrontar o inferno. A ferrovia Madeira-Mamoré integraria uma região rica em látex na Bolívia com a Amazônia, mas encontrou obstáculos descomunais: 19 cataratas, 227 milhas de pântanos e desfiladeiros, centenas de cobras e escorpiões, a exuberância da floresta amazônica além da malária. As obras inacabadas deixaram um saldo de 3,6 mil homens mortos, 30 mil hospitalizados e uma fortuna em dólares desperdiçada na selva. O engenheiro inglês Stephan Collier comandava com mãos de ferro a construção da ferrovia, liderando um enorme grupo de homens de todo o mundo, indispostos entre si, no meio de uma floresta selvagem, ameaçados por toda a sorte de infortúnios
RESENHA
Mais um romance histórico brasileiro, que, como os do mestre Agrippa Vasconcellos, me acertou como um soco no estômago com o modo brutal e cru dos diversos pontos de vista de personagens envolvidos com a construção da ferrovia Madeira-Mamoré, na região Amazônica onde hoje fica o território de Rondônia, nos eventos que levaram a fundação da cidade de Porto Velho.
A narrativa é uma espécie de "Coração das Trevas", a obra prima de Joseph Conrad, abrasileirado, onde, ao invés da indomável selva africana temos o "inferno verde" amazônico, que parece levar a loucura alemães, americanos, brasileiros e imigrantes caribenhos envolvidos na construção de uma ferrovia.
A cada trilho colocado, os personagens vão mergulhando mais fundo no caos, no nihilismo e na brutalidade de uma terra sem lei, como um faroeste tropical.
A prosa é muito bem escrita e passa verisimilitude, fazendo uma recriação histórica quase naturalista, sem espaço para nenhum romantismo.
Episódios escabrosos se sucedem um aos outros, com muitas mortes e violência, mas ressaltando o impacto que o "inferno verde", o choque entre a brutalidade da civilização se encontra com a brutalidade da selva que acaba destruindo os indivíduos presos entre essas duas forças.
Através da história, Márcio Souza denuncia as dificuldades e as condições sub-humanas dos trabalhadores, o que os leva à morte ou a insanidade, assim como a crueldade e frieza dos empreendedores encarregados na construção da ferrovia.
Gostei muito dos diversos pontos de vista diferentes, explorados através de um uso muito habilidoso do narrador onisciente.
Muito bom, recomendadíssimo!
Mad Maria - Márcio Souza | 461 pgs, Record 2004 (1ed. 1976) | Lido de 13.07.18 a 15.07.18 | #romancehistórico | NITROLEITURAS
SINOPSE
Márcio Souza tem recontado a história do Brasil de forma admirável ao longo de sua carreira. Seguindo os passos de Galvez, o imperador do Acre, Mad Maria é mais um romance memorável do escritor.
O livro relata a construção da ferrovia Madeira-Mamoré, entre 1907 e 1912. Na época os investidores tinham o objetivo de construir uma estrada que pudesse competir com o Canal do Panamá.
A ferrovia integraria uma região rica em látex na Bolívia com a Amazônia, mas no caminho, encontraria obstáculos descomunais: 19 cataratas, 227 milhas de pântanos e desfiladeiros, centenas de cobras e escorpiões, árvores gigantescas e milhões de mosquitos transmissores de malária.
Antes de terminadas as obras, 3,6 mil homens estavam mortos, 30 mil hospitalizados e uma fortuna em dólares desperdiçada na selva.
Ao escolher os episódios mais macabros e inacreditáveis dos registros históricos dos cinco anos da construção da ferrovia e concentrando-os em três meses de pesadelo, Márcio Souza força o leitor - neste momento já quase um personagem emaranhado na vegetação - a confrontar o inferno.
Mad Maria é um romance amargo e vingador, sarcástico, às vezes. Uma obra-prima da literatura brasileira.
Mad Maria, escrito em 1980, é um livro do escritor brasileiro Márcio Souza[1] e a narrativa transcorre no interior da Amazônia e relata a construção da ferrovia Madeira-Mamoré, entre 1907 e 1912. O projeto liderado pelo empreendedor americano Percival Farquhar tinham o objetivo de construir uma estrada que pudesse competir com o Canal do Panamá.
O livro relata os episódios mais macabros e inacreditáveis dos registros históricos da construção da ferrovia focando-se num período de três meses, Márcio Souza força o leitor a confrontar o inferno. A ferrovia Madeira-Mamoré integraria uma região rica em látex na Bolívia com a Amazônia, mas encontrou obstáculos descomunais: 19 cataratas, 227 milhas de pântanos e desfiladeiros, centenas de cobras e escorpiões, a exuberância da floresta amazônica além da malária. As obras inacabadas deixaram um saldo de 3,6 mil homens mortos, 30 mil hospitalizados e uma fortuna em dólares desperdiçada na selva. O engenheiro inglês Stephan Collier comandava com mãos de ferro a construção da ferrovia, liderando um enorme grupo de homens de todo o mundo, indispostos entre si, no meio de uma floresta selvagem, ameaçados por toda a sorte de infortúnios
RESENHA
Mais um romance histórico brasileiro, que, como os do mestre Agrippa Vasconcellos, me acertou como um soco no estômago com o modo brutal e cru dos diversos pontos de vista de personagens envolvidos com a construção da ferrovia Madeira-Mamoré, na região Amazônica onde hoje fica o território de Rondônia, nos eventos que levaram a fundação da cidade de Porto Velho.
