Preamble Narratives and Social Memory - Universidade do Minho

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Cabecinhas, R. & Abadia, L. (eds.) (2013)Narratives and social memory: theoretical and methodological approachesBraga: University of MinhoISBN: 978-989-8600-04-2pp. 232 -241Memory and the Flows of Identity in Hatoum’s AmazonMichele Nascimento-KettnerMontclair State University, USAmkettner@gc.cuny.eduAbstractGeopolitical national borders have long created homogenous, stereotypical, and fixedidentities in order to serve a nation-building myth. In this paper I analyze the (de)construction of fixed notions of identity, region and nation through the use of memory inthe short stories “Um oriental na vastidão” [An Eastern Man in the Vastitude] and “A CasaIlhada” [The Island House] of the book A Cidade Ilhada [The Island City] by Milton Hatoum.In these short stories the homodiegetic narrators present characters from various partsof the world (Japan, England, and Switzerland). Milton Hatoum, an immigrant descendent,intertwines fiction and childhood memories. He undoes the homogeneity of identitytraditional of the regionalist writing of the Amazons by touching upon the theme ofimmigration in his native city of Manaus and the integration of this new community intoBrazilian society. This analysis will work with the premises of Albuquerque Jr.’s theory inthe book A invenção do Nordeste [The invention of the Brazilian Northeast]: the region isan “invention”. In “Um Oriental na Vastidão” and “A Casa Ilhada”, these inventions consist ofmemories that bring different regions and subjects together and engender ‘world nets’ thatpromote “cultural global flows” (Appadurai). I argue that Hatoum’s narratives challengenot only the normative discourse of mestiçagem (mixing) in the foundational discussionabout Latin American identity (Lund, Joshua) but also imply a simultaneously local andglobal construction of this identity. These stories provide new insights into the notionsof the national body and the national subject not only by setting their narratives in thenaturally transnational region of the Amazon jungle but also by depicting the complexcultural and social networks of the Amazon as memory (de)constructions.KeywordsAmazon; Milton Hatoum; Identity; Memory; Region“Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers.”Heraclitus.National identity is often forged by a rhetorical discourse that emphasizes homogeneityand fixed identities. In the case of Brazil, a country with continental dimensions, thisprocess has implied a regionalization of the country and a microscopic homogenization ofthe corresponding regional identities. Therefore, the construction of the Amazon in literaturewalks a tightrope, always facing an imminent danger of falling on a net of stereotypes.In this paper, I analyze the short stories “Um Oriental na Vastidão” [An Eastern Man in the
Memory and the Flows of Identity in Hatoum’s AmazonMichele Nascimento-KettnerVastitude] and “A Casa Ilhada” [The Island House] of the book A Cidade Ilhada [The IslandCity] by Milton Hatoum to assert their (de)construction of fixed notions of identity, regionand nation through the use of memory in the space of the Amazon.The literary oeuvre on the space of the Amazon has been largely told by foreignerswho often used a Manichean perspective, either portraying it as a Green Hell or as a Paradise.Milton Hatoum alternatively has a distinct perspective from the traditional regional writingabout the space of the Amazon due to his ambiguous outlook as a ‘migrant insider’. He wasborn in Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas in 1952. His father was a Lebanese immigrantwho married a Brazilian woman of Lebanese descendent. Hatoum (1993) credits hisperspective of the Amazon as a multicultural city partially to this migrant status of his family:During my childhood, living with the foreign Other occurred in my own household.As a son of an Eastern immigrant married to an Eastern descended Brazilianwoman, I was able to discover the Others inside of me since I was a child. Thepresence and passage of foreigners in my own childhood home contributed toincrease my multicultural horizon (“Escrever à Margem da História”, n.d., para. 3.Own translation).Hatoum also seems to have been doomed to be a migrant himself. In 1967, he movedto Brasília. Later, he moved to São Paulo and, subsequently, lived in Spain, Paris and theUnited States. Despite his migrant life, Milton Hatoum believes that the memories fromchildhood and adolescence are decisive for an author (Hatoum, 2012). Indeed, the childhoodmemories of the Amazon and its liquid space became the topos for Hatoum’s literature.His first published fictional text was a poetry book called: Amazon: um Rio entre Ruínas[The Amazon: a River in the Midst of Ruins]; and all of his subsequent fictional writingshave the liquid space of the Amazon as the primary setting for their narratives. Accordingto Hardman (2007), the poetics of the water in Hatoum’s books functions very similarly toGaston Bachelard’s concepts on the relationship between water and reverie for a writer’screative process (Bachelard, 1998). As Bachelard (1969) explained:[...] the further one goes toward the past, the more indissoluble the psychologicalmemory-imagination mixture appears[...]Memory-imagination makes us livenon-event situations[...]in our reverie which imagines while remembering, ourpast takes on substance again (p.119).Truly, Milton Hatoum articulates the motif of the waters of Manaus and the process ofmemory in order to construct the fictional liquid Amazon grounding his creative process onthree vertexes: remembering, forgetting and imagining. In a personal interview I had withHatoum, he used the words of Borges to confirm the flux of remembering and forgettingthe Amazon in the creation of this literature: “Forgetfulness is one of the forms of memory,its empty basement” (personal communication, May 27, 2011) For Hatoum, the imaginationcorresponds to the time of re-appropriation of memory, filled by forgetfulness.Strongly influenced by Flaubert, Milton Hatoum believes that “working with words”must be an extensive and arduous process; therefore, he is known for taking a long time topublish his books. Besides, the long intervals between his publications allow the process ofoblivion and remembering to thrive. Indeed, A Cidade Ilhada, a collection of short stories, isthe result of 18 years of work. The short stories were written between 1990 through 2008.Narratives and social memory: theoretical and methodological approaches233
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Part ICognitive and Emotional Proce
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Narratives and Social Memory from t
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The Lay Historian: How Ordinary Peo
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Emotional Processes in Elaborating
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The Past and the Present (re)Visite
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Part IIMedia(ted) Narrativesand Pub
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Narratives of Death: Journalism and
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Researching Identity Narratives in
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Journalistic Narrative: a Story of
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The Works of Sísifo: Memories and
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Audiovisual Post-colonial Narrative
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Narratives as Prison ‘Escapes’:
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Drawings and Narrative: the Inmates
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