Dear List,

 

Out for Xmas shopping, I found a new edition of short-stories by Luiz Fernando Verissimo, "Os Ultimos Quartetos de Beethoven." Since the early seventies I've been following his weekly chronicles in Brazilian newspapers, his clever cartoons and some of his books. I knew that I'd certainly encounter a reference to Vladimir Nabokov in this new collection since VN is, apparently, one of his favorite authors and deserved various other citations along the years. 

This time, however, I was rather disappointed.  I came across "Lo" where there's a different kind of angry twist as the one we find in Umberto Eco's "Nonita" (one of the articles that can be read in the 1986 number of "Le Magazine Litteraire"). Humbert Humbert's opening lines were clumsily translated and adulterated. Lo is short for Dolores Fuertes y Obregon, a 36 year-old lady who adopts José, a curly-headed boy she met in the city of Porto Seguro and with whom she travels all over Europe (the stalker is Lo's cousin, Quiteria).    

I added (everything is in Portuguese, though) two comments by readers because both disliked the story about incest and pedophilia without having realized that it is a parody of Vladimir Nabokov's novel. For them the theme was used only for the sake of shocking the readers, with no social message, no meaning, no purpose... 

However, I cannot but agree with them. Verissimo's pastiche surprisingly is not well-written and in extremely bad taste.