A narrativa é uma espécie de "Coração das Trevas", a obra prima de Joseph Conrad, abrasileirado, onde, ao invés da indomável selva africana temos o "inferno verde" amazônico, que parece levar a loucura alemães, americanos, brasileiros e imigrantes caribenhos envolvidos na construção de uma ferrovia.
A cada trilho colocado, os personagens vão mergulhando mais fundo no caos, no nihilismo e na brutalidade de uma terra sem lei, como um faroeste tropical.
A prosa é muito bem escrita e passa verisimilitude, fazendo uma recriação histórica quase naturalista, sem espaço para nenhum romantismo.
Episódios escabrosos se sucedem um aos outros, com muitas mortes e violência, mas ressaltando o impacto que o "inferno verde", o choque entre a brutalidade da civilização se encontra com a brutalidade da selva que acaba destruindo os indivíduos presos entre essas duas forças.
Através da história, Márcio Souza denuncia as dificuldades e as condições sub-humanas dos trabalhadores, o que os leva à morte ou a insanidade, assim como a crueldade e frieza dos empreendedores encarregados na construção da ferrovia.
Gostei muito dos diversos pontos de vista diferentes, explorados através de um uso muito habilidoso do narrador onisciente.
Muito bom, recomendadíssimo!
August 23, 2011
This is the second book by Souza written in 1980, following his pretty good and acclaimed "Emperor of the Amazon". If you enjoy Latin American literature then I'll start by saying this should press most, if not all, of your buttons.
The story and some characters are again based in fact and takes place in the Brazilian jungle around 1910 where the railway is being built between Madeira and Mamore funded in part by Brazil to compensate Bolivia for losing Acre (the area being the basis for the story Emperor of the Amazon). Finnegan, the American doctor for the German/Barbadian/Indian workers bridging the Rio Abuna and Collier, the English engineer, are in the jungle; with Farquhar, the Quaker syndicate leader and JJ Seabra, the political backer are in the town. There are some intriguing side characters such a Consuela, the Bolivian widow pianist and Joe Caripuna in indigenous native. The jungle appears to cause death and disease and reaps its psychological damage on everyone in its usual manner. The intrigues and scheming in the city appears to do pretty much the same.
The book has some dark comic moments but I found it largely deeper and more serious than that. The characters develop a certain sincerity and the bloody story itself, finalised with the factual futility of the endeavour because the railway was only profitable for a year, makes this an engaging, exciting and thought-provoking tale in the fashion of many such Latin American novels like Mario Llosa or Aventes. As part of the narrative the book interestingly concludes with a couple of pages detailing the post-novel history of the railway.
Railways, death, sex, realism, engineering, jungles, rivers, escapes, trains, politics and guns. All that's missing is a piano - oh there's one of those too. Brilliant you won't be disappointed.
The story and some characters are again based in fact and takes place in the Brazilian jungle around 1910 where the railway is being built between Madeira and Mamore funded in part by Brazil to compensate Bolivia for losing Acre (the area being the basis for the story Emperor of the Amazon). Finnegan, the American doctor for the German/Barbadian/Indian workers bridging the Rio Abuna and Collier, the English engineer, are in the jungle; with Farquhar, the Quaker syndicate leader and JJ Seabra, the political backer are in the town. There are some intriguing side characters such a Consuela, the Bolivian widow pianist and Joe Caripuna in indigenous native. The jungle appears to cause death and disease and reaps its psychological damage on everyone in its usual manner. The intrigues and scheming in the city appears to do pretty much the same.
The book has some dark comic moments but I found it largely deeper and more serious than that. The characters develop a certain sincerity and the bloody story itself, finalised with the factual futility of the endeavour because the railway was only profitable for a year, makes this an engaging, exciting and thought-provoking tale in the fashion of many such Latin American novels like Mario Llosa or Aventes. As part of the narrative the book interestingly concludes with a couple of pages detailing the post-novel history of the railway.
Railways, death, sex, realism, engineering, jungles, rivers, escapes, trains, politics and guns. All that's missing is a piano - oh there's one of those too. Brilliant you won't be disappointed.
August 24, 2014
Mi primer libro en portugués, narra la historia de la construcción a principios del siglo XX de la línea de ferrocarril Madeira-Marmoré. Muy interesante ver cuáles fueron las condiciones de trabajo de quienes llevaron a cabo la obra y los tejemanejes políticos de la empresa adjudicataria...
June 23, 2023
Loved the journey this book took me on.
The representation of women sucks in here, and obviously this author had never met one, but if you get passed this problem, the book has a lot of social commentary and paints the picture of Latin America as the poor sister of U.S.A., which will do anything in the name of profit.
