Preamble Narratives and Social Memory - Universidade do Minho

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Memory and the Flows of Identity in Hatoum’s AmazonMichele Nascimento-KettnerThese stories have characters from different parts of the world: migrants and travelersthat are interconnected through the cosmopolitan space of Manaus. Hatoum has taken advantageof his own experience to recreate a Manaus very familiar to him. In our personal interview,he talked about his experience growing up in Manaus:My childhood consisted heavily in listening to the stories of the people whopassed by Manaus: migrants’ stories, indigenous maids’ stories, foreign shipmen’sstories… [stories of] all those people who arrived and left Manaus…worlds thatwere very different and, at the same time, interwoven (personal communication,May 27, 2011).As a matter of fact, in Hatoum’s literature Manaus functions as a transitional place,an in-between space, where different worlds come together and the different characterscreate their unique dynamic web. The theorist Homi Bhabha (1994) calls these subjectswho live in such in-between spaces liminal subjects. These liminal subjects are products ofcultural hybridity capable of provoking moments of historical transformation and defyingthe notions of fixed identities often used to support nation-building discourses.A Cidade Ilhada is not only a portrayal of the diversity of Manaus but also it testifiesto the transformational power of a hybrid society. The travelers and migrants are not merelyseen as foreigners. They are personally/emotionally/ metaphysically intertwined with theAmazonian space. In order to make assertions about the hybrid space of Manaus in A CidadeIlhada, two short stories from this books will be analyzed: a) “A Casa Ilhada” [The IslandHouse], which had been published in the newspaper Estado de São Paulo with a differenttitle: Encontro no Bosque [Meeting in a Forest] in 1998; and b) “Um Oriental na Vastidão” [AnEastern Man in the Vastitude], previously published in France. These two stories will helpus to reflect upon the construction of liminal subjects in the book and, therefore, upon thenotion of national and regional subjects.In “A Casa Ilhada”, an unknown Amazonian homodiegetic narrator tells the story andproceeds to describe the trip of Lavedan, an ichthyologist from Switzerland, and his girlfriendto a house surrounded by water on the outskirts of Manaus. Although Lavedan’s foreignnessto the space of the Amazon is heavily emphasized, this character has peculiar qualities thatprevents us from considering him a mere visitor.At first, the narrator describes Lavedan as a dislocated foreigner in the Amazoniansociety: “Some children laughed when they saw that tall, very skinny, bald, pinkish face manawkwardly placed in our canoe.” (p.71, own translation)Throughout the narrative, one can notice that, despite Lavedan’s description as a foreigncharacter dislocated from the region, he is recognized by locals as having a profound knowledgeof the Amazonian nature. Therefore, the awkward character is somehow also consideredto be deeply connected to the locale. The Swiss ichthyologist Lavedan of A Casa Ilhada was a“foreign voice” (p. 70) that explained the aquatic life of the Amazon River and that had sevenfishes from the equatorial zone named after him (p. 75). Lavedan has an ambiguous relationshipwith the local because he is an outsider, for being a foreigner, and at the same time hehas an inside knowledge of the locale. This ambiguous relationship between Lavedan andthe tropical space contributes to feature Lavedan as a liminal character.Narratives and social memory: theoretical and methodological approaches234
Memory and the Flows of Identity in Hatoum’s AmazonMichele Nascimento-KettnerAs a symbolic “in–between the lines metaphor” of this liminality, the author comparesLavedan to the tralhoto fish (a fish native to the Amazon). The tralhoto, also known as the“four eyed fish”, is capable of seeing below and above the water surface simultaneously.Figure 2: The Tralhoto FishIn the short story, Lavedan explains to the narrator the uniqueness of the tralhoto’seyes. While explaining the tralhoto to the narrator, Lavedan looked at the fish, mesmerizedby the mirror-like image that seemed to multiply his own eyes. The narrator describes thismoment as follows: “Lavedan’s eyes meet the tralhoto’s, and both remain just like this: fishand man, quiet, enchanted by the magnetism of so many eyes looking to the inside and tothe outside world”. (p. 70, own translation) Similarly to the tralhoto, Lavedan’s knowledge ofthe Amazon and personal connection to the region make his European Self a tralhoto fish.Therefore, Lavedan is able to have this dual perspective of the inside world, the Amazon, andthe outside world, the European.The fluidity between the Self and the Other is also explored in the most decisive episodeof the short story. Retelling the memories of his trip to the island house with Lavedan and hisgirlfriend Harriet, the narrator describes the appearance of a Dervish dancer at the bar calledShangri-lá. The name Shangri-lá is a reference to a fictional place described in the 1933 novelLost horizon by British author James Hilton. Shangri-lá has become a synonym for any earthlyparadise, isolated from the outside world. Evoking an atmosphere of a mythical Orient, thespace was the setting for a mambo dance between the supposed Dervish man and Harriet: “Tothe surprise of the bohemians, he danced so well that the orchestra played only for him andHarriet, who let herself be taken by the swirls of the Dervish” (p. 74, own translation).This sensual dance caused the jealousy of Lavedan and, later, his departure to Europewithout Harriet. After that dance, “Lavedan understood everything was over. The three yearsof their relationship and the two months living in the Amazon became an atrocious memoryof the only night at Shangri-lá.” (p. 74, own translation)The identity of the Dervish dancer remained an enigma, a riddle to which I wouldpropose the following answer: the Dervish dancer is the representation of Lavedan’s tropicalNarratives and social memory: theoretical and methodological approaches235
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Cinematic Landscape and Social Memo
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comprises both remembering and forg
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Part ICognitive and Emotional Proce
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Narratives and Social Memory from t
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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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Drawings and Narrative: the Inmates
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