Vanishing Point [Ponto de Fuga] by Jorge Sá Earp

Abstract

Reviewed by: Vanishing Point [Ponto de Fuga] by Jorge Sá Earp Milton Ricardo Antonio Machuca-Gálvez Sá Earp, Jorge. Vanishing Point [Ponto de Fuga]. Trans. John Jensen. Miami: Bahia, 2014. Pp. 228. ISBN 978-1-62517-666-0 (print) / 978-1-62517-665-3 (digital). 1960. April. Brasilia is inaugurated. It might not be known how long it took to build Rome, but it required only forty-one months to fulfill the more than a century old dream of Brasilia. Juscelino Kubitschek, president of Brazil from 1956 to 1961, was the force behind completing this enterprise. Brasilia stepped into history as the only capital city built in the twentieth century. And a remarkable capital city it was: architecturally modern, carefully planned, centrally located; it exceeded any visions of modernity. The enormity of Brazil was reflected in the enormity of its futuristic capital, a utopia now turned into reality. After the candangos (nickname for the construction workers who built Brasilia) finished the city, settling it was the next task at hand. The first wave of inhabitants—reluctant government bureaucrats, diplomats, and their employees—found themselves overwhelmed by the vast planned landscape and longed for a return to Rio de Janeiro, the former capital. But slowly people from every walk of life converged on the new urban focal point. As Brazilian national history continued unfolding, so did the biographies of the newcomers to the new capital city. Jorge Sá Earp’s Ponto de Fuga, a romantic novel, takes place in Brasilia during its second decade. A panel of judges consisting of Jorge Amado, Antonio Callado and Robert Drummond [End Page 707] awarded Sá Earp the 6th Nestle Prize for Brazilian Literature for Ponto de Fuga in 1995. The story gradually unfolds, engaging the reader with its four main characters: Renato, Heloisa, Julio, and Carla. Initially, it is a guessing game for the reader to figure out who is taking turns to narrate his or her segment of the story. As the narration progresses, however, each voice acquires individual characteristics, making identification easier. The protagonists belong to an educated, privileged middle-class of means. Erudite references abound, at moments veering into snobbish territory. Poverty appears only fleetingly. The characters journey at will through the city’s superquadras, sectores, axes, wings, districts, university buildings, sports clubs, bars, malls, and restaurants—sometimes briefly stopping to admire the vastness of Brasilia or the beauty of Lago Paranoá. The narration alternates between the dry and rainy seasons of Brasilia’s weather pattern. The story develops in linear fashion through seventy-six briskly moving chapters (there’s even a one sentence chapter!), with no puzzling flashbacks or other avant-garde experimental techniques. Each character’s personal background and expectations inevitably converge upon a vanishing point. The sexuality of the characters forms an additional layer defining the novel. Renato, a government bureaucrat, is a homosexual whose unresolved sexual orientation issues and indiscreet sexual escapades create tensions between him and his wife Heloisa. She, in turn, seeks consolation by taking Inacio, her tennis instructor, as a lover. Carla, a lesbian painter and friend of the couple, becomes obsessed with Heloisa as the object of her desire. As a result she fantasizes a wholly imaginary love affair. Julio, an overtly homosexual university professor, alternately listens to Renato and Heloisa in their struggle to remain as a couple, besides dealing with his own concerns. Ponto de Fuga is not an LGBT novel in the strict sense, though it portrays a handful of gay and lesbian characters navigating in a heterosexual heteronormative world. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1955, Jorge Sá Earp is a prolific contemporary Brazilian writer. He studied Literature at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. He has followed a diplomatic career since 1981 and has lived in Poland, the Netherlands, Gabon, Belgium, Romania, Ecuador, and, more recently, Costa Rica. His vast oeuvre includes poetry (Feixe de Lenha, 1980; Passagem Secreta, 1993), short story (No Caminho do Vento, 1983; O Cavalo Marinho, 1997; Areias Pretas, 2004; Bandido e Mocinho, 2012), and novel (O Ninho, 1986; Sudoeste, 1990; Ponto de Fuga, 1995; O Jogo dos Gatos Pardos, 2001; A Cidade e as Cinzas, 2002; As Marés de...