The representation of women sucks in here, and obviously this author had never met one, but if you get passed this problem, the book has a lot of social commentary and paints the picture of Latin America as the poor sister of U.S.A., which will do anything in the name of profit.
September 4, 2011
Liked it very much for the content regarding environmental conditions and obstacles encountered in the building of the M-M Railway because, in real life, my great uncle was the doctor on site for this failed project. The book's characters are fictitious, though, and the story occasionally wanders, but it is a reasonably well written adventure story with human foibles evident in all the characters.
July 16, 2011
GREAT read! Good look at Latin America at the turn of the century.
January 25, 2021
Depois do fascínio impertinente do seu Galvez Imperador do Acre, Marcio Souza encanta o leitor com Mad María. Essa vez a base histórica do livro é o fabuloso fracasso da ferrovia Madeira Mamoré, un projeto boliviano-americano nascido nos anos 1840 que acabou integrando o tratado cedendo o Acre ao Brasil, inaugurado em 1912 depois de milhares de mortos e no momento da queda dos preços da borracha e da falência da economia da Amazonia.
Misturando personagens reais e ficções absolutas, Marcio Souza narra com talento uma página pouca conhecida da história da região, mas descreve também com muito realismo (e humor) a sua realidade.
Misturando personagens reais e ficções absolutas, Marcio Souza narra com talento uma página pouca conhecida da história da região, mas descreve também com muito realismo (e humor) a sua realidade.
January 14, 2023
Livro muito rico em detalhes históricos, especialmente sobre contexto político. Aborda a exploração do território brasileiro por americanos para a construção da ferrovia Madeira-Mamoré no coração da floresta Amazônica.
March 16, 2013
On this second read, due to work, I’m unimpressed. Souza milks the melodrama of this fascinating chapter in Brazil’s history (penetrating the Amazon overland a century ago), and curdles it with anti-capitalism. At least he’s honest about it, as the preface explains “Capitalism has seldom been ashamed to repeat itself: ‘He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our son-of-a-bitch.’” (And it is hard to blame a Brazilian author from the 1970's when the current White House pushes similar pieties.) The arch villain is the American entrepreneur Percival Farquhar (the name of the actual builder of the Madeira-Mamoré railroad), whose Quakerism is just a front for his money and girl lust. (Is Souza layering on religious prejudice, against those over-hard-working Protestants?) Our protagonists, a young American doctor and a wizened English engineer, are entirely corrupted by novel’s end. The engineer’s cynicism doesn’t keep him from mouthing the author’s banalities, such as “Witless porkers, nothing on their minds but mindless profit!” (about workers who stop ingesting quinine to make a fast buck), or “There has to be a bit of order to the plunder!” (about the British Empire, et al). More than once Souza characterizes the 230 mile railroad through the jungle as going “from no place to nowhere,” although historically this is obviously false: its southern terminus soon became Porto Velho, the capital of Rondônio state, and despite the high fatalities the project was an engineering marvel, Brazil’s first serious attempt to settle the Amazon by land. While true that the project’s economic justification (taking high quality Bolivian latex to market) went away a year after the line’s completion, the railroad was only disactivated in 1972. In 1995 Mad Maria was made into a Brazilian soap opera, a fit destination for the tracks laid.
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January 9, 2015Άγριο βιβλίο. Ξεκινά περιγράφοντας ιστορίες διαφορετικών χαρακτήρων , τις οποίες στη συνέχεια θα ενώσει με κοινή μοίρα. Στη δομή και το ύφος μου θύμισε τον "Πόλεμο της συντέλειας του κόσμου" του Μάριο Βάργκας Λιόσα,διαδραματίζεται άλλωστε επίσης στη Βραζιλία, αλλά ως εκεί, δεν έχει καμία σχέση. Δεν το συμπάθησα ιδιαίτερα και δεν ξέρω αν θα το πρότεινα, αλλά μάλλον αυτό οφείλεται στη σκληρότητά του. Σίγουρα το αδικώ, η αλήθεια είναι ότι μου έχουν μείνει εικόνες, ενώ έχουν περάσει μήνες από τότε που το διάβασα.Η ιστορία πάντως είναι ενδιαφέρουσα κι η αφήγηση είναι ωμή , ρεαλιστική χωρίς χάπι εντ και φιοριτούρες
January 20, 2017
Parei na p. 124, muita encheção de linguiça e as metáforas mais vagabundas do mercado, cheio de anglicanismo forçado. Folhetim tem que ter presepada comendo solta, o cara me inventa de fazer expedição psicológica em personagem mais raso que pote de danoninho de 10, 15 páginazzzz. O Galvez é engraçado pique Macunaíma, recomendo.
July 30, 2013
Que época cruel no Brasil para muitos que apenas buscavam fugir da miséria e aqui encontravam tamanha brutalidade e agruras, nem sempre pelo clima, doença ou animais, mas quase sempre pela dominação injusta por gananciosa de outros...
April 20, 2018
Hay trenes y hay selva y no van a ningún sitio. Para bien y para mal. Aparte, o el estilo del libro es muy raro o la traducción es sospechosa, tanto como para sacarme unas pocas de veces.
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